Amazon FBA vs eBay on a $30 product
Published August 9, 2026
Quick answer
On a $30 item, Amazon FBA costs $9.57 and leaves you $20.43. eBay costs $4.48 and leaves you $25.52. FBA takes 31.9% of the sale against eBay's 14.9%, and the difference is almost entirely the fulfilment fee, not the referral percentage.
Where FBA's cost actually comes from
Amazon's referral fee is 15% in most categories, only 1.4 points above eBay's 13.6%. The gap opens on fulfilment: a typical $4.75 pick-and-pack fee plus storage adds nearly five dollars to a $30 order, and that is a fixed charge that does not shrink with the item price. On $30 it is 16% of the sale on its own.
The comparison is not like for like
eBay's $4.48 does not include picking, packing, shipping or handling returns. You do those. FBA's $9.57 does. The honest question is whether $5.09 covers what it costs you to fulfil that order yourself once postage, packaging and your own time are counted. For a small light item shipped in volume it often does not. For anything heavy, fragile or slow to pack it often does.
Item price decides this more than anything
Because the fulfilment fee is fixed, FBA's percentage cost falls as price rises and climbs sharply as price falls. At $30 it is 31.9%. Cheap items are where FBA quietly destroys margin, which is why experienced sellers talk about an FBA price floor: below roughly $15-20 the fixed fees leave nothing, regardless of how good your buy price was.
Check the fulfilment fee for your actual product
The $4.75 used above is a typical small-standard figure. Amazon's fulfilment fees are banded by size and weight, and the bands move. Look up the real number for your dimensions before running these comparisons, because a product that crosses into the next size tier can change the answer completely.
Run your own numbers
See exactly what you keep on a real Amazon FBA sale.
Open the Amazon FBA calculatorFrequently asked questions
Is eBay cheaper than Amazon FBA?
On fees alone, clearly: $4.48 against $9.57 on a $30 item. But eBay's figure excludes fulfilment, which you then pay for in postage, packaging and your own time.
How much does Amazon FBA take from a $30 sale?
About $9.57, or 31.9%. That is a 15% referral fee plus roughly $4.75 in fulfilment and $0.15 in storage.
Why is FBA so expensive on cheap items?
The fulfilment fee is a fixed dollar amount, not a percentage. The same $4.75 is 16% of a $30 item and 32% of a $15 one, so the cost as a share of the sale rises sharply as price falls.