In short: Sell singles above roughly $20 yourself on eBay or TCGplayer, where fees run about 14% of the sale and you keep around $47 of a $60 card after postage. Sell commons, bulk, and anything under a few dollars to a local shop or a bulk buyer, because the per-order fee eats cheap singles alive. A shop paying 60% of market hands you cash the same day and takes the listing, the packing, and the returns off your hands.
Sort the box into three piles before you pick a venue
Tip the box out and sort it once. Pile one is anything that could clear $20 on its own: holos, ultra rares, full arts, anything printed between 1999 and 2003, anything already in a slab. Pile two is the $1 to $20 range, mostly playable non-holo rares and mid-set holos. Pile three is commons and uncommons, and it will be most of the box by a wide margin.
The piles go to different places, and the reason is arithmetic rather than taste. Fees that cost you about 14% of a $60 card cost you 20.75% of a $4 card, before you have paid for a stamp. No buyer is going to price 3,000 commons one at a time, so that pile gets sold by weight.
- Pile one, above $20: list it yourself and price it from sold listings of the exact printing.
- Pile two, $1 to $20: worth listing only in lots, or worth taking to a shop with pile three.
- Pile three, commons and uncommons: a shop, a bulk buyer, or a local player who wants them.
What one $60 card turns into at four venues
Take a single card that sells for $60 with free postage to the buyer, and $4.49 out of your pocket to mail it. On eBay the final value fee is 13.25% of the sale, which is $7.95, plus a $0.40 per-order fee because the order is over $10.00. Fees come to $8.35, you keep $51.65, and after the $4.49 stamp you are at $47.16.
On TCGplayer as a Marketplace seller with a Level 1 to 4 account, the commission is 10.75% of the $60 subtotal, which is $6.45. The transaction fee is 2.5% of the order total plus $0.30, which is $1.50 plus $0.30, so $1.80. Fees come to $8.25, you keep $51.75, and after postage you are at $47.26. A gap of $0.10.
A local shop buying singles at 60% of market hands you $36 in cash the same afternoon, with no postage, no listing and no returns. That 60% is this example's input, not a market rate, and it is the first thing to ask about before you hand anything over. A bulk buyer quoting a cent a card pays $10 for a thousand commons, which is the going shape of that trade rather than a quote you should expect.
Run your own price through the fee calculator
| Venue | Fees on a $60 sale | You keep | After $4.49 postage | What you give up |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| eBay | 13.25% is $7.95, plus $0.40 per order, so $8.35 | $51.65 | $47.16 | Listing, packing, postage, returns |
| TCGplayer Marketplace, Level 1 to 4 | 10.75% is $6.45, plus 2.5% and $0.30, so $8.25 | $51.75 | $47.26 | Listing, packing, postage |
| Local shop buying at 60% of market | 40% of $60, so $24 | $36.00 | $36.00 | $11.16 against the eBay figure |
| Bulk buyer at a cent a card | No fee, a flat quote instead | $10 per 1,000 | $10 per 1,000 | Any card in the box worth more than a cent |
eBay charges its fee on the whole sale, postage and tax included
For Collectible Card Games, Non-Sport Trading Cards and Sports Trading Cards, eBay's final value fee is 13.25% of the total amount of the sale up to $7,500 per item, plus 2.35% on the portion above $7,500. The total amount of the sale is not the item price. It includes the postage you charge the buyer and the sales tax the buyer pays.
That last part changes how you list. Charge the buyer $4.49 for postage on top of the $60 card and eBay's fee base becomes $64.49, so the fee is $8.54 instead of $7.95. So $0.59 of that postage charge goes to eBay. On a card that sells for $10,000, the fee is 13.25% of the first $7,500, which is $993.75, plus 2.35% of the remaining $2,500, which is $58.75, for $1,052.50 plus the order fee.
The per-order fee is $0.30 for orders of $10.00 or less and $0.40 for orders over $10.00, and that flat charge is what ruins cheap singles. Sell a $4 card and the fee is $0.53 plus $0.30, which is $0.83, or 20.75% of the sale before postage. Listings are free for the first 250 a month and $0.35 each after that. A dispute costs $20.00.
How to pack and post the card once it sells
Sources: eBay: Selling fees
TCGplayer splits its cut into a commission and a transaction fee
A Marketplace seller on a Level 1 to 4 account pays 10.75% commission on the order subtotal, capped at $75 per product, plus a transaction fee of 2.5% of the order total plus $0.30. The order total includes items, shipping and tax, the same way eBay's does. The $75 cap starts to bite above roughly $698 of subtotal, and it is the reason expensive cards behave differently on the two sites.
Run a $1,000 card through both. eBay takes 13.25%, which is $132.50, plus $0.40, so $132.90. TCGplayer takes the capped $75 plus a transaction fee of $25.00 plus $0.30, so $100.30. The gap is $32.60 on one card, and it widens as the price rises toward eBay's $7,500 tier break.
Other account types price differently. A Pro non-Direct account pays 9.25% commission plus a 2.5% Pro fee plus the same transaction fee. Direct sellers pay 8.95% plus a Direct fee of $1.12 per card for cards over $2.49 in value, and cards under $2.49 are charged 50% of card value with the other fees omitted. International sellers paid through PayPal pay a 2% processing fee capped at $20, and the international transaction fee is 3.5% plus $0.30.
Sources: TCGplayer: Fees
Ask the shop for its percentage before you hand over the cards
Local shops buy singles at a percentage of market and resell at market. The percentage is the entire negotiation, it varies by shop and by card, and a shop will usually tell you if you ask. In the example above, 60% of a $60 card is $36 in cash on the day, against $47.16 from eBay once the listing has run, the card has sold and the padded envelope has gone out. The difference is $11.16.
Bulk works on weight and count rather than on cards. A buyer quoting a cent a card pays $10 for a thousand commons, and the same buyer will often pay more per card for sorted energy, sorted holos or complete sets. Pull anything from pile one before the box leaves your house, because a bulk quote covers every card inside it at the same rate.
Shops also buy the whole box, which is the fastest way to turn a loft collection into money. The quote will be lower per card than selling the hits yourself. That is the trade, and it is a reasonable one when the alternative is 200 listings.
Price from sold listings of the exact printing, never from asking prices
An asking price is what somebody hopes. A sold price is what somebody paid. Search sold listings for the card, filter to the exact printing, and take the middle of the last ten sales as your number. If only three copies have sold in six months, the card is thin, and your price is a guess with a wide band around it.
Exact printing means the set symbol, the collector number, the language, the holo pattern and any 1st Edition or shadowless marker. A Japanese copy and an English copy of the same Pokémon are different cards with different sales histories. A reprint from a modern set is not the 1999 print, whatever the artwork says.
Every venue is buying something different from you
The fee tables make the venues look like they sell the same thing at different prices. They do not. eBay and TCGplayer sell you access to the widest pool of buyers and charge you for your own evenings: the photographs, the listing, the packing, the trip to the post office, the message from a buyer who says the corner is dinged. The shop's 40% is buying all of that from you in one transaction, and it is also carrying the risk that the card sits in a case for a year.
This is also why two sold listings for the same card can be far apart and both be real. One was an auction that ended at 2am, one was a best offer accepted on a Tuesday, one card was Near Mint and one had a soft corner the photo did not show, and neither seller wrote down which. A price is a range with a date on it. Anybody quoting you a single number is rounding something off.
Identify the printing before you list it
Most of the money lost on a sale is lost before the listing goes up, when a card gets priced as the wrong printing. CardLens matches the exact printing from a photo, set and collector number and language and finish, and shows a value range built on recent eBay sales of that printing. The sales behind the range are visible in the app, so you can judge the number instead of trusting it.
It also estimates condition on the Near Mint to Damaged scale and reads PSA, BGS and CGC slab labels, so a graded copy is recorded with its grade rather than priced as a raw card. Free on the App Store, with an optional premium subscription.
Questions collectors ask
Where can I sell Pokémon cards for the most money?
Listing singles yourself on eBay or TCGplayer nets the most per card. On a $60 sale eBay leaves you $51.65 and TCGplayer $51.75 before postage, against $36 from a shop paying 60%. You pay for that with listing time, packing and returns.
Where do I sell Pokémon cards in bulk?
A local card shop or a dedicated bulk buyer. Ask for the quote per card before you hand anything over; at a cent a card, 1,000 commons comes to $10. Sorted energy, sorted holos and complete sets usually fetch more per card, so sort before you ask.
How do I sell Pokémon cards on eBay?
List the exact printing with clear photos of the front, back and corners, price from sold listings, and post in a sleeve, a toploader and a rigid mailer. Expect 13.25% of the sale plus a $0.40 order fee, charged on postage and tax as well as the card.
What percentage do card shops pay for Pokémon cards?
It varies by shop, by card and by how much of that card they already have, so ask before you hand anything over. The 60% used in the example on this page is an input for the arithmetic, not a market rate you should expect.
How do I price Pokémon cards to sell?
Filter completed listings to sold, match the exact set, collector number, language and 1st Edition marker, and take the middle of the last ten sales. Then subtract fees and postage to see what you would keep, and decide whether that beats a shop quote.
Free on the App Store
Know what the card is before you price it.
CardLens matches the exact printing from a photo and shows a value range with the recent eBay sales behind it. Save the card and the vault total updates.