Guides · Selling

TCGplayer fees explained — and the profit math most sellers skip

Every marketplace sale pays four tolls before you pocket anything: the marketplace commission, payment processing, postage, and supplies. Sellers who track only the sale price systematically overestimate their profit — usually by 25–40% on mid-priced cards, and by everything on cheap ones.

The worked example

A $25.00 card on TCGplayer's standard marketplace terms (10.75% commission, 2.5% + $0.30 payment processing): commission takes $2.69, processing takes $0.93. Ship it PWE-style with a sleeve, toploader, and stamp (~$1.33) and your net proceeds are about $20.05. If the card cost you $12, your true profit is $8.05 — not the $13 that sale-minus-cost suggests. That 38% gap is the invisible tax on every untracked sale.

Run your own numbers in the free fee calculator — it includes eBay presets and a break-even price.

The cheap-card trap

Percentage fees scale with price; postage and supplies don't. On a $2 card, the flat costs alone (~$1.63 of processing-flat plus shipping) exceed 80% of the sale — which is why the break-even price on cheap singles is often double what you paid. Bulk sellers survive on batching, penny sleeves, and knowing exactly where that break-even line sits per listing.

The $600 rule: cost basis is no longer optional

Once your gross sales cross $600 in a year, the marketplace files a 1099-K reporting your gross revenue to the IRS. Profit is what you owe tax on — but only if you can document what the cards cost you. No cost-basis records means the burden of proof is on you, in April, reconstructing a year of lot purchases from memory. Every serious reseller needs a ledger that records basis at acquisition time, especially for bulk lots where per-card cost is derived, not obvious.

Fee schedules current as of mid-2026; marketplaces change terms — always verify against the marketplace's published schedule. Not tax advice; talk to a professional about your situation.