The costs you may not be aware of when you buy and sell on Reverb.com whether you are buying or selling

 

If you have ever used Reverb.com, you have probably had a little bit of a nasty surprise when all of the little fees they collect before you get what you wanted out of the deal (either whatever you bought or paid for what you sold).  There is a reason for this:  Reverb gets quite the tidy little chunk for the bit of service they have provided.  This rather long and fairly boring post breaks it down so the normal person can understand where the money is going.  We'll start with the fees that a seller pays and go into asking prices and negotiating prices through Reverb's site.

Reverb’s advertised “5% selling fee” significantly understates the economic cost of a typical transaction. The important part is that several charges are layered on top of one another, and some are calculated on amounts that aren't really seller revenue.

Per Reverb's current U.S. fee and shipping policies as of September 2026. Here is where the extra money goes.

Seller side

For a normal U.S. seller using Reverb Payments, the unavoidable starting point is:

So your real mandatory Reverb cost is approximately 8.2%, not 5%, before shipping-related costs.

The first hook is fees on shipping. Suppose you sell a guitar for $700 and charge $75 shipping. Reverb's 5% selling fee isn't $35; it's $38.75, because the $75 shipping charge is treated as part of the sale.

The second, less obvious hook is payment processing on sales tax. If the buyer pays $55 in tax, you never actually receive that $55 as income—Reverb collects and remits it—but the processing percentage is nevertheless calculated on it.   

You just took a hit on money that you never saw--you're effectively paying a small fee for processing money that was never yours.  

SAFE SHIPPING has become particularly interesting because Reverb's current documentation says that with calculated shipping, the buyer pays the Safe Shipping/protection charge.  It's actually a form of insurance that takes care of both the buyer and the seller so nobody is out of any money.  This is an optional service that Reverb sells to sellers until you're selling $1500 or more.  If you're selling a $50 pedal, you don't have to use safe shipping.  More on this later.

***Out of all of these extra costs, safe shipping is the one that I have found to have real value.  I have had instruments and pedals damaged in transit and safe shipping has paid for all of them.  I pack them fully intending that they will be handled rough and with the firm belief that a proper job of packing can protect the item from all but the most violent of assaults***

Reverb says Safe Shipping generally adds roughly 1%–3.5% of the item's sale price, depending on the gear and destination.

And for calculated shipping, orders of $1,500 or more automatically get Safe Shipping and signature added to the buyer's shipping cost.

That's important because the buyer isn't really comparing:

Your $999 guitar versus somebody else's $999 guitar.

He's potentially looking at:

$999 + shipping + Safe Shipping + signature + sales tax.

That can turn a seemingly attractive $999 instrument into an $1,150-ish checkout pretty quickly.

Bump is where seller costs can really climb

Bump is a percentage you select, and it is charged only if the Bumped listing produces the sale. But the important fine print is that the Bump percentage applies to product price + shipping, not just your item price.

So if you're already paying roughly 8%, adding, say, a 5% Bump pushes your marketplace/processing expense to roughly 13% before considering your actual shipping economics, packing materials, returns, etc.

And there's another small hook: if an offer originates while the listing is Bumped and later results in a sale, Reverb says the Bump rate in effect when the initial offer was made applies.

The 0% financing program is especially expensive

If a Preferred Seller elects to offer Reverb's 0% APR Affirm financing, Reverb charges the seller a 6% co-op fee when a buyer uses it.

So potentially:

5% selling + ~3% processing + 6% financing = ~14%

before other costs.

The buyer may see "0% financing," but somebody is funding that promotion—the seller.

Regular Affirm financing can also cost the buyer considerably: Reverb currently says Affirm rates can range from 0% to 36% APR, depending on the seller, term and buyer's creditworthiness.

The buyer's "hidden" cost is mostly checkout inflation

Unlike the more directly documented sellers costs, the buyer gets hit indirectly:

listed price → shipping → Safe Shipping/protection → signature where applicable → sales tax → financing interest if used.

Some states also tax shipping, so sales tax can apply to both the guitar and the shipping charge.

That has a second-order effect on the seller: the higher the checkout price becomes, the more pressure there is for the buyer to make an offer.

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A realistic example

Suppose you have a used guitar that you want to sell for $799 + $65 shipping, and the buyer's sales tax is 7%.

Buyer pays approximately:

$799 item
+$65 shipping
+$60.48 tax
= $924.48

Ignoring any additional Safe Shipping/signature charge.

Your fees as a regular seller would be approximately:

5% × $864 = $43.20

3.19% × $924.48 + $0.49 = $29.98

Total Reverb/processing fees = $73.18

So you net approximately:

$864 − $73.18 = $790.82

and you still have to actually ship the guitar.

If the label costs $55:

$735.82

If the box/packing materials effectively cost another $10:

$725.82

You sold a "$799 guitar" and ended up with about $726.

And that's with no Bump, no return, no shipping adjustment and no problem transaction.

In other words, you need roughly $799 on Reverb to produce about $726 of usable revenue in this exam

That's about a 9% haircut from the advertised item price, even though the headline selling fee is only 5%.

 

Is it worth it?  Maybe.  I don't know your situation.  It depends on how fast you need to get rid of a piece of gear and what kind of potential loss you are willing to take compared to selling on facebook marketplace.  You have to deal with way fewer challenging customers on Reverb, but they are still there.  They have some interesting questions.  Usually involving the weight of the guitar, or measurements of stuff, or they want to trade something they haven't been able to sell for your stuff, or they may just want to make a friend.