If you’re clearing out your wardrobe or building a small reselling side hustle, choosing where to sell can feel like it should be simple, but the fee structures on all three major platforms have changed significantly over the past couple of years, and a lot of the information still floating around online is out of date.
This guide breaks down exactly what each platform charges UK sellers right now, how the fees actually affect what lands in your account, and which platform tends to suit which kind of item.
For private, casual UK sellers, all three major platforms now charge sellers little to nothing directly. This is a shift from a few years ago, when eBay and Depop both took a large cut from every sale. Here’s the current picture:
- Vinted charges sellers nothing at all. No listing fee, no selling fee, no commission. You keep 100 percent of your listed price.
- eBay, for private sellers, also charges nothing to list or sell, since the platform removed private seller fees in October 2024.
- Depop dropped its seller commission in March 2024, so the only cost left is a small payment processing fee, roughly 2.9 percent plus 30 pence per sale.
On the surface, that makes Vinted and eBay technically the cheapest, with Depop costing a small amount through its processing fee. But the full picture is more nuanced than just comparing seller-side numbers, since each platform recoups its costs differently, and each one suits different kinds of items and buyers.
How Each Platform Actually Makes Its Money Now
Vinted’s model shifted the cost entirely onto buyers. Instead of charging sellers, Vinted charges buyers what it calls a Buyer Protection fee, roughly 5 percent of the item price plus around 70 pence, added on top of your listed price at checkout. You never see this fee directly, since it’s added after your price, but it does mean the total your buyer pays is higher than your listed price, which can matter slightly for how competitive your item looks against similar listings.
eBay’s model works similarly for private sellers, with the platform now charging buyers a Buyer Protection fee rather than taking a cut from the seller. Importantly, this only applies to private seller accounts. If you’re selling as a registered business seller on eBay, the older fee structure still applies, including a category-based final value fee, typically around 12.8 percent for clothing, a small per-order fee, and VAT charged on top.
If you’re operating anything beyond occasional personal selling, it’s worth checking which account type you’re actually on, since the “eBay is free” reputation only holds for private accounts.
Depop’s model is the most straightforward of the three, since it charges a flat payment processing fee directly rather than shifting the cost to buyers. On a typical sale, this works out to a small, predictable percentage plus a fixed amount per transaction, which is simple to calculate but does mean Depop is technically not entirely free for sellers, even though it dropped its old 10 percent commission.
What This Looks Like on an Actual Sale
Take a jumper sold for £25 as an example, ignoring postage since all three platforms handle that separately.
- On Vinted, you receive the full £25. The buyer separately pays a Buyer Protection fee on top, bringing their total to roughly £27.
- On eBay, as a private seller, you also receive the full £25, with eBay adding its own buyer-side fee at checkout in a similar way.
- On Depop, you receive roughly £24, after the payment processing fee of around 2.9 percent plus 30 pence is deducted.
So for a casual seller clearing out a wardrobe, the difference between the three platforms on seller-side fees alone is small, generally under a pound or two per item at typical clothing price points. This is a genuinely different picture from a few years ago, when the fee gap between platforms was large enough to meaningfully change which one made sense to use.
Which One Has More Audience
Because the seller-side cost is now so similar across all three platforms, which one actually earns you the most money often comes down to where your specific item is likely to sell fastest and for the best price, rather than the fee structure alone.
Vinted has an enormous, broad user base focused on everyday and mid-range fashion, casual wear, and children’s clothing. It’s typically the easiest place to make your first few sales, since buyers on Vinted tend to be practical and volume-focused rather than hunting for anything particularly rare or high-end.
eBay has the widest overall reach and the strongest brand recognition for second-hand buying in the UK generally, which makes it a strong choice for branded items, vintage pieces, collectables, and higher-value goods where buyers are more willing to pay for the platform’s established trust and buyer protection. It’s also the only one of the three well suited to items outside fashion entirely, such as electronics or homeware.
Depop skews heavily toward a younger audience, with the majority of its users under 26, and works particularly well for streetwear, genuine vintage, and Y2K-style pieces. Buyers here often pay a premium for well-photographed, curated listings with a strong aesthetic, more so than on the other two platforms.
Simple Way to Decide Where to List
Rather than picking one platform and sticking to it exclusively, most experienced resellers use a rule of thumb based on the type of item:
- Everyday and mid-range clothing, kids’ clothes, casual basics tend to do best on Vinted, where the audience is large and fees are effectively zero for the seller
- Branded items, vintage pieces, electronics, and anything higher value tend to do better on eBay, where buyer trust and reach justify a slightly less favourable fee structure for business sellers, though private sellers face no direct cost either
- Streetwear, curated vintage, and fashion-forward pieces aimed at a younger buyer tend to perform best on Depop, where presentation and aesthetic genuinely affect what buyers are willing to pay
Should You List on All Three at Once?
Many experienced resellers cross-list the same item across all three platforms simultaneously, since there’s no direct cost to doing so under the current fee structures, and it maximises the chance of a quicker sale. The one important habit to build if you do this: remove the listing from the other platforms the moment an item sells anywhere, since accidentally selling the same physical item twice creates a genuinely awkward situation with two buyers expecting the same thing.
If you’re just starting out and want to keep things simple, starting with Vinted alone is a reasonable choice, since it has the largest audience, the most forgiving fee structure for a private seller, and tends to be the easiest platform for making your first few sales while you get a feel for pricing and photography. You can always add eBay or Depop later once listing and shipping become a routine part of your week rather than something new each time.
Don’t Forget the Tax Side
Regardless of which platform, or combination of platforms, you use, the income counts the same way for tax purposes. If your total income from reselling, added up across all platforms, goes over the £1,000 trading allowance in a tax year, you need to register as self-employed with HMRC and declare it.
It’s also worth knowing that all major platforms, including Vinted, eBay, and Depop, are legally required to report seller earnings data to HMRC under rules that have been in place since January 2024. This means the old assumption that selling on these platforms flies under the radar no longer holds, so keeping basic records of what you’ve sold and for how much is worth doing from the start, rather than trying to reconstruct it later.
One distinction worth knowing: occasional selling of your own unwanted personal items, like clearing out a wardrobe, generally isn’t treated as taxable trading in the same way as regularly buying stock specifically to resell for profit. If you’re doing the latter, HMRC is more likely to consider it a trade, which changes how and when you need to declare it.
Postage and Shipping: The Other Cost That Affects Your Margin
Seller fees only tell part of the story, since how each platform handles postage also affects how much you actually keep, and how competitive your listing looks against similar items.
Vinted integrates postage directly into the checkout, with the buyer typically covering the shipping cost on top of the item price, using Vinted’s own discounted shipping labels. This keeps things simple for the seller, since you’re not usually out of pocket for postage even before the item sells.
eBay allows more flexibility, letting you choose whether to offer free postage folded into your price or charge it separately, which can be useful for adjusting how your listing appears in search results, since some buyers filter specifically for free postage.
Depop similarly lets sellers set their own postage costs, and many sellers competing for younger buyers choose to offer free postage baked into the price, since it tends to perform better with that platform’s audience.
Whichever platform you use, it’s worth actually costing out your packaging and postage before setting a price, rather than guessing, since these costs can eat into a thin margin more than the platform’s own seller fee does in many cases.
Photography and Listing Quality Matter More Than the Fee Difference
Given how close the seller-side fees now are across all three platforms, the biggest single factor in how much you actually earn per item is usually the quality of your listing rather than which platform you chose. A few things that consistently make a measurable difference:
- Natural daylight rather than artificial indoor lighting, which tends to make colours and fabric texture look far more accurate and appealing
- Photographing the item on a person, a mannequin, or laid out flat and neat, rather than in a crumpled pile, since buyers consistently favour listings where they can clearly picture the fit
- Writing an honest, specific description that includes measurements, since vague listings tend to get more questions and fewer actual sales
- Pricing competitively based on what similar items are actually selling for on the same platform, rather than what you personally think the item is worth
Frequently Asked Questions
Can I sell the exact same item on all three platforms at once? Yes, and this is common practice among experienced resellers, since none of the three platforms currently charge you anything extra for listing the same item in multiple places. Just remember to remove it from the others the moment it sells anywhere.
Do these platforms take a cut of the postage cost too? Generally no, the seller-side fees discussed here apply to the item price rather than the shipping cost, though it’s worth double-checking the specific platform’s current terms since fee structures do get updated periodically.
Is it worth becoming a registered eBay business seller if I’m reselling regularly? If you’re consistently sourcing stock specifically to resell for profit, rather than just clearing out your own unwanted items, HMRC is likely to consider this a trade regardless of which account type you use on eBay. Whether to register as a business seller on the platform itself is a separate decision from your tax obligations, and often comes down to whether you want access to eBay’s business seller tools and reporting rather than being required to for tax reasons.
Which platform is fastest for a first sale? Vinted tends to have the largest immediate audience for everyday clothing, which often makes it the quickest place to get a first sale as a completely new seller, simply because there are more people actively browsing at any given time.