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What eBay Promoted Listings Cost

By Selling Fee Tools team ·

eBay’s Promoted Listings put your listings in more places on eBay in return for an extra fee on the sale. With a general campaign, you choose an ad rate, a percentage, and eBay charges it on top of your normal selling fees when a promoted sale qualifies. This guide follows eBay’s help pages for the US, UK, Canada and Australia, checked in October 2026.

What the ad rate is charged on

The ad rate is a percentage of the total amount of the sale, the same base as the final value fee:

  • the item price and the postage the buyer pays;
  • in the US and Canada, sales tax too, because eBay’s total amount of the sale includes it.

In the UK, Canada and Australia, eBay lets you set an ad rate from 2% to 100%.

What it adds to a sale

A $40 item with $8 shipping in the US, most categories, no Store:

Ad rateAd feeTotal eBay fees
Not promoted—$6.93
2%$0.96$7.89
5%$2.40$9.33
10%$4.80$11.73

If the buyer also pays 8% sales tax, the 5% ad fee is charged on $51.84 and comes to $2.59.

In the UK, a business seller’s £25 item with £3.50 postage at 5% pays £1.43 in ad fees. eBay’s business fees are quoted excluding VAT, so a seller who isn’t VAT-registered pays 20% VAT on it too.

Is it worth it?

The ad rate is an advertising cost per order, so judge it the way you would any ad spend:

  • Work out how much is left of each order after product cost, shipping and eBay’s normal fees: your contribution margin.
  • The ad rate you can afford is lower than that margin as a percentage of the sale, or promoted orders lose money.
  • On the $48 sale above, with $25 of product and shipping costs, profit is $16.07 before ads; a 10% ad rate takes $4.80 of it.

The break-even ROAS calculator shows the most you can spend on ads per order for your own numbers.

Work out your own numbers

Sources: eBay Promoted Listings help pages for each country, listed on each calculator and on our methodology page.