Facebook Marketplace vs Whatnot: different fee bases
Put the same jacket in front of both platforms and the measuring tapes come out different. Facebook Marketplace’s shipped fee spans the entire checkout — item price, buyer-paid shipping, applicable taxes — and takes a tenth of it, with an $0.80 floor per order; hand it over at a meetup instead and the typical cost is nothing. Whatnot’s commission prices the item alone — often 8% at the Standard tier — and then a separate 2.9% + $0.30 processing line rides the buyer’s full total. Ten versus eight tells you almost nothing until you price the bases underneath them, which is exactly what this page does, basket by basket, with a date on every rate.
Last updated . Facebook Marketplace rates follow Feebrief’s Meta record (FACTS-batch1), checked against Meta Help, Meta merchant policies and Meta shipping terms (last updated ). Whatnot rates follow Feebrief’s Whatnot record (FACTS-batch4), checked against the help-center seller-fee article covering commission tiers and payment processing (support stamp ). Whatnot’s Premier Shop discount status is dated . Figures are for US individual sellers. United States, USD.
Feebrief is independent of Meta, Facebook Marketplace and Whatnot, and no interactive fee tool runs on this page — every figure below is static arithmetic with its date attached. Platforms revise fees without notice; confirm on the linked help pages before you list or price anything.
Three fee bases in one glance
Before any verdict, the plumbing: these two services do not measure a fee against the same number, and one of them charges nothing for its cheapest lane. The table below is the entire disagreement in three rows.
| The sale | What the fee runs on | What you typically pay |
|---|---|---|
| Facebook Marketplace, local pickup | Payment happens in person; Meta’s checkout isn’t involved | $0 — no seller fee is listed for in-person sales |
| Facebook Marketplace, shipped via onsite checkout | Total transaction value: item + buyer-paid shipping + applicable taxes | 10%, with a $0.80 minimum per order |
| Whatnot, live-show sale (Standard tier) | Commission on the item price; processing on the buyer’s whole total | Often 8% commission + 2.9% + $0.30 processing |
- Driveway handoffs: typically $0 on Facebook Marketplace, and Whatnot has no in-person lane among the facts recorded here — its sales run through live shows.
- Parcels: where the 10%-versus-8% confusion starts, because the percentages sit on different bases; the fork section below prices the gap exactly.
- Live audiences: Whatnot’s territory. Feebrief’s Meta record covers local pickup and shipped onsite checkout only — there is no live-auction checkout on Facebook Marketplace to compare against.
For the wider field, start at resale marketplace fees.
Facebook Marketplace: local $0 vs shipped 10% (min $0.80)
Meta’s pages describe two seller lanes, and only one of them carries a percentage. The parent guide with the full detail is Facebook Marketplace seller fees.
Cash-in-hand meetups: no fee listed on Meta’s side
Where a buyer pays you in person at a pickup, Meta’s help pages list no seller fee — so the working number for local pickup is $0. That zero is a “nothing listed” zero rather than a loudly promised one; a 30-second check of Meta’s own page (linked in the sources below) keeps it honest. Feebrief keeps the fine print on a dedicated page about Facebook Marketplace local pickup fees.
Shipping through onsite checkout puts the whole order under the 10%
Ship the item and route payment through Meta’s onsite checkout, and the selling fee becomes 10% of the total transaction value — item price plus buyer-paid shipping plus applicable taxes — with a minimum of $0.80 per order. On small parcels the floor does the work: a $3 item with $4 buyer-paid shipping makes a $7.00 order, ten percent of which is $0.70, so the $0.80 minimum applies instead.
The prepaid label: priced per carrier, not published
The 10% doesn’t buy the shipping. If you use Meta’s prepaid label, its cost comes out of your payout, and no fixed label price is published — it takes a carrier quote at label time. Feebrief treats the label figure as not publicly available and prices it at nothing rather than guessing; the Facebook Marketplace shipping fee page digs into that lane.
Whatnot’s commission-plus-processing stack
Whatnot splits its charge into two lines that move differently, and only one of them notices shipping. The full tier ladder lives at Whatnot fees explained, and the commission math has its own page at how much does Whatnot take.
Commission prices the item and ignores the parcel
The commission line is a percentage of item GMV — the price the item itself sells for — set by category and your trailing 4-week combined GMV. Standard Fashion (alongside Sports, TCG, Other Collectibles and Other) at $0–$14,999 often carries 8%; as trailing GMV climbs, the public Fashion ladder steps down to 4.5%. Shipping the buyer pays never enters this line.
Processing rides everything the buyer pays
Payment processing is separate: 2.9% + $0.30 on the buyer total, which is where buyer-paid shipping (and tax, where collected) finally shows up in Whatnot’s arithmetic. A fatter shipping charge nudges the processing line and leaves commission untouched — the mirror image of Facebook’s model, where shipping swells the one and only fee.
The Premier Shop discount ended — dated 2026-11-01
Comparison pages still citing a Premier Shop 10% commission discount are working from an old schedule: it ended as of 2026-11-01 in tiered markets. Nothing on this page assumes it. Feebrief’s Whatnot hub carries the current tier and rate detail.
Why 10% vs 8% is the wrong comparison
A tenth of everything versus eight percent of the item is not a two-point gap — it is two different denominators wearing similar hats. Stack the actual lines:
| Fee line | Facebook Marketplace, shipped | Whatnot, Standard tier |
|---|---|---|
| Headline percentage | 10% | Often 8% (commission) |
| What the percentage sits on | Item + buyer-paid shipping + applicable taxes | Item price alone |
| Second line | None listed | 2.9% + $0.30 processing on the buyer total |
| Per-order floor | $0.80 | Not recorded in Feebrief’s facts log |
| Prepaid label | Deducted from payout; price not publicly available | Not covered on this page |
Run the mental math on the item portion alone and Whatnot’s Standard stack lands near 8% + 2.9% — roughly 10.9 cents on the dollar, plus the $0.30 — while Facebook takes a flat 10 cents on item, shipping and tax alike. So on the item itself, Facebook’s “bigger” number is usually the smaller bite. Shipping flips the pressure the other way: every added dollar of buyer-paid shipping costs $0.10 on Facebook and about $0.029 on Whatnot. Which side wins depends on the shipping-to-price mix, your Whatnot tier, and a label price nobody publishes. The baskets below make it concrete.
Worked baskets: $55 plus $7 shipped, $70 plus $6 live
Two baskets, no rounding tricks, sales tax set to $0.00 so the bases stay visible. Copy the arithmetic for any other price.
Facebook Marketplace, $55 item + $7 buyer-paid shipping
- Fee base: $55.00 + $7.00 = $62.00 (tax $0.00)
- Selling fee: 10% × $62.00 = $6.20
- Seller side: $55.80 before the prepaid label, whose price is not publicly available
Whatnot, Standard Fashion, $70 item + $6 buyer-paid shipping
- Commission: 8% × $70.00 = $5.60 (item GMV only)
- Processing: 2.9% × $76.00 + $0.30 = $2.504 ≈ $2.50
- Combined: $5.60 + $2.50 ≈ $8.10
- Of the $76.00 collected, the seller receives $67.90 before their own costs
Same basket, both rulers: $70 item + $6 shipping
- Facebook Marketplace shipped: 10% × $76.00 = $7.60 → $68.40 before the label
- Whatnot Standard: ≈ $8.10 → $67.90
- Before label cost, Facebook’s line is $0.50 lower; any label quote above $0.50 hands the win back to Whatnot — and a Whatnot seller whose trailing GMV has stepped Fashion commission below 8% flips the result the other way
Scenario picks: local, shipped, or livestream
Blanket verdicts are how the 10%-versus-8% confusion spreads. Pick the lane you actually sell in:
Selling from the driveway
In-person sales carry no listed Meta fee, and Whatnot has no cash-meetup lane in Feebrief’s record — its model is the live show. On fees alone, the local lane belongs to Facebook by default; audience and safety matter more than a fee line that is already zero.
Facebook Marketplace: typically $0 A $60 meetup sale typically leaves you $60.00.Selling one-offs in boxes
At the Standard tier, the fork above shows Facebook about half a dollar ahead on a $70-plus-$6 basket before the label; the unpublished label price is exactly what can flip it. Climb Whatnot’s Fashion ladder below 8% and Whatnot takes the lead even before labels enter. The winner is basket-specific — re-run the two-line arithmetic with your own price and shipping.
10% of the order vs often-8% + processing $76 basket: $68.40 before label (Facebook) vs $67.90 (Whatnot Standard).Selling to a live audience
Bidding, chat and scheduled shows are Whatnot’s lane. Nothing in Feebrief’s Meta record gives Facebook Marketplace an equivalent live-auction checkout, so there is no fee comparison to run — only one platform prices this sale at all. The Whatnot hub on Feebrief collects the current commission ladder and processing detail.
Commission + processing, tier-dependent Only Whatnot prices this lane; no Facebook counterpart to compare.Not publicly available / not covered
- Facebook Marketplace prepaid label price — set per carrier quote at label time; no fixed figure is published. Any page quoting one flat label price is guessing.
- Whatnot custom or negotiated commission rates — sellers on bespoke schedules exist, but the numbers are not public, so this page quotes only the published ladder.
- Anything beyond those two records — payout timing quirks, off-platform payment arrangements and non-US rates sit outside Feebrief’s facts log for this pair and are not priced here.
Questions sellers ask
What does a cash meetup sale cost me on Facebook Marketplace?
Typically nothing. Meta’s help pages list no seller fee when payment happens in person, so a $60 porch pickup leaves the full $60.00 with you. Because the zero is an absence of a listed fee rather than an explicit promise, glance at Meta’s own selling-fees page before relying on it.
How much does Whatnot take from a $70 live sale with $6 shipping?
At the Standard Fashion rate of 8%: $5.60 commission on the item, plus 2.9% + $0.30 processing on the $76.00 buyer total — $2.504, about $2.50 — for a combined ≈ $8.10. Sellers on lower tiers pay less commission; the processing line doesn’t move.
If I raise buyer-paid shipping, which fee grows?
All of Facebook Marketplace’s — the 10% runs on shipping too. On Whatnot, only processing (at 2.9%) grows; the commission line reads the item price alone. Each added shipping dollar costs $0.10 on one platform and roughly $0.029 on the other.
Is there an interactive tool on this page?
No. This page is dated, checkable arithmetic — the three baskets above show the exact steps to copy for any price. Deeper commission math lives at how much does Whatnot take, and the full tier ladder at Whatnot fees explained.
Related reading
- Facebook Marketplace seller fees — the parent guide to Meta’s two lanes
- Facebook Marketplace shipping fees — the label and checkout detail
- Facebook Marketplace local pickup fees — the $0 lane’s fine print
- Whatnot fees explained — the full US commission ladder and processing rate
- How much does Whatnot take — commission math in depth
- Whatnot fee hub — rates, tiers and worked examples in one place
- Etsy vs Facebook Marketplace fees — a different two-platform fork
- Resale marketplace fees — the category roundup
Sources and dates
Every rate on this page traces to Feebrief’s dated records. The Facebook Marketplace side follows FACTS-batch1: Meta Help’s selling-fees page, Meta’s merchant policies, and Meta’s shipping terms (last updated 2026-08-31), checked 2026-11-01. The Whatnot side follows FACTS-batch4: Whatnot’s help-center seller-fees article — commission tiers and payment processing — carrying a support stamp of 2026-10-30, checked 2026-11-01. The Premier Shop discount end-date is recorded as 2026-11-01 in tiered markets. Parent records: Facebook Marketplace seller fees and the Whatnot hub. How Feebrief sources, stamps and re-checks these figures is documented on the methodology page.
Disclaimer
Feebrief is an independent publisher and isn’t affiliated with, endorsed by or speaking for Meta Platforms, Facebook Marketplace or Whatnot. Nothing here is official rate advice. The arithmetic was worked by hand from the dated sources above and is believed accurate as of 2026-11-01; marketplaces change fees without notice, so confirm on the platform’s own pages before listing, shipping or pricing. The disclosure page explains how this site is funded and why that never edits these numbers.