Poshmark vs Mercari vs Depop: Fees on One $40 Sale

Ask in any reselling group whether Poshmark vs Mercari is the better deal and you’ll get twenty confident answers and no sums. Fee pages are written differently, charge on different totals and hide the odd 30¢, so a fair comparison is harder than it looks.

So we ran it. One $40 sale, the same buyer, the same shipping and the same 7% sales tax, pushed through the fee rules of six marketplaces: Depop, Mercari, Whatnot, Etsy, eBay and Poshmark. Then we did it again at $12 and $150, because the winner changes. Every number below comes from Hustl’s fee engine, with each marketplace’s rules checked against its own help pages on 21 October 2026.

How we set the test up

To keep it fair, every marketplace sold the same thing on the same terms:

• The item cost $10 to buy.
• The buyer paid $7 for shipping and 7% sales tax on item plus shipping.
• Where the seller buys the label (eBay, Mercari, Etsy, Depop), the label cost $7, so shipping washes out.
• Where the buyer pays the marketplace’s own label (Poshmark and Whatnot), the seller pays nothing for postage.
• No ads, no boosts, no Store subscriptions, standard seller tiers.

That last point matters. Real life adds Promoted Listings, Depop boosts and Etsy’s Offsite Ads. We’ll come back to those. First, the clean result.

Marketplace fees on one $40 sale

Depop keeps the most: $27.89 profit, with fees of just $2.11. Poshmark keeps the least: $22.00, after a flat 20%. The gap is $5.89 on one sale. If you sell 30 items a month at this price, that’s about $175 a month, or $2,100 a year, for listing in a different place.

Why the spread is so wide:

• Depop charges no selling fee to US sellers, only payment processing of 3.3% plus 45¢.
• Mercari takes 10% of the item price plus the shipping the buyer paid, and no processing fee.
• Whatnot takes 8% commission on the item only, plus 2.9% and 30¢ processing on everything.
• Etsy stacks three fees: a 20¢ listing fee, 6.5% on item plus shipping, and 3% plus 25¢ processing.
• eBay charges 13.6% on item, shipping and tax, plus 40¢ per order.
• Poshmark takes 20% of anything $15 and up, but the buyer covers the label.

Depop’s no-fee position is the one people doubt, so here it is in Depop’s own words:

Does the cheapest marketplace change with the price?

A little. Here’s the same test at $12, where fixed fees bite hardest:

At $12, Poshmark’s flat $2.95 is 24.6% of the price, and eBay is close behind once shipping and tax sit inside its fee base. Depop still wins, but its 45¢ fixed charge now matters more. And at $150:

On the bigger sale, Etsy edges past Mercari by a single cent, and Poshmark’s 20% costs $30. That’s nearly five times Depop’s $6.10. For high-value pieces the fee gap starts to look like a weekly shop.

Is Poshmark or Mercari better for selling?

On fees alone, Mercari wins at every price we tried. At $40 it kept $3.30 more than Poshmark. But Poshmark vs Mercari isn’t only a fee question. Here’s how the two line up on the things that change your week:

In the Poshmark vs Mercari choice, Poshmark’s buyer-paid label makes it simple to list, and its offers and bundles suit clothing. Mercari’s lower cut makes it kinder to general stock and anything heavy, as long as you price shipping honestly. Plenty of sellers cross-list on both and let the buyer decide. If you do, keep a single record of each item, or you’ll lose track of which sale paid what.

Depop vs Poshmark fees: why the gap is so big

Depop fees are low because Depop dropped its 10% selling fee for US sellers on 15 July 2024. That leaves processing alone, which is why it tops every table here. Two things narrow the gap in practice:

• Boosted listings. A boost costs 12% of the item price (from 23 March 2026) when a boosted listing sells, plus shipping if you didn’t use a Depop label. A boosted $40 sale costs $4.80 more.
• Your own labels. Ship with your own label instead of a Depop one and the 12% boost is charged on the shipping too.

Even boosted, Depop still beats Poshmark’s $8 on a $40 sale.

What fee tables leave out

1. Speed of sale. The cheapest app is no help if your item sits there for three months. Fees are one input, not the answer.
2. Ads you forgot were on. eBay Promoted Listings and Etsy Offsite Ads can turn the cheapest result into the dearest.
3. Sales tax in the fee base. eBay, Etsy, Depop and Whatnot charge a percentage on tax you never keep. Mercari and Poshmark don’t.
4. Returns. Depop reverses its fees on a refund. Check each marketplace’s policy before you count on it.

Run your own numbers

Your stock isn’t our $40 test item, so run your own. Each marketplace has its own free calculator with its own fee rules: Depop, Mercari fee calculator, Poshmark fee calculator, Etsy fee calculator, eBay and Whatnot.

Settle Poshmark vs Mercari (or any other pairing) item by item, not once for your whole shop. Once you know where an item sells best, save it to your ledger. Over a year, the question shifts from “which app is cheapest?” to “which app actually made me money?”, and only your own records can answer that.

Sources: Depop seller fees, Mercari fees, Poshmark fees, Etsy fee basics and eBay selling fees, all checked on 21 October 2026, plus Whatnot’s seller fees page, which our Whatnot calculator cites. US sellers.