How Flippedit calculates eBay profit

How to calculate eBay profit: take what the buyer paid, subtract the fees eBay actually charged, promoted listing costs, postage you covered, cost of goods, and refunds. That remainder is true profit. Flippedit does this per sale. Fees come from eBay's API, not a rate card, which is why the number can be trusted when plans change.

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Profit = sale − fees − ads − cost of goods − postage. Store totals are this formula added up.

The formula

For each completed sale:

Profit = revenue − transaction fees − ad fees − cost of goods − shipping you covered ± refunds

Margin % = profit ÷ revenue

Days to sell sits next to the money. It is not subtracted as cash. It is how long that cash was trapped.

Revenue is what the buyer paid for the item and the postage you charged them. eBay's transaction fee is calculated on that total in Australia, which is why we do not let you pretend postage was outside the deal. See the $50 worked example if you want the plan-rate version. This page is how our product does it.

Line items, from a real sale

Product breakdown for Dead Like Me DVD Season 1 And 2 Region 4 PAL, sold 14 Jul 2026:

Line	Amount	Source
Revenue	$21.71	eBay sale
Transaction fees	-$2.88	eBay, as charged
Ad fee	-$4.34	Promoted listings, as charged
Cost of goods	-$7.00	You, once
Shipping	$0.00	Nothing extra on this one
Profit	$7.49	Formula
Margin	35%	7.49 ÷ 21.71
Days to sell	56	List date to sold date

Read it top to bottom. Ads cost more than the transaction fee. A “how to calculate ebay profit” article that only teaches 13% of sale price would have mis-ranked this SKU.

We publish this because trust pages should show the arithmetic, not a slogan.

What each line means

Revenue. Completed sale price. Includes postage charged to the buyer. A cancelled sale should not stay here.

Transaction fees. Final value / transaction fees eBay billed for that order, GST-inclusive when that is how eBay billed you. Not sale * 0.134 unless that happened to be the bill.

Ad fee. Promoted Listings (and similar) attributed to this sale. If the sale was organic, this is zero. If you ran 12% and it converted, you will feel it here.

Cost of goods. What you paid. For a lot, Flippedit can split total cost across units so each DVD is not $0 and the last one is $180.

Shipping (your cost). Satchel, label, extra weight. $0.00 on the DVD above means we did not attach a send-cost, not that atoms teleported.

Refunds. If the buyer is made whole, the sale cannot keep pretending it was profit. Totals move.

Days to sell. 56 days on this DVD. Useful when two items have the same $7.49 but one cleared in 6 days.

Store level is the same formula, summed

Store totals are not a second definition of profit. They are the per-item formula added up.

Revenue $6,854.36 (119 items)
Expenses $3,964.22 (fees + ads + COGS + postage + the rest of that period's costs)
Profit $2,890.14
Profit % 42%
vs previous 31 days shown so you can see direction, not just a trophy number

Top sellers in that window (Charizard $383.35 at 85%, Dark Dragonite $225.85 at 69%, Ho-Oh $169.56 at 65%) are the formula applied to expensive cardboard. High margin there does not license low-margin ads on $21 DVDs. That is why we calculate per item.

What we refuse to do

We refuse to invent a fee. If eBay charged $2.88, you will see $2.88. If you are on free selling and eBay charged $0, you will see $0. If a blog still says 13.25% + 2.9% + $0.30, that is someone else's country or year.

We refuse to treat missing COGS as profit. The UI nags. Believe the nag.

We refuse to mix payout timing with profit. When eBay pays you is a cash question. Whether the sale was profitable is a cost question. This page is the second one. Payout schedules belong in your bank, not in a fake margin.

We refuse to hide ads in a monthly bucket only. Ads that belong to a sale sit on the sale.

How to calculate eBay profit by hand (if you must)

Write the order total the buyer paid.
Open the order in Seller Hub and write the fee eBay charged. Do not estimate.
Write the promoted listing fee for that order, if any.
Write what you paid for the item.
Write what you paid to post it.
Subtract until you are slightly depressed.
Repeat 119 times.

Flippedit is step 7, automated, which is the only reason this formula is usable.

Bulk lots

A $180 tote of DVDs is not $180 of COGS on the first scan and $0 on the rest. Flippedit lets you log a bulk purchase (total cost, total units) and average it. Each sold disc then carries its share.

If you later learn three discs were cracked and unsellable, the remaining units should carry more cost. Adjust the lot rather than inventing a fee. The formula does not care whether COGS came from a receipt or a split. It cares that the sale is not $7.00 of fiction.

Multi-quantity and repeats

The same listing can sell twice. Each order gets its own fee line, because eBay billed twice. Do not reuse $2.88 from the first sale on the second. That is the sheet error this product exists to stop.

If one quantity refunds and the other does not, only the refunded order should unwind. Totals that “net out the listing” hide a good sale and a bad sale in a single shrug.

Currency

The formula is in the currency of the sale as Flippedit is showing it. Australian stores see AUD. If you sell on eBay.com and get paid in USD, do not compare that profit to an AUD satchel without a conversion. We are not a forex product. We are a fee-accurate profit product. Keep the comparison inside one currency unless you enjoy pain.

What “true profit” is not

It is not cash in the bank today. A profitable sale can still be waiting on an eBay payout.

It is not tax profit in every jurisdiction. Depreciation, home office, and motor vehicle rules sit outside the item card.

It is not a forecast. Goals ($120,000 revenue as a target) are targets. Profit is history.

Keeping those three separate is how you avoid arguing with the formula. The formula only answers: on this completed sale, after the lines we track, what did you keep?

Trust, but verify

On day one, pick five sales. Compare our transaction fee to eBay's. Compare ads. If they match, the formula is doing the job. If they do not, write to us inside the free 7-day trial.

Flippedit is $39 AUD a month or $299 AUD a year, every feature included. Signup is a free 7-day trial, nothing charged until it ends.

If a number in the dashboard disagrees with an item card, trust the item card first, then check whether the period includes refunds or expenses that are not on that SKU. Period totals include more than one sale's formula. That is addition, not a second definition of profit.

Start free 7-day trial and read one item the way the DVD card reads. That is the whole product, mathematically.

See true profit on your own store

Connect eBay, add costs, and start with a free 7-day trial. Nothing is charged until the trial ends. After that, cancel keeps access until the period ends. Payments already made are not refundable.

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Common questions

What is the Flippedit profit formula?

Per completed sale: revenue (sale price including postage the buyer paid) minus transaction fees, minus promoted listing / ad fees, minus cost of goods, minus shipping you covered, adjusted for refunds. Margin is profit divided by revenue. Days to sell is tracked alongside, not as a dollar cost.

Do you estimate eBay fees?

No. Flippedit uses the fee eBay charged on that sale. That is the trust page in one sentence.

What if cost of goods is missing?

The item is flagged (the dashboard shows “items need cost data”). Profit without COGS is treated as incomplete, not as a fake 90% margin.

Are refunds included?

Yes. A refunded sale takes its revenue back out so a bad week cannot hide in the totals.

Is shipping a cost or revenue?

Postage the buyer paid is part of revenue and part of eBay's fee base. Postage you paid to send the item is a cost on that sale. Mixing those two up is a common sheet error.