The marketplace commission model you choose is a pricing decision with your vendors as the customer, not just a revenue line for your own business. Get it wrong and the wrong vendors either never join or leave for a platform that priced it better.
Flat-rate commission
One percentage across every sale, every category, every vendor. It is the easiest model to explain and to build, and the right starting point for most new marketplaces — predictable for vendors, simple to calculate and audit.
Category-based commission
Different categories carry different margins in the real world, so many mature marketplaces charge a lower rate on low-margin categories (electronics, for example) and a higher rate on high-margin ones (apparel, handmade goods). This keeps thin-margin vendors viable on the platform at all.
Tiered commission by volume
Commission rate drops as a vendor's sales volume rises. This rewards your best-performing sellers and gives every vendor a concrete incentive to grow on your platform specifically, rather than splitting inventory across competitors.
Subscription plus reduced commission
Vendors pay a recurring seat fee in exchange for a lower per-sale commission — effectively letting high-volume sellers buy down their marginal cost. This hybrid works well once you have enough serious vendors to make the subscription tier worth offering.
Fixed fee per listing or transaction
A flat dollar amount per sale instead of a percentage. This suits marketplaces with a narrow, predictable price range — it becomes unfair fast on platforms selling both $10 and $10,000 items.
Picking a starting point
Start with a flat rate. It is the easiest for vendors to understand and trust before they have any track record with your platform, and it is the easiest to explain in vendor recruitment conversations. Layer in category or volume tiers later, once real sales data tells you where a single rate is actually costing you good vendors.
VendMart's Admin Panel supports global and per-vendor commission overrides from the same settings screen, so the model can evolve as the marketplace does — without a re-platform.
