IT Strategy

Marketplace fees changed — what it costs your business now

Shopee raised its per-item fee in January and Mercado Livre replaced its flat fee with a variable cost based on weight and size in March. If you sell on these channels, your margin needs a recheck.

June 08, 2026|5 min read

Two changes already in effect this year

Sellers on Brazil's biggest marketplaces saw two relevant fee changes in 2026. Since January 6, Shopee raised its fixed service fee to R$7 per item sold — up from R$5, with an exception for individual sellers with more than 450 orders in 90 days, who pay R$4. The platform also removed the R$100 cap on commission, which hits harder for higher-ticket products, and made free shipping mandatory for every seller.

Since March 2, Mercado Livre ended its simple flat-fee model for products under R$79, replacing it with a variable operational cost calculated by weight, dimensions, and price. Storage costs under Mercado Envios Full also rose 7.6% for medium and large products.

Why this might have slipped past your spreadsheet

Marketplace fees usually get entered as a fixed percentage when you first set up pricing, and stay there until someone reviews it again. If your cost spreadsheet still uses the old numbers — flat R$5 on Shopee, the old simple flat fee on Mercado Livre — your real margin today is lower than what you're calculating, without anything visibly "breaking."

The effect is stronger for anyone selling small, low-price products (where the fixed fee weighs proportionally more) and for anyone selling large or heavy products (who now pays more for storage and shipping on Mercado Livre).

What to review this week

Three checks cover most of the correction: recalculate the real fee cost for at least your top 10 best-selling products on each channel, comparing against today's listed price. Then check whether your catalog price still covers the new fee at the margin you intend to have — not the margin you had when you originally set the price. Finally, decide whether to adjust price, move some products to a different channel, or consciously accept a lower margin — the only bad option is deciding nothing.

Where Diglion comes in

Diglion helps small businesses review real per-channel pricing, including marketplace fees, to make sure the margin you're calculating is the margin actually coming in.