Facebook Marketplace vs Mercari Fees
Take $35 in cash at a porch pickup arranged on Facebook Marketplace and Meta's cut is nothing. Move that same sale into a shipping box — through Meta's onsite checkout, or into Mercari's app — and a tenth of the money routes through the platform before it reaches you. Both shipped paths advertise 10%, but they are not the same 10%: Meta's percentage runs on item price plus shipping plus applicable taxes, with a $0.80 per-order floor, while Mercari collects 10% of the item price plus buyer-paid shipping on every sale, with no free local route in this model. This page works three baskets to the cent — $35 local, $70 shipped, $140 shipped — from dated sources.
Last updated . Facebook Marketplace figures follow Feebrief's Meta record, checked against Meta Help and Meta legal pages (shipping terms last updated ); Mercari figures follow Feebrief's Mercari record in fees.json, last checked . United States, USD. Figures are for US individual sellers.
Feebrief is independent of Meta and Mercari and is not an official calculator for either platform. What follows is reference math, not pricing advice; rates move, and the linked official pages win any disagreement.
Local cash on Meta is free; shipped Meta and Mercari both take ~10%
Three routes, three price tags. Route one: a local pickup sale on Facebook Marketplace, paid for in person — no Meta selling fee is listed, so the whole cash amount is yours. Route two: the same item shipped through Meta's onsite checkout — 10% of the total transaction value, meaning item price plus shipping plus applicable taxes, minimum $0.80 per order. Route three: Mercari, where every sale runs through app checkout at 10% of the item price plus buyer-paid shipping, meetup or not — there is no free local path in this model. The verdict is therefore lopsided in exactly one direction: local pickup on Facebook Marketplace is the only route with no percentage attached. Shipped against shipped, the headline rates tie at 10%, and what separates them is subtler — the base Meta's percentage covers, and the $0.80 floor underneath it. The fork between the two Meta routes on its own is unpacked in Facebook Marketplace shipped vs local fees.
Three paths at a glance
| Path | Seller fee | What the % covers | Label $ |
|---|---|---|---|
| Facebook Marketplace, local pickup paid in person | $0 — no Meta selling fee is listed | Nothing: no percentage applies to in-person sales | $0.00 on the $35 local basket |
| Facebook Marketplace, shipped via onsite checkout | 10% of the order, minimum $0.80 | Item price + shipping + applicable taxes | $15.50 on the $140 + $15 shipped basket, tax $0 |
| Mercari, sold through app checkout | 10% on every sale | Item price + buyer-paid shipping | $8.00 on the $70 + $10 shipped basket |
Two things sit outside the percentage column. Shipping a Facebook Marketplace order with a prepaid Meta label means the label's cost is deducted from your payout; Meta publishes no single fixed label price, so no dollar figure is quoted here — label handling is covered in the Facebook Marketplace seller-fee guide. Payout on shipped Meta orders is often initiated 15 days after the order is marked shipped, or 5 days after delivery confirmation, and can take up to about 20 days to reach the bank; a local cash sale pays you on the spot. Mercari's payout timing is not covered in our source this batch, so no figure is offered. Feebrief also keeps a Mercari fee estimator if you want other prices run.
What you keep: $35 local pickup, $70 shipped on Mercari, $140 shipped through both
$35, local pickup. A $35 item handed over for cash on Facebook Marketplace costs $0.00 in seller fees; you keep $35.00, on the spot. Mercari cannot match that route. The same $35 item listed there, with $10 buyer-paid shipping, would be billed at $45.00 and charged $4.50 (10%), leaving $40.50 — the always-on percentage is the price of Mercari's checkout no matter how you deliver.
$70, shipped on Mercari. A $70 item with $10 buyer-paid shipping bills the buyer $80.00. Mercari keeps 10% of that, $8.00, and you keep $72.00 — the shipping passes through your payout minus the percentage skimmed off the top of it.
$140, shipped on both. A $140 item with $15 buyer-paid shipping, tax $0, totals $155.00. Through Meta's onsite checkout the fee is 10% of $155.00, or $15.50, leaving $139.50 before the cost of any prepaid label, which is deducted from the payout. Through Mercari's app checkout the fee is 10% of item plus buyer-paid shipping — also $155.00, also $15.50 — leaving $139.50. Identical to the cent.
That tie is the honest headline: while sales tax stays out of the picture, a shipped sale costs the same on either platform. The comparison that actually moves money is local $0 versus an unavoidable 10%, plus a floor that only bites cheap Meta orders. When applicable taxes join a Meta order, its base grows with them — which is why the fee base, not the headline percentage, deserves a seller's attention.
Meta's $0.80 shipped minimum in plain English
The minimum is Meta's answer to very small shipped orders. Ten percent of a tiny total can land under $0.80, and when it does, the floor — not the percentage — sets the fee. Ship a $2 item with $5 buyer-paid shipping: the order totals $7.00, ten percent is $0.70, and the $0.80 minimum applies instead, leaving you $6.20. Once an order's total clears $8.00, ten percent finally outruns the floor ($8.00 × 10% = $0.80 exactly); above that line, the minimum never binds again. Local pickup never meets the floor at all, since nothing is owed. Mercari's minimum, if one exists, is not stated in our source this batch — so this page states none.
When local Facebook Marketplace wins and when Mercari's audience still matters (non-fee)
On fees alone, local Facebook Marketplace is unbeatable here: $0 against a mandatory 10% is not a contest. The trade is everything else. A meetup means you schedule the exchange, carry the item, take payment in person, and absorb the risk of a no-show; shipping through either platform hands that work to a courier and a checkout flow. Mercari's case is reach — a national pool of buyers who will never be within driving distance of your listing, which is exactly why sellers hand over a percentage on every sale. Facebook Marketplace shipped offers similar reach through Meta's checkout. None of that is a fee and none of it changes the arithmetic above; it is the convenience-and-aim side of the ledger. To isolate the two Meta routes from each other, see the shipped-vs-local fork; deeper label and payout handling lives in the Facebook Marketplace seller-fee guide.
Live Mercari estimator on Feebrief; no Facebook Marketplace calculator here
Feebrief maintains a live fee estimator for Mercari at feebrief.com/mercari/ — linked here as a pointer, not embedded, because this page stays static. There is no Facebook Marketplace calculator on Feebrief, and none is pretended: every dollar figure above was worked by hand from the dated rates in the sources section. How Feebrief gathers and re-checks fee records is documented in the methodology, and Feebrief's relationship with the platforms named here is laid out in the disclosure.
Facebook Marketplace vs Mercari fees FAQ
Which is cheaper, Facebook Marketplace or Mercari?
It depends on the route. Local pickup on Facebook Marketplace, paid in person, carries no Meta selling fee, making it the only clearly cheaper path. On shipped sales the two are close: Facebook Marketplace takes 10% of item price plus shipping plus applicable taxes, with a $0.80 per-order minimum, and Mercari takes 10% of the item price plus buyer-paid shipping — the same percentage on a different base, with a different floor.
Both say 10% — what is actually different?
The fee base and the floor. Facebook Marketplace's 10% applies to the total transaction value — item plus shipping plus applicable taxes — through Meta's onsite checkout, and never less than $0.80 per order. Mercari's 10% applies to the item price plus buyer-paid shipping through its app checkout, on every sale, with no minimum stated in our source. Facebook Marketplace also has the $0 local path; Mercari has no free local route in this model.
Is there a minimum selling fee?
On shipped Facebook Marketplace orders, yes: $0.80 per order, which only matters when 10% of the order total falls below it — roughly on orders under $8.00. Local pickup is $0, so no minimum applies. Mercari's minimum, if any, is not stated in our source this batch, so no figure is given here.
More fee comparisons
- Resale marketplace fees compared — the hub for every platform Feebrief tracks.
- Facebook Marketplace vs eBay fees — the same question with a third marketplace added.
- Facebook Marketplace shipped vs local fees — the fork inside one platform, isolated.
- Facebook Marketplace seller fees — labels, payouts and the full rate card.
- Mercari seller fees — the platform's own guide and live estimator.
Where these numbers come from
Facebook Marketplace rates come from Meta's own pages, fetched : Meta Help on selling fees, the Meta merchant policies, and the Meta shipping terms (last updated ). Mercari rates come from Feebrief's internal Mercari record in fees.json, last checked — no Mercari page was fetched for this comparison, which is also why payout timing and any minimum fee are marked as not covered rather than guessed. The full sourcing discipline, including how often records are re-pulled, is on the methodology page.
Disclaimer
Feebrief is an independent reference site. It is not affiliated with, endorsed by or acting for Meta Platforms, Facebook Marketplace or Mercari, and it is not an official calculator of either platform. The figures on this page describe published US rates as of the dates shown; platforms change fees, floors and policies without notice, and the linked official pages are the authority when a decision rides on the exact cent. Nothing here is pricing, tax or legal advice. For how this site is funded, see the disclosure page.