Where to Sell Trading Cards in 2026: eBay, Whatnot, Mercari or TCGplayer?

Profitvana Editorial Team · Updated November 9, 2026

Cards sell three ways: as singles with photos and a fixed price, as live-auction lots, and as graded slabs. eBay charges 13.25% in trading cards with the standard per-order fee and is where graded cards fetch the most; Whatnot takes 8% commission plus 2.9% + $0.30 processing from a standard seller and moves volume in live streams; Mercari's 10% suits cheap singles and lots. TCGplayer, the specialist, is not yet in our registry.

What you receive on each platform: $60 card, buyer pays $5 shipping, tracked label costs you $4

Computed from each platform’s verified fee schedule in our registry, on the same sale, ranked by what lands in your account after fees and the label. Costs the schedule does not carry (optional promotion, returns, your time) are in the notes and the text below.

#	Platform	Fees	Label you pay	You receive	Schedule used
1	Mercari 10% on item + shipping	$6.5010.8% of price	$4.00	$54.50	10%
2	Facebook Marketplace 10% with checkout; collector groups sell on local pickup	$6.5010.8% of price	$4.00	$54.50	10%
3	Whatnot 8% standard tier + 2.9% + $0.30; sports/TCG tiers fall to 6.5% at $500k+ per 4 weeks	$6.9911.6% of price	$4.00	$54.02	Commission (8.00%) + Payment processing (2.90%) + Processing fixed fee
4	eBay 13.25% trading-cards rate (shown here at the 13.6% default) + $0.40; standard envelope shipping for cards under $20	$9.2415.4% of price	$4.00	$51.76	13.6% + $0.40

eBay: the price-setter for graded and high-value cards

eBay's trading-cards category is 13.25% plus the per-order fee, slightly under the 13.6% standard rate, and its completed-listings history is the price guide the whole hobby uses. For graded slabs and cards above about $100, eBay's Authenticity Guarantee (free at $250+) and its buyer pool make it the venue where a card reaches its full price. For cards under $20, eBay's standard envelope service keeps shipping to under a dollar, which matters when the per-order fee is already $0.30–$0.40. The cost is the percentage: on a $60 card about $8.60.

Whatnot: volume through live auctions, tiered since September 2026

Whatnot replaced its flat 8% commission with a tiered schedule on 21 September 2026. A standard seller (under $15,000 in sales per four weeks) still pays 8% plus 2.9% + $0.30 processing; sports cards and TCG sellers at $500,000 per four weeks pay 6.5%, collectibles 5%, coins 3.5%. The Premier programme's 10% discount ended on 1 November 2026. Live auctions move hundreds of cards an hour at prices that are usually below eBay's fixed-price level but far faster, and shipping is bundled per buyer, which makes cheap singles viable. Whatnot is a streaming job, not a listing job.

Mercari, Facebook and the specialists

Mercari's flat 10% on item plus shipping, with no listing fee, is the cheapest mainstream route for lots and mid-value singles; its buyers are generalists, so rare cards underperform there. Facebook collector groups sell on reputation with no fee for local or friends-and-family-style payment and no protection either way. TCGplayer and COMC are the specialist marketplaces for game-card singles; they are not in our registry yet, so they are not in the table.

Verdict

Graded cards and singles above $100: eBay, for the price and the free authentication at $250+.
Hundreds of cheap singles or bulk lots: Whatnot if you will stream, Mercari if you will not.
Game-card singles (Magic, Pokémon, Yu-Gi-Oh) at scale: a specialist marketplace, compared against eBay's 13.25%.

Frequently asked questions

What does Whatnot charge sellers now?

Since 21 September 2026: 8% commission for standard sellers under $15,000 in sales per four weeks, plus 2.9% + $0.30 payment processing; higher-volume tiers pay less (sports/TCG 6.5%, collectibles 5%, fashion 4.5%, coins 3.5% at the top tier). The Premier 10% discount ended 1 November 2026.

Is eBay's fee lower for trading cards?

Slightly: 13.25% in the trading-cards category against 13.6% for most categories, plus the usual $0.30 or $0.40 per order. The rate did not change in the February 2025 increase.

How this page is computed

The table runs one realistic basket for this category through the fee schedule of each platform as held in our registry, where every schedule carries the official page it was read from and the date it was last checked; category-specific rates (eBay’s sneakers, electronics, clothing, books and guitars rates, StockX and Whatnot tiers, Grailed’s price bands) are applied where they change the result. Platforms not yet in the registry are discussed but not ranked. Rates move: the change log records each change and this table recomputes with it.