eBay Promoted Listings Calculator
The ad rate your margin can actually carry.
Calculate the cost of eBay Promoted Listings at a given ad rate and find the break-even rate your margin after fees can support.
Charged on the sale, and only when the sale is attributed to the promotion.
Profit on a promoted sale
$16.58
at a 8.0% ad rate
Promoted Listings Standard charges only on attributed sales, so it cannot lose money on clicks. It can still consume a thin margin, which is what the break-even rate shows.
How the eBay Promoted Listings Calculator works
Promoted Listings Standard charges a percentage of the sale, but only when the sale is attributed to the ad, so it cannot lose money outright the way a cost-per-click campaign can. What it can do is quietly consume a margin that was already thin, because the ad rate lands on top of the final value fee and the per-order fee rather than instead of them.
Also known as: eBay ad rate calculator · eBay advertising calculator
Not financial advice. Marketplace fees change, and they vary by country, plan and seller status. Every rate here is an editable default, not a quoted price, check the platform's current fee schedule before you price a product against it. This is not tax or business advice.
Frequently asked questions
How much does eBay Promoted Listings cost?
You choose an ad rate, a percentage of the sale price, and pay it only when a buyer clicks the promoted listing and purchases within the attribution window. Rates commonly run between 2% and 15%, and suggested rates from eBay tend to sit toward the upper half.
What ad rate should I use?
No more than your margin after all other fees and costs can absorb. That is the number this calculator produces: if you keep 22% of an order, an ad rate above 22% turns an attributed sale into a loss even though the item sold.
Is Promoted Listings worth it?
It depends on whether those buyers would have found the listing anyway, which is unknowable per order but visible in aggregate. Promote a subset, hold the rest as a control, and compare. Promoting everything at the suggested rate is how the fee becomes a permanent tax on sales you already had.
Do I pay for clicks that do not sell?
Not on Promoted Listings Standard, which charges only on attributed sales. eBay also offers cost-per-click formats where you do pay per click, so check which one a campaign is using before comparing the rates.