Whatnot vs Fanatics Live vs TikTok Shop fees for breakers

On US rates read on 16 September 2026, Whatnot charges 8% commission plus 2.9% payment processing and a $0.30 transaction fee. Fanatics Live charges a 6% transaction fee plus the same 2.9% and $0.30. TikTok Shop charges a 6% referral fee on the Collectibles rows for cards, and neither of its two referral fee pages publishes a separate processing fee.

Those Collectibles rows are Trading Cards and Accessories and Sports Collectibles, named in the table below. The rate is the easy half. What each percentage is charged on differs across the three, and that base is where a real sale gains or loses a dollar. A fee base is the number a percentage is multiplied by, and the three platforms do not use the same one. Whatnot's processing fee is the only one of the three that its own page says applies to buyer-paid shipping and tax.

Every figure below comes from the platform's own page with the date that page shows, rather than from another comparison, because comparison pages get this wrong. The error we see most often is dropping Whatnot's $0.30 or charging its 2.9% on the item price alone, which understates what a real order pays.

Whatnot moved after those captures were taken. It rewrote its fee schedule on 17 September 2026, and from 21 September 2026 the 8% is the Standard commission tier rather than a flat rate, stepping down to 6.50% for US Sports and Trading Card Games as four-week sales grow. The three-way comparison below is Standard against Standard, which is the honest like-for-like, and the tier table is in does Whatnot lower your commission when you sell more. Neither of the other two platforms publishes a volume tier on the pages read for this article.

US rates for card sellers. Whatnot's fee schedule as dated 17 September 2026, Fanatics Live's Seller fees page timestamped 3 February 2026 in its page data and showing no date on screen, TikTok Shop's referral fee pages dated 14 May 2026 and 8 May 2025. All three read on 16 September 2026, and the Fanatics Live and Whatnot pages read again on 21 September 2026 with these rates unchanged.

Read only the first row and Fanatics Live and TikTok Shop look cheaper than Whatnot by two points. Read the third and the reason for part of that gap appears: Whatnot is the one charging a percentage on the buyer's shipping and tax as well as the item.

A fee base is the number a percentage is multiplied by. Two platforms can advertise the same rate and charge different money, because one counts the buyer's shipping and sales tax and the other does not.

Whatnot is explicit about it. Its schedule says commission is a percentage of the final sale price excluding shipping and taxes, and that payment processing is a percentage of total order value, which usually includes the item price, any shipping the buyer pays at checkout, and buyer-paid taxes. That is why two identical $50 cards can pay different fees: the buyer further away pays more shipping, and the 2.9% grows with it. The whole mechanism is worked through in Whatnot fees explained.

Fanatics Live is explicit in the other direction. Its Seller fees page says the fees apply to the amount net of taxes, shipping and handling and other fees paid by the buyer, so both the 6% and the 2.9% land on the item alone.

TikTok Shop is the one that does not settle it. Its referral fee page gives the formula as the referral fee rate times Customer Payment plus Platform Discount minus Tax, and its worked example subtracts a $2 sales tax line from a $102 customer payment. Tax is named and removed. Shipping is not named at all, in the formula or the example, so whether buyer-paid shipping sits inside Customer Payment is not answered on the page. We have not found a TikTok Shop page that answers it, and we are not going to guess on your behalf.

A single card sells for $100. The buyer pays $5.50 shipping and $6.00 sales tax, so $111.50 leaves their card. Here is what each schedule takes, cent by cent.

• Whatnot: $11.53. Commission is 8% of $100, so $8.00. Processing is 2.9% of the full $111.50, so $3.23, plus the $0.30. Measured against the $100 you sold the card for, that is 11.53%.
• Fanatics Live: $9.20. The transaction fee is 6% of $100, so $6.00. Processing is 2.9% of $100, so $2.90, plus the $0.30. Against the same $100, 9.20%.
• TikTok Shop: $6.00 or $6.33. The referral fee is 6% of Customer Payment plus Platform Discount minus Tax. Take $111.50 less the $6.00 tax and you get $105.50, so $6.33. If buyer-paid shipping is outside Customer Payment, the base is $100.00 and the fee is $6.00. The page does not say which, and the gap is 33 cents on this sale.

The spread between the cheapest and the dearest of the three is between $5.20 and $5.53 on a $100 card. Most of that is Whatnot's payment processing fee, which the other two either fold into one rate or charge on a smaller base: $3.23 of it. The two point commission gap is $2.00, the base itself is worth 33 cents, and the fixed $0.30 is the rest. The base's share grows as shipping and tax grow relative to the item, which is exactly what happens on cheap cards: is a one dollar card worth selling on Whatnot works that end of the range. The free Whatnot fee calculator runs the Whatnot side of this on any sale, in any region.

Breakers do not sell one card, they sell spots. Take a $2,100 case broken into 30 team spots that all fill at $95, so $2,850 of gross sales across 30 separate checkouts. Assume each buyer pays $5.50 shipping and $6.00 tax, the same as above.

• Whatnot: $329.70 of fees. Commission 8% of $2,850 is $228.00. Processing is 2.9% of $95 plus $5.50 plus $6.00, so $3.09 a spot, times 30 is $92.70, plus 30 lots of $0.30, which is $9.00.
• Fanatics Live: $262.80 of fees. 6% of $2,850 is $171.00, processing 2.9% of $95 is $2.76 a spot or $82.80, plus the same $9.00 of fixed fees.
• TikTok Shop: $171.00, or $180.90. 6% of $2,850 if shipping sits outside the base, or 6% of $95 plus $5.50 a spot if it sits inside. Neither referral fee page publishes a fixed fee.

The show profit is $2,520.30 on Whatnot and $2,587.20 on Fanatics Live. Take away the $2,100 the case cost and the net profit is $420.30 and $487.20, before a single shipping label. The fee gap between the two platforms on one case is $66.90.

Three things about those numbers. They assume all 30 spots fill, which is the assumption a fee table always makes and a break night often does not: what a 24 of 30 night does to the same case is in how to price break spots. They exclude shipping labels you pay for, refunds, and the giveaways most breakers run. And they exclude every platform's discount programs, which is the next section.

Four things move real money more than two percentage points do, and none of them is on any of the three schedules.

• Your actual rate may not be the published one. Whatnot runs off-schedule programs that cut commission for some sellers, including a monthly Premier Shop status worth a tenth of the commission rate. Which ones reach a card seller is the whole of does Whatnot lower your commission when you sell more.
• When you get the money is not the rate. TikTok Shop's own page says it settles an order after it is delivered to the customer and no refund or return request is open. What that costs a breaker in practice, tier by tier, is worked through in is TikTok Shop cheaper than Whatnot, and Whatnot's side of the clock is in when do Whatnot sellers get paid.
• Shipping is a separate bill everywhere. None of the three rates above includes a label. Who pays for one on Whatnot, and the two places it lands in your report, is in who pays shipping on Whatnot.
• Format rules decide whether you can run the show at all. Each platform names the break formats it permits and the ones it does not, and the lists do not match. TikTok Shop's four allowed and eight prohibited formats are set out in is TikTok Shop cheaper than Whatnot, and what Fanatics Live requires of a break and a breaker is in Fanatics Live seller requirements. Check the current rules for your format on the platform itself before you price anything around a rate.

On published US rates alone, TikTok Shop's 6% with no separate processing fee is lowest, Fanatics Live's 6% plus 2.9% and $0.30 is next, and Whatnot's 8% plus 2.9% and $0.30 is highest. On the $100 card above that is $6.00 to $6.33, then $9.20, then $11.53.

Cheapest is not the same as best, and the four items above are why.

It is also the comparison most likely to be out of date first. Fanatics Live's page says in as many words that it may update the schedule at any time, and it renders no date beside the text, though its page data carries one: 3 February 2026, read again on 21 September 2026 with the schedule unchanged. Re-read the platform's own page on the day you are deciding.

Two sibling pages carry the parts a schedule cannot hold. What Fanatics Live asks of a seller before a sale, and the costs that reach you as a monthly invoice rather than on an order, are in Fanatics Live seller requirements. Whether the lower TikTok Shop rate is worth the move, once settlement timing, refund cost and break format rules are counted, is in is TikTok Shop cheaper than Whatnot.

BreakCount imports the Whatnot Weekly Order Report, the per-order file that itemises every commission, processing fee and shipping charge. We do not import Fanatics Live or TikTok Shop data, and a seller running two platforms keeps two records today. If Whatnot is where your shows are, the report is in how to download and read the Whatnot Weekly Order Report, and what we do with it is one cost per purchase lot, spread across that lot's sales, so each show ends with a real net profit rather than a fee estimate.

For the fourth schedule breakers ask about, the eBay comparison is in Whatnot fees vs eBay fees, and the card-specific Whatnot rates are in Whatnot fees for sports cards.

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