Collectible selling
A Pokémon card sale is revenue. Calculate what remains after grading and fees.
A screenshot of a high sale price leaves out most of the transaction. Before deciding that a card was a good purchase or that grading paid for itself, keep the acquisition, submission, shipping and selling costs beside the money collected.
Read a fictional receipt from top to bottom
Use these illustrative assumptions, not a marketplace fee quote: item sale USD 150, shipping collected USD 5, purchase USD 80, grading USD 20, shipping and packaging paid USD 6, a 13% variable fee and a USD 0.30 flat fee. There are no additional costs or extra fee-base amounts in this example.
The variable fee is 13% of USD 155, or USD 20.15. Total modeled costs are USD 126.45. Revenue of USD 155 less those costs leaves USD 28.55 before tax and unmodeled costs. The seller did not earn USD 70 merely because the item sold for 150 after being bought for 80.
Check what the marketplace actually charges fees on
The fee base is a separate input. A marketplace may include shipping or buyer tax in the amount used to calculate its fee. If buyer tax is collected and remitted without becoming your income, putting it into seller revenue would be wrong. The calculator provides an additional fee-base field for that situation.
Use the marketplace’s current terms and the actual transaction statement. A fixed illustrative 13% is not a claim about today’s eBay, TCGplayer, auction or payment fee. Returns, insurance, financing, tax treatment and shipping losses also need their own records or scenarios.
Find the selling-price threshold
Under the same example assumptions, an item price of USD 117.18 covers the modeled costs; USD 117.17 leaves a one-cent loss. This boundary includes per-transaction rounding rather than merely rounding a continuous percentage formula at the end.
The displayed ROI divides profit by all modeled transaction costs. Other sellers may mean return on purchase price or return on cash tied up when they say ROI. Compare definitions before comparing percentages. With zero transaction costs, this ROI is undefined, not infinite profit performance.
A cost calculation cannot value or authenticate the card
Use exact printing, set and card number, language, condition, grade and dated sale evidence when researching a price. A listing is not proof of a completed sale, and a completed sale of a different edition is not a matched comparable.
Grading outcomes and future prices remain uncertain. This tool accepts your price and cost assumptions; it does not predict a grade, access a licensed price feed or certify authenticity. Keep raw-sale, grading and downside scenarios separate before committing cash.
Primary references
Authored 2026-10-29. Arithmetic examples are covered by local regression tests. New workflow guides remain outside the indexing allowlist pending editorial and applicable specialist review. Examples use the assumptions stated here; authority guidance can change.