Selling Online in the UK: Fees Compared
By Selling Fee Tools team ·
A UK seller has six common places to take an order: four marketplaces, where the platform brings the buyers and takes a larger cut, and a Shopify store, where you bring the buyers and pay mostly for card processing. This guide puts them side by side on one order, using each platform’s UK fee pages, checked in October 2026.
The same £50 order everywhere
A £40 item with £10 postage, a seller not VAT-registered, in each platform’s general category (Everything Else on Amazon and eBay, Womenswear on TikTok Shop), with no ads, shop subscription or monthly plan counted:
| Platform | How the fee is made up | Fees | Share of £50 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Amazon.co.uk (FBM, Professional) | 15% referral fee, then 20% VAT | £9.00 | 18.0% |
| eBay.co.uk (business seller) | 12.9% + 40p + 0.35% regulatory fee, then 20% VAT | £8.44 | 16.9% |
| Etsy | 6.5% + 4% and 20p processing + 0.48% regulatory fee, then 20% VAT | £6.83 | 13.7% |
| TikTok Shop UK | 9% commission, VAT included | £4.50 | 9.0% |
| PayPal Checkout | 2.9% + 30p | £1.75 | 3.5% |
| Shopify (Basic, Shopify Payments) | 2% + 25p card fee | £1.25 | 2.5% |
Reading the table
- Marketplaces cost more because they bring the buyer. Amazon, eBay, Etsy and TikTok Shop all charge a percentage of the whole order, postage included.
- Shopify and PayPal are payment costs only. On your own store you also pay the plan, £19 a month for Shopify Basic on yearly billing, plus your own marketing. At 100 orders a month the plan adds 19p an order.
- VAT changes the order. Amazon, eBay and Etsy quote fees excluding VAT and add 20% for sellers who aren’t VAT-registered; TikTok Shop’s commission already includes VAT. If you’re VAT-registered, you reclaim the VAT on fees, so Amazon costs £7.50 and eBay £7.03 on this order, but you owe one sixth of your sales in VAT: £8.33.
- Private sellers on eBay pay no final value fee on UK sales at all.
- Monthly costs aren’t in the table: Amazon Professional is £25 a month (or 75p per item on Individual), and an eBay shop starts at £27 a month.
Which to use
You can use more than one: a marketplace for reach, and your own store for repeat customers at a lower fee per order. Work out your own product in each calculator before choosing, because categories change the rates: clothing can cost less than Everything Else on Amazon and eBay, and many electronics pay 5% on TikTok Shop.
Work out your own numbers
- Amazon UK, eBay UK, Etsy UK and TikTok Shop UK fee calculators
- Shopify UK and PayPal UK fee calculators
- UK VAT calculator
Sources: each platform’s UK fee pages, listed on each calculator and on our methodology page.