Track Your Real eBay Profit After Fees and Costs

“Total sales” is not profit. Every UK eBay seller knows this instinctively, but surprisingly few have a clear picture of their actual margins. After eBay’s multiple fee layers, shipping costs, returns, and the cost of goods sold, your real profit can be dramatically lower than your revenue suggests.

Where your money actually goes

Let’s take a typical example. You sell an item for £50 including postage:

  • Final value fee: -£5.00 (10%)
  • Regulatory operating fee: -£0.35 (0.7%)
  • International fee: -£0.68 (1.35%, if buyer is outside UK)
  • Shipping label: -£4.20 (Royal Mail 2nd Class Tracked)
  • Cost of goods: -£15.00 (what you paid for the item)
  • Packaging: -£1.50

Your actual profit on that £50 sale? About £23.27 — a 46.5% margin. Not terrible, but very different from the £50 that shows up in Seller Hub.

Now imagine tracking this across hundreds of sales per month, with different fee rates, varying shipping costs, and different cost prices per SKU. That is what profit tracking solves.

How our profit tracker works

The profit report pulls data from eBay’s Finances API and calculates:

  • Revenue: Total sales minus refunds = net revenue
  • Fees: Total eBay fees, broken down by type (final value, regulatory, international, etc.)
  • Shipping labels: Postage purchased through eBay
  • Cost of goods: Based on per-SKU costs you enter into the tool
  • Estimated profit: Revenue minus fees minus shipping minus COGS

An honest disclaimer

We call it “estimated profit” deliberately. Here is what the calculation does and does not include:

Included:

  • All sales and refund amounts from eBay
  • All fee types that eBay reports through the Finances API
  • Shipping labels purchased through eBay
  • Cost of goods for SKUs where you have entered a cost

Not included:

  • Postage paid outside eBay (e.g. directly through Royal Mail or Evri)
  • Packaging materials, unless you include them in your SKU cost
  • PayPal/payment processing fees (eBay handles payments now, so this is less relevant)
  • Business overheads (storage, internet, etc.)
  • SKUs where you have not entered a cost (these are flagged with a warning)

The tool clearly flags when data is missing or estimated. No black boxes, no inflated numbers. You always know exactly what went into the calculation.

Per-SKU profit breakdown

Beyond the overall report, the Pro plan shows profit per SKU. This tells you which products are actually making you money and which are barely breaking even after fees and costs.

For sellers with hundreds of SKUs, this can be genuinely eye-opening. That item you thought was profitable at £25 might be making £2 after fees and costs.

Getting started with profit tracking

  1. Install the extension and connect your eBay UK account
  2. Upgrade to Pro (profit tracking is a Pro feature)
  3. Enter your SKU costs in the dashboard costs page
  4. View the profit report — revenue, fees, costs, and margin all in one place

You can start without entering costs. The report will show revenue, fees, and net-before-COGS immediately. Add costs when you are ready for the full picture.