The 7.9% success fee is gone for casual sellers
Here is the headline most fee guides have not caught up with yet: as of 10 March 2026, Trade Me removed its 7.9% success fee for casual sellers in Marketplace (general goods). If you are clearing out a wardrobe, selling secondhand gear or flicking on a one-off find, your listings — and your relists — are now free unless you choose to add optional paid extras.
That is a real break from how Trade Me worked for two decades. The old success fee took 7.9% of every casual sale, so an $80 item cost you roughly $6.30 just to sell. Any article still telling you “Trade Me charges 7.9%” for casual sellers is now out of date. As of 2026, that number simply does not apply to ordinary private sellers.
A couple of caveats worth stating up front. Some specialised categories may still carry a listing fee, and the change applies to casual general-goods listings — not to professional (in-trade) sellers, and not to Motor or Property, which run on their own separate fee regimes. We will cover each of those below.
Why Trade Me made the cut
Context matters here. Trade Me is by far New Zealand’s biggest marketplace — roughly 13.5 million monthly NZ visits, against eBay’s roughly 413,000. It has never had much domestic competition on scale.
What changed is Facebook Marketplace, which lets people list for free and has steadily pulled casual sellers away. Dropping the casual success fee is Trade Me’s direct answer to that no-fee model: keep everyday sellers on the platform rather than losing them to a free alternative. If you are weighing the two, we have a side-by-side in Trade Me vs Facebook Marketplace for NZ sellers.
What a casual sale actually costs now
For a straightforward casual listing with no paid extras, the answer is: nothing. You list, it sells, you keep the full sale price.
The one fee a casual seller can still incur on the sale itself is the Ping fee. Ping is Trade Me’s pay-now option, and it comes with buyer protection of up to $5,000. If you offer Ping on a listing and the buyer pays through it, Trade Me charges the seller a 2.19% Ping transaction fee (as of 2026). That is it — no separate success fee stacked on top.
It is worth understanding who pays what, because Trade Me also charges the buyer a service fee on Ping purchases. That fee comes out of the buyer’s pocket, not yours:
| Purchase amount | Buyer service fee |
|---|---|
| Up to $20.00 | Free |
| $20.01 – $100.00 | $0.99 |
| $100.01 – $250.00 | $1.99 |
| $250.01 and over | $4.99 |
So your cost as a casual seller is either zero (no Ping, or buyer pays another way) or a flat 2.19% on the total the buyer pays (item plus any shipping) when Ping is used. The buyer absorbs the service fee on their side.
Worked example: an $80 jacket sold via Ping
Numbers make this concrete. Say you list a jacket for $80 and the buyer pays through Ping.
- Sale price: $80.00
- Success fee: $0.00 (removed for casual sellers as of March 2026)
- Ping transaction fee (2.19% of $80): $1.75
- Your payout: about $78.25
On the buyer’s side, $80 falls in the $20.01–$100 band, so they pay a $0.99 service fee on top of the price — your payout is not touched by it.
For comparison, under the old 7.9% success fee that same $80 sale would have cost you around $6.30. The casual Ping fee of $1.75 is roughly a quarter of that, and if you do not use Ping it is nil.
What in-trade (professional) sellers still pay
This is the line a lot of coverage blurs, so be clear about which side you are on. If you are a registered in-trade or professional seller — running a business through Trade Me rather than selling personal items — the success fees still apply to you. The casual fee removal does not extend to professional accounts.
There is a corresponding difference on the buyer side: buyers purchasing from in-trade sellers do not pay the Ping service fee that applies to casual purchases. The fee model is genuinely split between the two seller types, so know which category your account sits in before you budget.
Motor and Property are separate again. Both run on their own fee structures and were unaffected by the March 2026 change, so do not assume the casual-goods rules carry across to a car or a property listing.
Confirm the live figures before you list
The Ping percentage and the service-fee tiers above come from the March 2026 coverage of this change (NZ Herald, RNZ and 1News). Fee schedules get adjusted, so before you rely on an exact number, check the current figures on the official Marketplace fees page at help.trademe.co.nz. Treat the 2.19% Ping fee and the buyer service-fee bands as accurate as of 2026, but verify them against the live page if a few dollars either way matters to your pricing.
Frequently asked questions
Does Trade Me still charge a success fee in 2026? Not for casual sellers in Marketplace. The 7.9% casual success fee was removed on 10 March 2026. In-trade (professional) sellers still pay success fees, and Motor and Property have their own separate fees.
Is it free to list on Trade Me now? For casual general-goods listings, yes — listing and relisting are free unless you add optional paid extras. Some specialised categories may still carry a listing fee, so check the category before you list.
What is the Ping fee? Ping is Trade Me’s pay-now option with buyer protection up to $5,000. If a casual seller offers Ping and the buyer pays through it, the seller pays a 2.19% transaction fee on the sale (as of 2026).
Who pays the buyer service fee? The buyer, on Ping purchases from casual sellers. It is free up to $20, then $0.99 ($20.01–$100), $1.99 ($100.01–$250), and $4.99 for $250.01 and over. It does not come out of the seller’s payout.
Do professional sellers get the free casual rate? No. The fee removal is for casual sellers only. If you sell as an in-trade or professional account, the success fees still apply.
Selling beyond Trade Me
If you are reselling clothing, shoes or accessories rather than doing a one-off clear-out, it is worth thinking about where else your items can go. The same secondhand jacket that sells on Trade Me will often sell on platforms like Depop too, each with its own fee structure. To compare what you would actually keep on a sale there, our Depop fee calculator runs the maths for you.
Selling across more than one marketplace also has tax implications once your activity looks like a business rather than a tidy-up. For where the line sits and what you need to declare in New Zealand, see our 2026 NZ reseller tax guide.
This article is general information about Trade Me’s fees as of 2026, not financial or tax advice. Fee schedules change — confirm the current figures on the official Marketplace fees page at help.trademe.co.nz, and consult a qualified accountant or Inland Revenue for advice specific to your situation.
