Every Depop sale looks bigger on the listing screen than it does once it lands in your balance. The gap between the two is fees — and most sellers can name that a fee exists without knowing exactly what it costs them per sale.
The selling fee
Depop takes a percentage-based selling fee out of every completed sale, charged on the total the buyer pays (item price plus shipping, if you charge for it separately). This is Depop's own cut for hosting your shop and processing the transaction — it's deducted automatically before the balance ever reaches your account, so the number in your Depop balance is already net of this fee.
The payment processing cut
Layered on top of the selling fee is a smaller payment processing charge, which covers the cost of actually moving the buyer's payment method into your Depop balance. It's a standard cost of accepting card and digital wallet payments — every marketplace has some version of it, Depop included — and like the selling fee, it's deducted before you ever see the number.
Shipping costs you absorb
If you use calculated or buyer-pays-shipping, this part is straightforward. But sellers who build shipping into their listing price, or who eat a shipping shortfall to stay price-competitive, are effectively paying an extra fee that never shows up on a statement — it just quietly reduces margin. See does Depop offer free shipping for how buyer-pays shipping actually works today.
Why the balance number is misleading
The Depop balance you see reflects gross sale price minus the selling fee and payment processing cut — not minus what the item actually cost you to source. A $40 sale that nets $34 in your balance after Depop's fees can still be a loss if you sourced the item for $30 and spent $5 on packaging, even though the balance itself looks perfectly healthy. This exact gap — balance versus real profit — is why pricing for profit has to start from sourcing cost, not from what Depop shows you after a sale clears.
Doing the math on every sale automatically
Manually subtracting Depop's fees from every sale price to find real margin doesn't scale past a handful of listings a week. DepopAutomation.com's profit tracker logs your sourcing cost when you list an item, then automatically deducts Depop's selling fee, payment processing cut, and shipping cost the moment it sells — so the number you see is real net profit, not a balance you still have to do math on. It runs alongside the AI listing tool, bulk lister, and automatic relisting, so fee-aware pricing scales with volume instead of falling apart at it.
Conclusion
Depop's selling fee and payment processing cut come out before your balance ever updates, which makes the balance look like profit even when it isn't. Price with those fees — and your actual sourcing cost — built in from the start, and let a profit tracker confirm the math on every sale.