Most Depop sellers dramatically overestimate what they make. They see £30 land in their account and think they've made £30 profit. They haven't. By the time you account for Depop's fee, payment processing, postage, and what they paid for the item in the first place, that £30 sale might be £8 of actual profit — or less.
Tracking your real Depop profit isn't complicated once you have the right system. This guide walks through exactly how to do it — what fees to account for, what most sellers miss, and how to know your actual margin on every sale.
What Depop actually charges you
Depop's fee structure has changed several times, so always verify the current rates on their seller help pages. As of 2026, UK sellers pay a platform selling fee on each transaction. On top of that, payment processing fees apply — these cover the cost of handling the transaction through the payment provider.
The key point most sellers miss: fees are calculated on the total the buyer pays, which includes shipping if the buyer pays for it. This means your fee bill is higher than if it were calculated on the item price alone.
Platform selling fee
Charged as a percentage of the total sale (item + buyer shipping). Check Depop's current rates — they update periodically.
Payment processing fee
A small percentage plus a fixed amount per transaction. Applies to every sale.
Postage cost
If you offer free shipping or subsidise it, this comes directly out of your margin.
Item cost
What you paid for the item. Often underweighted in informal calculations.
The real profit formula
Here's the formula every Depop seller should be using:
Profit = Sale price
− Depop platform fee
− Payment processing fee
− Postage cost
− Item purchase cost
− Packaging cost
= Your actual profit
Run the numbers on your last 10 sales using this formula. For most sellers, the result is eye-opening — not necessarily because they're losing money, but because the margins are much tighter than the headline sale price suggests.
A worked example
Say you sell a jacket on Depop for £45 and the buyer pays £3.99 shipping — total transaction £48.99.
- Sale price received: £45.00
- Depop platform fee (~10% of £48.99): −£4.90
- Payment processing (~2.9% + fixed): −£1.72
- Royal Mail postage (you paid): −£3.99
- Item purchase cost: −£12.00
- Packaging (bag + tape): −£0.40
Actual profit: £21.99 — not £45, and not even close to £33 (sale minus item cost). Your margin here is around 49%.
That's a decent result on this item. But run the same exercise on a £12 item you bought for £4, and the picture looks very different once fees and postage eat into it.
What most Depop sellers get wrong
The most common mistakes when calculating Depop profit:
Forgetting payment processing fees
These are separate from Depop's platform fee and get missed constantly. They're not huge on each sale but add up significantly across dozens of transactions.
Not tracking postage accurately
Sellers often absorb part of the postage cost (especially when offering 'free shipping' or undercharging). This is a direct hit to margin that many don't record.
Ignoring packaging costs
Bubble mailers, poly bags, tissue paper, tape — small per unit but it adds up to a real number across a month of selling.
Only tracking revenue, not cost
Some sellers track total Depop income without logging what they paid for each item. This makes it impossible to know actual profit — only turnover.
Not tracking per item
Looking at total monthly profit is useful, but you also need item-level data to know which categories are worth sourcing and which are wasting your time.
Why spreadsheets don't cut it long-term
A spreadsheet can technically track all of the above, and many sellers start there. The problem is friction. Every sale means opening the spreadsheet, finding the right row, entering the sale price, looking up the fee calculation, and updating the item status. Most sellers stop doing this consistently after a few weeks.
The other issue: spreadsheets are static. They show you what you enter, but they don't tell you which items have been sitting unsold for 30 days, or surface patterns in what sells and what doesn't.
Once you're selling more than 20–30 items regularly, the spreadsheet becomes a chore rather than a tool.
Using dedicated reseller software to track Depop profit
Purpose-built reseller stock management software handles the friction that kills spreadsheet habits. When you record a sale, the profit calculation happens automatically — fees, postage costs, and item cost are all factored in based on what you logged when you added the item.
Sellganise is built specifically for UK resellers selling across Depop, Vinted, eBay, and Facebook Marketplace. The profit calculator uses current UK platform fee rates, so you get accurate margin figures without manual calculation. You can track every item from purchase through to sold, see your monthly profit totals, and export the data when you need it for tax records.
The key advantage isn't just the maths — it's that the data stays live. You can see at any point exactly what your profit is for the month, which items are still unlisted, and which have been sitting too long.
How to start tracking properly today
If you're starting from scratch, here's the minimum you need to track on every Depop sale:
- Item description
- What you paid for it (including any sourcing trip costs if applicable)
- Sale price
- Depop platform fee (from your seller account)
- Payment processing fee
- Postage cost you actually paid
- Net profit (sale price minus all of the above)
Do this for every sale for a month and you'll have a very clear picture of what your Depop selling is actually worth — and which items or categories are driving most of your profit.
The bottom line
Tracking Depop profit properly isn't optional if you want to grow your reselling business — it's the foundation everything else is built on. Knowing your real margins tells you what to source, what to price, and whether your operation is actually scaling.
The sellers who build consistent income on Depop are almost always the ones who know their numbers. The ones who burn out are usually the ones who were busier than they were profitable, without realising it until too late.
Start tracking every sale this week. Use a spreadsheet if that's where you are — but commit to it. Or use Sellganise to make the whole process automatic. Either way, knowing your numbers is what separates a hobby from a business.