Selling on eBay vs Amazon (2026): Which Is Better for Sellers?

Selling on eBay vs Amazon is the first big decision most new online sellers make, and it shapes everything after it: what you source, what each order leaves you and how fast you can grow. The two marketplaces charge in different ways, list products in different ways and suit different sellers. This guide compares the 2026 fees from each platform's own pages, works through the same sale on both, and explains where each one fits for a seller who dropships.

Quick answer: for most new sellers who dropship, eBay is the better place to start. You can sell without a monthly plan, you pay mainly when something sells, and you create your own listing for each product. Amazon.com brings more shoppers but charges $39.99 a month on its Professional plan (or $0.99 per item sold on Individual) on top of a referral fee set by category. Our pick is to start on eBay with Amazon and AliExpress as your suppliers and run the store with Ecomli. Ecomli makes that eBay dropshipping extension, so weigh our recommendation with that in mind.

• eBay: a final value fee of 13.6% in most categories plus $0.40 per order over $10.00, and 250 zero insertion fee listings a month.
• Amazon: a selling plan fee plus a referral fee by category (15% in Home and Kitchen, for example), with a $0.30 minimum in most categories.
• On one $40 sale with an $18 supplier cost, eBay leaves $16.16 and Amazon $16.00 before its monthly plan. The monthly plan is what separates them at low volume.

Amazon.com vs eBay.com: the short version

Both marketplaces reach huge audiences, but they are built on different ideas. eBay reports 134 million active buyers worldwide, and every seller creates their own listing, in conditions from new to used. Amazon says millions of customers search Amazon.com every day, and it asks sellers to match an existing listing or create a new one, so many sellers can offer the same product on one page. Amazon also says more than 60% of sales in its store come from independent sellers.

If you are still deciding whether dropshipping fits your goals at all, our guide to what eBay dropshipping involves is a good place to start before you pick a marketplace. For a step-by-step view of the eBay side, see how selling on eBay works.

eBay vs Amazon fees, worked through on one sale

Fees are where the two platforms separate most clearly, and for thin-margin dropshipping they often decide whether a product is worth listing. Here is what each platform charges, from its own pages.

eBay. eBay's selling fees page sets the final value fee at 13.6% of the total amount of the sale in most categories, up to $7,500 per item. The total includes the item price, shipping and sales tax. A per-order fee of $0.30 applies on orders of $10.00 or less and $0.40 on orders above that. You get up to 250 zero insertion fee listings a month, then pay $0.35 per listing. There is no monthly fee unless you choose to open a Store.

Amazon. Amazon's pricing page splits its fees into selling plan fees and referral fees. The Professional plan is $39.99 a month. The Individual plan has no monthly fee and charges $0.99 per item sold instead, with fewer tools (you list one product at a time and set static prices). The referral fee is a percentage of the total price, including shipping and gift wrap, or a minimum amount, whichever is greater. It is 15% in Home and Kitchen, 12% in Automotive and Powersports and 8% in Consumer Electronics, with a $0.30 minimum in those categories. Media items add a $1.80 closing fee.

Now the same sale on both. The inputs are illustrations: a $40.00 home and kitchen product with free shipping and an $18.00 supplier cost that includes delivery. Sales tax is left out. eBay counts it in the fee base, so the eBay fee runs slightly higher in practice.

Per sale, the two platforms are close. The monthly plan is what separates them. At 20 sales a month, the Professional plan takes about $2.00 off every order. On Amazon, the Individual plan is cheaper until you sell about 41 items a month, because $39.99 divided by $0.99 is just over 40. On eBay, the equivalent choice is whether a Store pays for itself, which only happens once you list in volume.

Margins move after you list, too. A supplier price rise can turn a healthy listing into a loss, on either marketplace. That is the problem automated repricing and margin defense solves, and our breakdown of how eBay's selling fees work covers the category rates and extra fees in more detail.

eBay Stores vs Amazon's Professional plan

eBay's optional Stores play a similar role to Amazon's Professional plan, with more steps. eBay's Store selling fees page lists five levels. Starter is $4.95 a month on a yearly renewal or $7.95 on monthly renewal, and Basic is $21.95 or $27.95. eBay says Store subscribers get more zero insertion fee listings and pay lower final value fees than sellers without a Store. For a new seller, no Store is fine. Once you list in the hundreds, compare the Store levels against your monthly listing count.

Barrier to entry: which marketplace is easier to start on

For a first-time seller, eBay is the easier start. You can register, create a listing and pay nothing until something sells, within your monthly zero insertion fee allowance. You write your own title, choose your photos and fill in item specifics, so the work you put into a listing stays yours.

Amazon asks for more decisions up front. You choose a selling plan, and most products go onto an existing listing that other sellers can also offer. That suits branded, standardized products. It suits a seller testing many different products less well, because you have less room to stand out on a page you share.

Two early mistakes trip up new sellers on both platforms. The first is delivery expectations. Suppliers overseas mean longer transit, so set a realistic handling time and pick suppliers that can meet it. The second is listing on instinct instead of evidence. Before you commit to a product, confirm there is recent demand for it. Our comparison of product research tools covers the options, and your early eBay selling limits go further when every listing has a sales record behind it.

Audience, competition and what sells where

Amazon's advantage is traffic and buyer intent. Its shoppers search for a specific product and many sellers can offer it on the same listing, so the offer itself, price and delivery, does most of the work in winning the sale. eBay's audience of 134 million active buyers is smaller, and every listing stands on its own. That makes titles and item specifics a direct lever on traffic. Getting the keywords in your eBay listings right, and following eBay title best practices, earns impressions without paying for ads.

Product fit follows from that. Branded, standardized products with steady demand suit Amazon's shared listings. A varied catalog of niche, replacement or hard-to-find items suits eBay, where each listing can be written for the exact buyer searching for it. Picking the right items matters more than the platform, so a disciplined approach to what to sell on eBay pays off either way.

Dropshipping on eBay vs Amazon

In a dropshipping store, a buyer orders from your listing, you buy the item from a supplier, and the supplier delivers it. The marketplace decides how much room you have around that loop. On eBay you create your own listing for each item, so a product sourced from Amazon or AliExpress goes live with your own title, photos and item specifics, and you pay mainly when it sells. On Amazon, most products go onto an existing listing that other sellers also offer, so the sale tends to go to the offer with the better price and delivery. In the $40.00 example above, that leaves $16.16 on eBay and $16.00 on Amazon before its monthly plan, so the per-sale gap is small and the plan fee decides it at low volume.

For the supply side, our guides to the best Amazon to eBay dropshipping software and eBay vs AliExpress as a supply source compare the options.

Selling on eBay and Amazon at the same time

Some sellers run both marketplaces so that one platform's slow month doesn't sink the business. That only works if the second channel doesn't double the work, and it needs a clear view of what each tool covers.

Ecomli is an eBay tool. It lists and sells on eBay, and it uses Amazon and AliExpress as product sources, not as places to sell. If you want an Amazon storefront as well, you manage that side with Amazon's own tools or a separate product. What Ecomli does is make Amazon useful to an eBay seller: Amazon becomes one of your suppliers, and eBay is where you sell. You can see what the eBay side covers on the Ecomli automation overview.

How to do this in Ecomli

1. Find products with a sales record. Product Hunting researches an eBay seller's sold history and matches the products to Amazon or AliExpress, or searches Amazon keywords, Best Sellers and category pages directly. See the Product Hunting overview.
2. Create the listings. Create Listings reads the Amazon or AliExpress product, prices it with your markup, writes optional AI titles and descriptions from the supplier facts and fills eBay's listing form in your signed-in seller session. Safety Shield screens each draft for flagged brands and restricted items before it is published, as a checkpoint rather than a guarantee.
3. Keep prices and stock in line. Stock Monitoring checks the supplier behind each Ecomli listing and updates the eBay price and quantity, or ends out-of-stock items, using your rules.
4. Place supplier orders. On Starter you order from the supplier yourself. On Pro, you click Auto Order and Basic Auto Ordering places the supplier order in your own browser. On Scale, once you turn it on, Advanced Auto Ordering runs on Ecomli's servers and places the supplier order for new eBay orders without a click, as long as each order is within your buying limits (a maximum purchase price and a maximum loss).
5. Get tracking to the buyer. Tracking Conversions converts supported AliExpress tracking and Amazon TBA tracking numbers into eBay-compatible tracking and adds it to the eBay order after its automatic checks.
6. Grow within eBay. Scale includes 3 eBay account seats and 1 VA seat, so a second or third eBay store can share the same sourcing and monitoring setup.

Every Ecomli plan includes Product Hunting, Stock Monitoring and Tracking Conversions, and the plan comparison shows where Basic and Advanced Auto Ordering start.

The real limit on a solo store is the manual work of checking stock, adjusting prices and placing supplier orders. Tools that take that work on raise the number of listings one person can look after. Our comparison of eBay automation tools shows where the manual bottlenecks usually sit.

Who each marketplace suits

eBay suits you if you want to start without a monthly plan, test many different products and write your own listings. It also suits sellers of used, refurbished and hard-to-find items.

Amazon suits you if you sell branded or standardized products at volume, can carry a $39.99 monthly plan from the start, and are comfortable competing on price and fulfillment on shared listings. At fewer than about 41 sales a month, its Individual plan costs less than Professional.

Neither suits you yet if you haven't checked demand for your products. Start with research, then pick the marketplace that fits what you found.

Frequently asked questions

Is it cheaper to sell on eBay or Amazon?

At low volume, eBay usually costs less because there is no required monthly plan. eBay charges 13.6% of the total sale in most categories plus $0.40 per order over $10.00. Amazon charges a referral fee by category (15% in Home and Kitchen) plus either $39.99 a month or $0.99 per item sold. On a single sale the fees are close. The monthly plan is what makes Amazon dearer until you sell in volume.

Is eBay or Amazon better for a beginner dropshipper?

eBay is usually the better starting point. You can list without a monthly plan, and you create your own listings. Many sellers learn sourcing, pricing and fulfillment on eBay first and consider Amazon once that process is stable.

Do you need a monthly subscription to sell on eBay or Amazon?

Not on eBay. A seller account is free, and Stores from $4.95 a month (yearly renewal) are optional. On Amazon, the Professional plan costs $39.99 a month, and the Individual plan skips the monthly fee in exchange for $0.99 per item sold.

What sells best on eBay vs Amazon?

Branded, standardized products with steady demand suit Amazon's shared listings. Niche, replacement, refurbished and hard-to-find items suit eBay, where each listing can be written for the buyer searching for it. Whatever you choose, check recent sales for the exact product before you list.

Which has more buyers, Amazon.com or eBay.com?

Amazon has more traffic. It says millions of customers search Amazon.com every day, while eBay reports 134 million active buyers worldwide. More traffic also means more sellers competing on the same listing, so the bigger audience doesn't automatically mean more sales for a new seller.

Can Ecomli sell on Amazon?

No. Ecomli is a non-API browser extension for eBay dropshippers, and eBay is its only selling channel. Amazon and AliExpress are product sources: you find products there, list them on eBay with your own pricing rules, and place the supplier order when an eBay order comes in.

Sources

• eBay Help: Selling fees
• eBay Help: Store selling fees
• eBay: High demand items: What to sell on eBay in 2026 (active buyer count)
• Amazon: How much does it cost to sell on Amazon?

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