Every marketplace advertises its cut as a single tidy percentage, and every seller who has actually shipped an order knows that number is not what came out of the sale. Between the referral fee, the payment charge, the shipping label, the subscription and — for anyone paid in another currency — the exchange margin, the gap between the headline and the deposit is where a first year of selling quietly turns unprofitable.
This is a comparison method rather than a fee table, and deliberately so: platforms change their rates without warning, and a rate copied from an article is worth nothing next quarter. What does not change is the anatomy of the bill. Learn the five layers, price them for your own product, and you can rank any platform in an afternoon — including the ones that did not exist when this was written.
Cash flow is the real constraint when you start, since stock is paid for before anything sells. Some sellers cover that first float with side income; I am Beezy turns the videos and articles you already look at into small credited payouts, which is a modest but genuinely independent stream while your listings find an audience.
Which fees does a Canadian marketplace actually charge a seller?
Five layers, in the order they hit you. Almost every dispute about which platform is cheapest comes from comparing one layer while ignoring the other four.
The five layers of a marketplace bill
First, a commission on the sale price, usually varying by product category. Second, a payment processing charge, sometimes bundled into the commission and sometimes billed separately. Third, a listing or subscription cost, which can be zero or a flat monthly amount. Fourth, fulfilment: warehousing, picking and shipping if you use the platform's logistics rather than your own. Fifth, advertising, which is optional in theory and close to mandatory on crowded categories. A platform with a low commission and expensive fulfilment can cost more per order than one with a high commission and none.
Listing and subscription costs are rarely the deciding factor
Sellers fixate on the monthly plan because it is the one number shown before sign-up. It matters only at low volume: a fixed cost divided across two orders is punishing and across two hundred is noise. Work out the monthly volume at which the subscription stops mattering for your product, and you will know whether to care about it at all.
The fee you only notice at payout
If a platform settles in United States dollars and your account is Canadian, a conversion happens and it carries a margin. Currency is not a rounding error here: the Bank of Canada published 1 USD at 1.4068 CAD on 4 August 2026, so a price set in "dollars" without specifying which means nothing. Check which currency you are paid in, and whether you can be paid in Canadian dollars directly.
The platforms Canadian sellers actually use
The list below is not a ranking. It is a map of business models, because the model predicts the cost structure far better than any individual rate does.
The generalists
Amazon.ca, Walmart.ca, eBay.ca and Best Buy Canada bring traffic you could not buy yourself, and they charge for it through category commissions. They also impose their own service standards, and a seller account that fails them can be suspended regardless of how good the fees looked.
The specialists and the classifieds
Etsy concentrates buyers looking for handmade and vintage goods, which changes what a percentage is worth: a higher cut on a buyer who was already looking for your category beats a lower cut on a buyer who was not. Kijiji and Facebook Marketplace sit at the other extreme — local, person-to-person, typically settled in cash or by Interac e-Transfer, with no fulfilment layer and no platform guarantee either.
Getting paid on a classified sale
Selling locally removes the fee and replaces it with risk you carry yourself. Payment normally happens in cash or by Interac e-Transfer, the domestic rail built into every Canadian bank and caisse app, and once an e-Transfer is deposited there is no platform to appeal to. Treat any buyer who wants to send more than the asking price and have the difference returned as a loss in progress, and meet in a public place. The absence of a commission is real; so is the absence of a dispute process.
Your own store
Shopify and comparable platforms remove the commission entirely and replace it with a subscription plus payment processing. The trade is blunt: you keep more of each sale and you pay for every visitor yourself. It rarely wins in year one and often wins by year three, which is why the honest answer to "which is cheapest" is "cheapest at what volume".
| Model | Examples | Where the cost concentrates | Best suited to |
|---|---|---|---|
| Generalist marketplace | Amazon.ca, Walmart.ca, eBay.ca, Best Buy Canada | Category commission and fulfilment | Products with existing search demand |
| Specialist marketplace | Etsy | Commission plus in-platform advertising | Handmade, vintage, niche categories |
| Classifieds | Kijiji, Facebook Marketplace | Your own time and no buyer protection | Bulky, local, second-hand items |
| Your own store | Shopify and similar | Subscription plus traffic acquisition | Repeat customers and known brands |
How do you work out which platform is cheapest for your product?
The comparison only becomes real when it is done in dollars per order, on your product, at your expected volume.
Compute cost per sale, not fee percentage
Take one representative item. For each platform, write down the sale price, then subtract the commission, the payment charge, the shipping cost you actually bear, the share of the monthly subscription at your expected volume, and any conversion margin. What remains is your net per order. Two platforms whose advertised rates differ by several points frequently land within a dollar of each other once shipping and subscription are included.
The break-even question
Do the same calculation twice: once at ten orders a month, once at two hundred. Fixed costs collapse as volume rises and commissions do not, so the ranking usually flips somewhere in between. Knowing where that crossing point sits tells you when to move, rather than leaving it to a bad month.
The advertising layer nobody budgets for
On a crowded marketplace, visibility is auctioned. That means the effective commission on a competitive category is the published rate plus whatever you had to bid to be seen, and sellers who leave advertising out of the sheet consistently over-estimate their margin. Run the calculation twice more — once with no advertising and once with the spend you would actually need to hold a position — and compare the two net figures. If the platform only works with the advertising switched on, that is its real price.
Returns change the ranking
Ask, per platform, whether the commission is refunded when a sale is, who pays return shipping, and how a dispute is resolved. On categories with frequent returns this single answer can outweigh every fee difference on your sheet.
Funding the first stock with I am Beezy
Nobody's first order is placed with money the business earned. The float comes from somewhere, and where it comes from decides how calmly you can price.
How the earnings work
I am Beezy works on a simple principle: you watch videos, read articles and view advertisements, and every view is credited before being sent to the payment method you already use. The platform's reference range is 5 to 15 euros a day — around 8 to 24 Canadian dollars using the euro rate the Bank of Canada published on 4 August 2026, a rate that floats and is worth rechecking.
Where it fits in a seller's cash flow
It will not stock a warehouse. What it does is cover the recurring small costs that arrive before revenue does — a subscription, a batch of packaging, a sample order — so those are not paid out of the money you needed for inventory.
Sales tax is part of your price, and it is not one rate
This is where sellers arriving from elsewhere lose money, because Canada does not have a single consumption tax and the tax is not included in the shelf price.
Four regimes, not one
The federal GST is 5 per cent everywhere, under section 165(1) of the Excise Tax Act. In five provinces it is absorbed into a harmonized tax: 13 per cent in Ontario, 14 per cent in Nova Scotia, and 15 per cent in New Brunswick, Newfoundland and Labrador, and Prince Edward Island. Quebec applies its own QST of 9.975 per cent on top of the GST, and the Quebec legislation itself states the combined rate of 14.975 per cent. British Columbia adds a 7 per cent provincial sales tax to the GST.
Who collects and who remits
Some platforms collect the tax at checkout and remit it themselves; others leave it entirely to you. This is not a detail you should assume from an American guide — confirm it in writing with each platform, and confirm your own registration obligations with the Canada Revenue Agency, or with Revenu Québec if you operate from Quebec, where a second set of filings applies.
Stock bought abroad
Inventory imported from the United States or Asia can attract customs duties and tax at the border, which land on your cost of goods rather than on your fee sheet. Thresholds and treatment depend on the goods and their origin; check with the Canada Border Services Agency before you commit to a supplier, not after the shipment is already in transit.
| Province or territory | Combined rate added at checkout | Basis |
|---|---|---|
| Ontario | 13 per cent | GST 5 per cent plus 8 per cent provincial component |
| Nova Scotia | 14 per cent | GST 5 per cent plus 9 per cent provincial component |
| New Brunswick, Newfoundland and Labrador, Prince Edward Island | 15 per cent | GST 5 per cent plus 10 per cent provincial component |
| Quebec | 14.975 per cent | GST 5 per cent plus QST 9.975 per cent |
| British Columbia | 12 per cent | GST 5 per cent plus PST 7 per cent |
| Other provinces and territories | Check before pricing | GST 5 per cent applies; provincial treatment varies |
What to do before your first listing
Build a one-page cost sheet
One row per platform, one column each for commission, payment charge, shipping, subscription share, advertising and conversion margin, and a final column for net per order at two different volumes. Keep it in a spreadsheet and revisit it every time a platform changes its terms, which will be more often than you expect.
The mistake to avoid on day one
Do not choose the platform with the lowest advertised commission and discover the rest later. Choose the one with the best net per order on your product, at the volume you can honestly reach in three months, and re-run the sheet when you get there. While that first stock is still tied up and the sales are still thin, keeping an independent trickle of income coming in makes the whole thing less fragile — that is precisely the role I am Beezy can play alongside a young store.
