Lisa sells tote bags on Shopee. Her bestseller is a sleeping cat design, listed at $45. To stay competitive, she throws in a $5 discount. After costs, she figures she should be keeping around $38 per bag.
But when the Shopee payout comes in, it’s $33.46.
She checks the breakdown. Commission: $3.05. Coins Cashback service fee: $2.18. Transaction fee: $1.31. That’s $6.54 per bag gone before the money even reaches her bank.
If you’ve ever looked at your Shopee payout and thought “that doesn’t add up,” you’re not alone. Shopee’s fee structure stacks commission, transaction fees, and optional programme charges on top of each other. And when you total them up, the number can be a lot larger than you expected.
We built a free Shopee Fees Calculator so you can plug in your own product details and see exactly what you keep. But before you try it, let’s walk through four worked examples across different product categories and price points.
A Quick Recap: How Shopee Fees Stack Up
If you want the full deep dive into Shopee’s current fee structure and how it’s changed over the years, we covered that in detail in this post. But here’s the short version.
Every Shopee sale in Singapore has up to three fee layers:
- Commission fee — ranges from 7.63% to 15.26% depending on your product category, whether you’re a Mall or non-Mall seller, and whether you’ve joined the Coins Cashback programme. Some electronics categories have a cap (e.g. $30 for non-Mall, $80 for Mall), but most categories have no cap at all.
- Transaction fee — a flat 3.27% on every sale, regardless of category or seller type.
- Coins Cashback service fee — if you’ve opted into the Coins Cashback programme (which most sellers do for visibility), you pay an additional service fee of around 3.27% to 5.45% depending on category, with some caps applying.
All of these are calculated on the gross settlement amount — which is the purchase value (what the buyer actually pays) plus any Shopee-sponsored vouchers.
New sellers get a 3-month commission-free window. During that period, you only pay the transaction fee plus any optional service fees. Once that grace period is over, the full fee structure kicks in.
Now let’s see what this actually looks like in dollars and cents.
Example 1: Fashion Accessories Seller — $45 Tote Bag
Let’s use Lisa’s sleeping cat tote bag as our first example and lay out the full fee breakdown.
Seller profile: Non-Mall seller, joined the Coins Cashback programme. Sells handmade tote bags and accessories.
| Detail | Amount |
|---|---|
| Listing price | $45.00 |
| Seller discount | -$5.00 |
| Purchase value (what buyer pays) | $40.00 |
| Gross settlement | $40.00 |
Here’s how the fees break down:
| Fee | Rate | Amount |
|---|---|---|
| Commission | 7.63% | $3.05 |
| Coins Cashback service fee | 5.45% | $2.18 |
| Transaction fee | 3.27% | $1.31 |
| Total fees | 16.4% | $6.54 |
| Your payout | $33.46 |
On a $45 listing with a $5 discount, you keep $33.46. The platform takes $6.54 per item — roughly one-sixth of the purchase value.
If you sell 50 of these a month, that’s $327 going to Shopee in fees every month. Over a year, that’s about $3,924.
Example 2: Electronics Seller — $450 Phone Accessory Bundle
Seller profile: Non-Mall seller, Coins Cashback participant. Sells phone accessories and gadget bundles in the Mobile & Gadgets category.
This category has an important detail: the commission fee is capped at $30 for non-Mall sellers. That means once your commission calculation exceeds $30, it stops there. This benefits higher-ticket items.
| Detail | Amount |
|---|---|
| Listing price | $450.00 |
| No discount | — |
| Purchase value | $450.00 |
| Gross settlement | $450.00 |
| Fee | Rate | Amount |
|---|---|---|
| Commission | 7.63% (capped at $30) | $30.00 ← would be $34.34, but cap applies |
| Coins Cashback service fee | 3.27% (capped at $60) | $14.71 |
| Transaction fee | 3.27% | $14.71 |
| Total fees | 13.2% | $59.43 |
| Your payout | $390.57 |
The commission cap saved this seller $4.34 on this item. Without the cap, the commission would have been $34.34 instead of $30.
Also worth noting: in this specific category (Mobile Phones and Tablets), the Coins Cashback service fee is 3.27%, not the 5.45% you see in some other categories. That lower rate, combined with the commission cap, means electronics sellers get a slightly better deal on fees overall.
Still, $59.43 in fees on a single sale adds up. If you’re selling 15 of these a month, that’s about $891 per month going to fees.
Takeaway: the commission cap helps, but it only kicks in for items priced above roughly $393 in this category. And the other two fees keep scaling with no ceiling.
Example 3: Baby Products Seller — $25 Item, High Volume
Seller profile: Non-Mall seller, Coins Cashback participant. Sells baby care products (Diapering & Potty / Milk Formula category). High volume — about 200 orders a month.
This is where the maths gets uncomfortable. Small item price, same percentage fees.
| Detail | Amount |
|---|---|
| Listing price | $25.00 |
| No discount | — |
| Purchase value | $25.00 |
| Gross settlement | $25.00 |
| Fee | Rate | Amount |
|---|---|---|
| Commission | 7.63% | $1.91 |
| Coins Cashback service fee | 3.27% (capped at $60) | $0.82 |
| Transaction fee | 3.27% | $0.82 |
| Total fees | 14.2% | $3.54 |
| Your payout | $21.46 |
$3.54 per item doesn’t sound like much. But at 200 orders a month:
| Monthly metric | Amount |
|---|---|
| Gross revenue | $5,000 |
| Total Shopee fees | $708.50 |
| Your actual payout | $4,291.50 |
That’s $708.50 a month — or about $8,502 a year — in platform fees. For a seller, that’s a solid chunk of inventory investment.
Like Example 2, this baby products category also gets the lower 3.27% Coins Cashback service fee. But with no commission cap on any non-electronics category, every single $25 order gets the full percentage treatment.
Example 4: Mall Seller — $90 Skincare Product
Seller profile: Shopee Mall seller, Coins Cashback participant. Sells skincare products.
Mall sellers get higher visibility and a “preferred” badge, but they pay for it. The commission rates for Mall sellers are significantly higher.
| Detail | Amount |
|---|---|
| Listing price | $90.00 |
| Seller discount | -$10.00 |
| Purchase value | $80.00 |
| Gross settlement | $80.00 |
| Fee | Rate | Amount |
|---|---|---|
| Commission | 10.90% | $8.72 |
| Coins Cashback service fee | 5.45% (capped at $30) | $4.36 |
| Transaction fee | 3.27% | $2.62 |
| Total fees | 19.6% | $15.70 |
| Your payout | $64.30 |
Nearly 20% of the purchase value goes to Shopee. On a product listed at $90 with a $10 discount, the seller receives $64.30.
If this seller moves 80 units a month, that’s $1,256 in monthly fees — or about $15,068 per year.
Notice the commission rate here is 10.90% for a Mall seller in the Coins Cashback programme. If this seller opted out of Coins Cashback, their commission would jump to 15.26% — but they’d also lose the visibility boost that comes with the programme. It’s a trade-off that’s hard to escape either way.
What Happens If You Sell the Same Products on Your Own Store?
Now let’s compare what you’d keep on Shopee versus selling on your own WooCommerce store with PayNow as the payment method.
On your own store, PayNow has zero transaction fees. The money goes straight from your customer’s bank to yours. Your only fixed cost is hosting, which typically runs $15–$50 a month.
| Example | You keep on Shopee | You keep with PayNow |
|---|---|---|
| Tote bag ($40 purchase) | $33.46 | $40.00 |
| Electronics bundle ($450) | $390.57 | $450.00 |
| Baby products ($25) | $21.46 | $25.00 |
| Mall skincare ($80 purchase) | $64.30 | $80.00 |
And when you multiply by monthly volume, the savings add up quickly:
| Example | Monthly volume | Shopee fees/month |
|---|---|---|
| Tote bag | 50 items | $327 |
| Electronics bundle | 15 items | $891 |
| Baby products | 200 items | $709 |
| Mall skincare | 80 items | $1,256 |
Even the smallest seller here (50 tote bags at $45 each) would save $327 a month — about $3,924 a year — by processing those same PayNow orders through their own site.
The Mall skincare seller? Over $15,000 a year in fees on Shopee alone.
Of course, your own store doesn’t come with Shopee’s built-in traffic. You’ll need to invest time (and possibly some ad spend) to bring customers to your site. But every dollar you spend on marketing your own store builds your brand and your customer list. On Shopee, every dollar spent on ads benefits Shopee’s ecosystem first.
Many sellers run both channels in parallel: Shopee for discovery and volume, their own store for repeat customers and better margins. If you’re thinking about that move, we’ve written about whether you still need your own website when you’re already on Shopee and how to choose between Shopify and WooCommerce for your setup.
Run Your Own Numbers
The examples above use standard fee rates, but your actual costs will depend on your specific product category, seller type, and which programmes you’ve joined. Commission rates vary quite a bit between categories — and Shopee does update them from time to time.
That’s why we built the Shopee Fees Calculator. Plug in your listing price, discounts, seller type, and product category. It will show you exactly what Shopee takes and what you actually receive. It also shows a side-by-side comparison with what you’d keep if you sold the same item on your own WooCommerce store with PayNow.
Give it a try and see what numbers you get!
