How to sell blind box figures online: fees, taxes and what you keep (2026)

Two caveats. We have not sold figures on these platforms ourselves, so the take-home numbers are simple arithmetic on published fee rates, not real payouts. Fees, thresholds and policies were checked on 14 November 2026 and change often; confirm them on each platform's own page. The tax section describes US federal rules only. This is general information, not legal, tax or financial advice.

Check what yours really sells for first

Headline prices mislead. Forbes reported limited Labubu editions listed for as much as $7,000 on eBay and a Vans collaboration above $3,000 on StockX, and Antique Trader noted an "Angel in Clouds" figure that sold for $1,499. Those are the outliers people screenshot.

The ordinary figure is a different story. A promotional page from Alibaba's SmartBuy puts standard editions at roughly $30 to $80 on secondary sites, with rare chase figures above $500; treat that as a platform's marketing estimate rather than audited data. Open magazine, writing about Pop Mart's slowdown, reported a $26.99 Big into Energy item against an average StockX price near $6 over 36 sales in three months, and a secret figure averaging $70 across 95 sales. We could not see the underlying data, so read these as signals, not statistics.

What to do with that: ignore asking prices and look only at completed sales. On eBay, filter by sold items. On StockX, read the recent sales list rather than the lowest ask. Match the series, the character, the size and the condition, and write down the date of each sale you rely on, because prices for a hyped figure can move a lot in weeks. If you cannot find at least five or six recent sales of the same item, you are guessing, and the sensible response is to list at a firm price and wait rather than discount early.

Supply matters too. Resell Calendar noted more than 6,600 eBay sales of the Macaron blind box set alone, which tells you many sellers are chasing the same buyers. A figure that thousands of people are listing at once rarely holds a premium.

What each platform keeps from a $60 sale

Fee schedules are published, but they apply to different bases, so the same $60 figure does not leave the same amount in your pocket. The table assumes the buyer pays $5 postage that equals your real postage cost, and ignores sales tax, promoted listings, packing materials and returns.

Source quality varies, so here is what sits behind each row. eBay's own fee page states the structure: a percentage of the total amount of the sale, plus $0.30 for orders of $10 or less and $0.40 above that. The 13.6% headline rate comes from eBay's seller examples as repeated by several guides; trading cards and some collectibles are reported at 13.25%, and guides disagree on whether a given toy listing falls under that lower rate, so check the category you list in. Because the percentage applies to postage and sales tax too, your effective rate on the item itself runs higher than 13.6%: in our example the $9.24 fee equals about 15.4% of the $60 item price.

Mercari's 10% and the absence of a seller processing fee come from secondary coverage of the January 2025 change; its buyer fee of roughly 3.6% does not come out of your payout. Whatnot's rates come from third-party fee guides, and one of them mentions a category or tier-based commission introduced in September 2026 that we could not confirm, so your live-show fees may differ. StockX adds a transaction fee that depends on your seller level, and secondary sources disagree on its range; some also report changes from 1 March 2026. The range above reflects that disagreement.

Two practical points follow. First, a cheap figure suffers most from fixed fees: at $10, eBay's $0.40 per-order charge alone adds four points to the effective rate. Second, the cheapest platform on paper is not always the best, because the buyer pool differs. Whatnot sells through live shows, StockX through an authentication process and a bid-and-ask market, and Mercari and eBay through listings buyers search. Match the platform to how the figure is likely to be found.

Sealed or opened: what buyers are paying for

A sealed blind box sells the surprise. An opened figure sells what is inside it, and the price should follow the figure, not the box. We found no dataset that measures a sealed premium for blind boxes, so anything stronger than "it depends" would be invention. What can be said is more practical.

• Sealed. A sealed box sold as "mystery" shifts the risk to the buyer. Say clearly that it is unopened and that you do not know the figure inside; do not hint at weight or feel.
• Opened. Photograph the figure from several angles, include the card or foil bag if you have them, and describe any paint rubs, scuffs or loose parts. The more specific the condition notes, the fewer disputes.
• Claims. Never imply a sealed box is a known chase figure unless the seller guarantee on the box says so. Pull rates for a given series are rarely confirmed in public, so a claim about odds is hard to support.

Keep the proof of purchase for anything above a few tens of dollars. Several platforms ask sellers to prove a figure is genuine, and a retailer receipt is the cleanest evidence you have.

Proving it is real, and getting paid safely

Counterfeits, often called Lafufu, are the main reason platforms scrutinise Labubu listings. Better Business Bureau Scam Tracker reported 71 complaints about counterfeit or undelivered Labubus, and NSW Fair Trading in Australia issued a public warning in 2025. Modern Retail reported that Labubus were the two most counterfeited products arriving at StockX the year before, and that StockX opens multi-pack cellophane and checks each box's unique QR code.

eBay's counterfeit policy tells sellers to list an item only if they are certain it is genuine, and its help page names invoices from the brand or authorised distributors among the documents to keep. In eBay's community forum, a seller whose authentic Labubu listings were removed within hours was told by other users that doll clothing described as "Labubu" breaks trademark rules and that one flagged listing can bring extra scrutiny to the rest. Those are volunteer replies, not eBay policy, but the pattern is consistent: sell the figure you can document, and do not use the brand name to sell accessories.

If you have doubts about your own figure, check it before listing. Our guide on how to tell if a Labubu is real covers the checks, and a listing for a figure you suspect is fake is a liability whatever you believe.

On payment, stay inside the platform. PayPal says plainly that its Purchase Protection applies to Goods and Services payments and not to Friends and Family transfers, and it calls a seller's request for Friends and Family a red flag. As a seller the logic runs the other way round: a buyer who offers to "pay outside the app" or to use Friends and Family to save you the fee is asking you to give up your own seller protection. If a buyer asks for a prepaid label of their choosing, treat that as another warning sign, since it can void seller protection.

Tax: what the IRS reporting rules mean for you

This section covers US federal rules only; state sales tax and other countries differ, and an accountant can tell you how they apply to you.

Start with the threshold, which people misread. Under legislation passed in 2025, payment apps and online marketplaces must file a Form 1099-K only when gross payments exceed $20,000 and the number of transactions exceeds 200. The earlier plan to lower it to $600 was reversed. Crucially, that threshold decides whether you receive a form, not whether income is taxable. Guides summarising the IRS position say the same thing: income is reportable whether or not a form arrives.

What you owe depends on whether the sale was a clearing-out of things you owned or a trading activity:

• Personal collection. If you sold a figure for more than you paid, the gain goes on Form 8949 and Schedule D. If you sold it for less, the loss is not deductible. When a platform did send a 1099-K that includes that sale, the IRS describes a pair of offsetting entries on Schedule 1 so the amount nets to zero.
• Reselling for profit. If you buy figures in order to resell them, regularly and for profit, that is generally business income reported on Schedule C, with your purchase and selling costs as expenses. Where the line falls between collector and reseller is a judgement an accountant should make, and the number of sales is only one factor.

The 1099-K also reports gross payments. PayPal notes that its figure can include refunds and processing fees, and the form does not know what you paid for the item, so it can overstate your profit badly. Keep the receipt for every figure you buy, because it is your cost basis. The record we suggest: purchase date, price, retailer, sale date, sale price, fees and postage.

A sensible order of operations

1. Find five or six completed sales of the same item and note their dates.
2. Subtract the platform fee, postage and packing from your target price. If what remains is below what you paid, hold or trade instead.
3. Photograph the figure and the proof of purchase before packing it.
4. List with an honest condition note and no claims about odds.
5. Ship with tracking and keep the receipt until the payout and any return window have passed.
6. Log the sale for tax, whatever the platform sends you.

Frequently asked questions

Sources and further reading

• Platform fee pages and fee guides for eBay, Mercari, Whatnot and StockX, checked 14 November 2026; disagreements between guides are noted in the section under the table.
• Forbes, Antique Trader, Open magazine and Resell Calendar for the outlier prices, the StockX averages and the Macaron sales count.
• eBay counterfeit policy and help pages, BBB Scam Tracker, NSW Fair Trading, Modern Retail — the authenticity material.
• PayPal Purchase Protection terms and IRS guidance on Form 1099-K, Form 8949 and Schedule C as summarised by tax guides.
• Our pull-rate guide for why an odds claim is hard to support, and how to price a series for the cost side of the same calculation.