How Much Does TikTok Shop Take From Sellers? (Real Numbers on a $25 Sale)

Short answer: For most US sellers, TikTok Shop keeps 6% of what the buyer pays for your product and its shipping, before sales tax. On a $25 sale with free shipping, that’s $1.50, so $23.50 comes back to you. A few jewelry and pre-owned categories pay 5%. This one fee also covers payment processing, so there’s no extra card fee on top.

That’s TikTok’s cut. Your real costs will usually be higher, because creator commission, shipping labels and refunds come out of the same sale. Below, we go through each of these one by one.

Last updated: October 20, 2026. Checked against TikTok’s US referral fee table and Seller Center policy pages. Rates can change.

What the 6% actually pays for?

TikTok calls its charge a referral fee. In its official referral fee policy, TikTok says this one fee “encompasses all TikTok Shop fees,” except shipping and tax.

In plain words, that means:

• No listing fee. You can add products for free.
• No monthly fee to keep your shop open.
• No separate payment processing fee. The card processing cost is already part of the 6%.

To be clear, “all TikTok Shop fees” means TikTok’s own charges. The 6% doesn’t cover your shipping labels, creator commissions, ads or product costs. Those are your costs, and we cover them below.

Some older guides still say TikTok adds 2% to 3% for processing on top of 6%. That’s outdated for US orders. If your settlement report ever shows a line you don’t recognize, trust the report and add that cost to your numbers.

The rate depends on your category

TikTok publishes a full referral fee table by category. Most sellers only need three lines of it:

• 6% for almost everything: beauty, fashion, home, electronics, toys, food, pet supplies and more.
• 5% for five fine jewelry types (diamond, gold, jade, platinum, and ruby, sapphire or emerald) and for all Pre-Owned categories.
• 3% on the part of a sale above $10,000 in Collectibles and Pre-Owned. The first $10,000 still pays the normal rate.

Silver jewelry, pearls and costume jewelry stay at 6%. Check your exact category before you set a price.

How does TikTok work out the fee?

TikTok’s own formula is:

Referral fee = rate × (what the customer paid + any TikTok-funded discount − sales tax)

That’s accurate, but it’s easier to remember as three simple rules:

1. Shipping the buyer pays is counted. TikTok says the calculation base “includes the shipping fee paid by the customer.” So if a buyer pays $4.99 for shipping on a $25 item, TikTok takes 6% of $29.99, which is $1.80. That’s 7.2% of your item price. This is why the fee can look higher than 6% when you check your payout.
2. Your own discounts lower the fee. If you cut a $25 item to $22.50, the fee is 6% of $22.50, which is $1.35.
3. TikTok’s discounts don’t lower it. If TikTok funds a $3 coupon, the buyer pays $22 but TikTok adds the $3 back when it calculates your fee. You still pay 6% of $25, and you still receive the full price.

Sales tax is never part of the base. TikTok collects and sends sales tax for you, so you don’t pay a fee on it.

A $25 sale, line by line

Here’s one ordinary order. The product costs you $8, the shipping label costs $5, and the buyer gets free shipping. These two costs are example numbers. Yours will be different.

• Sale price: $25.00
• TikTok referral fee (6%): −$1.50
• What TikTok sends you: $23.50
• Shipping label you pay: −$5.00
• Product cost: −$8.00
• Left in your pocket: $10.50

TikTok took $1.50. Most of what came off the sale went to your product and shipping, not to TikTok.

Now say a creator sold that same item through an affiliate video, and you set a 15% commission. Under TikTok’s affiliate commission rules, the creator earns that rate on the price the buyer actually paid for the item. On a partial refund, it’s worked out on what’s left, and on a full refund it drops to zero. Here that’s $3.75, so your remaining amount drops to $6.75. That’s before any other costs like ads, packaging or returns.

Not sure what your own numbers look like? Put your price, product cost, shipping and creator rate into our TikTok Shop fee calculator and you’ll see the result in a few seconds.

The same math at $10, $25 and $60

These numbers assume free shipping for the buyer, no discounts and a 6% category.

Sale price	TikTok’s fee	After TikTok’s fee	After TikTok’s fee and 15% creator commission
$10	$0.60	$9.40	$7.90
$25	$1.50	$23.50	$19.75
$60	$3.60	$56.40	$47.40

These aren’t profits. Product cost, shipping labels, ads and other expenses still have to come out of these amounts.

The percentage stays the same at every price. But on a $10 item, your shipping label might cost half the sale price. Low prices hurt sellers because of shipping costs, not because of TikTok’s fee.

Costs that aren’t TikTok’s fee but still come out

When sellers ask “how much does TikTok Shop take,” they usually mean everything that comes out of a sale. Here’s what else to plan for:

• Creator commission. You choose the rate when you list a product for affiliates. Creators who already promote your product keep the old rate for 30 days if you lower it. See what commission rates other sellers offer.
• Shipping labels. You pay for these whether you buy them through TikTok Shipping or somewhere else.
• Ads. These are optional, but many sellers who grow quickly run them. Our break-even ROAS calculator shows how much ad spend a product can take before it stops making money.
• Returns. These are covered in the next section.

If you’re still deciding whether the platform is worth it for your product, we walk through creator and ad costs in detail in Is TikTok Shop worth it?

What happens to the fee when an order is refunded?

If an order is cancelled, returned or refunded, TikTok gives back the referral fee minus a Refund Administration Fee of 20% of that fee. Since May 15, 2025, this admin fee is capped at $5 per SKU.

On our $25 item, a full refund looks like this:

• Original referral fee: $1.50
• TikTok keeps 20% of it: $0.30
• You get back $1.20

On a $500 item, 20% of the fee would be $6, but the cap brings it down to $5.

There’s no admin fee in two cases: refunds on “buy now, refund later” creator sample orders, and buyer cancellations before the order ships that meet TikTok’s auto-cancel rules.

The $0.30 is small. The bigger loss on a return is usually the shipping you already paid and a product you might not be able to resell.

TikTok’s own example, checked line by line

TikTok shows its math on a sample order in its referral fee policy. The buyer paid $102, TikTok funded a $5 discount, and $2 of the payment was sales tax and retail delivery fee.

If nothing is refunded:
6% × ($102 + $5 − $2) = $6.30 referral fee

If half the order is refunded:
The refund takes away $51 of the payment, $2.50 of the TikTok discount and $1 of the tax.
6% × ($102 − $51 + $5 − $2.50 − $2 + $1) = $3.15 referral fee
Refund admin fee: $6.30 × 50% × 20% = $0.63

If the whole order is refunded:
Referral fee: $0
Refund admin fee: $6.30 × 20% = $1.26

Two things stand out. The TikTok-funded $5 is still part of the fee base, even though the buyer never paid it. And a full refund still costs you $1.26, so even a cancelled sale isn’t completely free.

When the money actually reaches you?

A sale today isn’t money today. TikTok’s Finances FAQ says it starts your payout 1 to 31 days after the order is delivered, not after it’s placed.

Where you fall in that range depends on your settlement tier. Under TikTok’s Dynamic Settlement and Reserve Policy, shops are reviewed on the 1st of every month. New shops and shops on probation start on an introductory tier. Shops with a strong Shop Performance Score (TikTok suggests staying above 4.0) can move to faster tiers.

A few more things can slow your money down:

• Reserves. TikTok can hold back part of each delivered order for 30 days to cover returns. Any amount it doesn’t need is released after that.
• Open disputes. An order with an open refund or return request won’t settle until the request is resolved.
• Security checks. TikTok can move any shop to a deferred tier while it runs checks.
• The $1 minimum. Payouts only go out once your balance is at least $1.

After TikTok sends the payout, it usually takes 1 to 3 business days for the money to reach your bank. If you’re using TikTok income to buy stock, plan for a gap of a few weeks, especially when your shop is new.

Is TikTok raising the fee to 8%?

You may have seen posts saying TikTok Shop raised its US fee to 8% in August 2026. As of October 20, 2026, TikTok’s official category fee table (last revised October 8, 2026) still lists 6% for most categories. We haven’t found an official TikTok notice for 8%.

TikTok’s policy says it will try to notify sellers about 30 days before any major fee change. If the rate changes, we’ll update this guide and our calculator. Until then, plan with 6%, and check your settlement statement to see what you’re actually charged.

Ways to keep more of each sale

• Charge shipping inside your price. TikTok takes 6% either way, but “free shipping” listings often convert better.
• Use your own discounts carefully. They do lower the fee, but they lower your revenue much more than that.
• Set creator commission from your margin, not from habit. Work out your profit first, then decide what percentage you can share.
• Cut returns before they happen. Clear photos, honest sizing and good packaging cost less than return fees and lost shipping.
• Price above the “tiny item” zone. At $8 to $10, a $5 shipping label leaves almost nothing.

TikTok Shop fee questions

Check your own product in seconds

Every product has a different price, shipping cost and creator rate, so the only number that really matters is yours. Our free TikTok Shop fee calculator lets you enter your selling price, product cost, shipping cost and creator commission. Under “More options,” you can also add a seller discount, shipping the buyer pays, ad spend and your refund rate. It then shows your TikTok fee and what’s left per order, using the same TikTok formula explained above.

Selling on more than one platform? Compare the same product with our Etsy fee calculator and Shopify fee calculator. To see how we check our numbers, read How We Calculate.