How does selling on Facebook Marketplace work?

Short answer: list it, meet the buyer locally, keep 100% of the money. Facebook Marketplace is the rare platform where the default way of selling costs you nothing — and most of the ways people lose money on it are avoidable.

Marketplace reaches over a billion monthly users, which makes it one of the largest secondhand markets on earth hiding inside a social network. It is brilliant for furniture, electronics, and anything too bulky or annoying to ship. It is also, frankly, a place where scammers work full time. Both things are true, and selling well here means understanding both.

Here is how it actually works.

The fee structure, plainly

This is the part that makes Marketplace unusual, so get it straight. Local pickup sales — you meet the buyer, they hand you cash or send Venmo or Zelle — carry zero fees. No listing fee, no selling fee, no payment processing, no subscription. You keep every dollar.

Shipped sales are a different animal. When a buyer checks out through Facebook's own system and you ship the item, Meta takes a 10% selling fee on the whole order total, including shipping and tax, with a $0.80 minimum per order. For tiny sales under $8, a flat $0.40 applies instead. Payment processing is included in that 10% — there is no separate charge.

Two practical consequences. First, price shipped items with the fee baked in, or watch your margin evaporate on a $15 sale. Second, payouts for shipped orders are slow: the payout process starts about five days after delivery is confirmed, then takes another three to five business days to reach your bank. You can wait up to twenty days from shipment to money in hand. Local cash has no such delay, which is one more reason local is the default.

What actually sells here

Marketplace is a local-first platform, and the winners are things people want to see before buying or cannot cheaply ship. Furniture is the classic — couches, tables, dressers move fast because shipping them anywhere else is absurd. Used electronics, especially phones and game consoles, sell well to buyers who want to test before paying. Baby gear, bikes, tools, and appliances all do steady business.

What struggles: small cheap items where the meetup costs more in time than the item is worth, anything that needs a national audience to find its buyer, and brand-new commodity goods competing with Amazon on price. Marketplace buyers are bargain hunters by nature. Price like it.

One 2026 note: Marketplace is designed for individual, mostly occasional sellers. Heavy commercial activity from a personal account can get listings removed or the account restricted. If you are running real volume, that is what Facebook Shops and a real storefront are for.

Listing like someone who sells

The algorithm favors complete listings, and buyers favor sellers who look like they care. Use all ten photo slots — more photos measurably means more engagement. Photograph in daylight, show flaws honestly, and include a picture of the item working if it has a power button.

Write the title the way a buyer searches, not the way you talk: "Herman Miller Aeron Chair — Size B, Good Condition" beats "office chair must go." Select the most specific category available. Be honest but strategic about condition — calling something "Like New" when it is clearly "Good" is the fastest route to bad ratings and return headaches.

Price by researching, not by feeling. Search your item, filter to sold or currently listed nearby, and position accordingly. Marketplace buyers negotiate as a reflex, so leaving a small cushion is not dishonest — it is fluency in the local dialect. And renew stale listings every seven to ten days; Facebook boosts fresh or renewed items, and a listing that has sat for a month is invisible.

Write descriptions that answer the questions buyers always ask: dimensions, age, reason for selling, and any flaws. "Couch, 84 inches wide, two years old, selling because we moved, small stain on the left armrest shown in photo 7" will outsell a paragraph of adjectives every time. Specifics build trust; adjectives build suspicion.

Finally, respond fast. Facebook tracks and displays your response time, and buyers message three sellers at once. Under an hour is the target. The seller who answers first usually wins.

The scams, named

Now the other half of the education. Marketplace scams are industrial in scale, but they are also repetitive — learn the patterns once and you will recognize them forever.

• The overpayment scam. A "buyer" sends a fake check or payment for more than the price, then asks you to refund the difference. The original payment bounces; your refund does not. Never accept overpayment, ever.
• Fake payment screenshots. They send a convincing screenshot of a Venmo or Zelle transfer that never happened. Confirm money in your own app before handing anything over.
• The phishing link. "I already paid, confirm here" with a link to a fake login page. Facebook will never ask you to log in through a link in a chat.
• Ship-first requests. A buyer begs you to ship before payment clears, often with a sad story. Payment first, always — or use Marketplace checkout, which holds the process together.
• The code trick. They ask for a verification code "sent to your phone by mistake." It is a password-reset code for your account. Never share codes.

The throughline: every scam rushes you, flatters you, or moves you off the normal rails. Slow down, stay inside the platform's payment flow for shipped items, and trust the pattern over the person.

Meeting buyers without incident

For local sales, the safety rules are simple and non-negotiable. Meet in a public place in daylight — many police stations offer their parking lots as safe trade spots, and using one is not paranoid, it is standard practice. Bring someone with you for anything valuable. Do not share your home address; meet elsewhere or have them come only when someone else is home.

Take cash for small amounts, or confirm digital payment inside your own banking app before the item changes hands — not from a screenshot they show you. Count cash before handing over the item. And trust your gut on no-shows and weird energy: a sale that feels wrong is never worth the money.

Shipping without losing money

If you do ship, know that the landscape changed. Facebook discontinued prepaid shipping labels for most sellers in early 2025, which means you now buy labels yourself through USPS, FedEx, or discount services like Pirate Ship. This is actually fine — third-party label services are often cheaper than platform rates anyway — but it means shipping is a skill you have to learn rather than a button you press.

Weigh and measure before you list, not after someone buys. A bathroom scale and a tape measure are the entire toolkit. Price the item with the real shipping cost and the 10% fee included, or offer local pickup alongside shipping and let the buyer choose. And photograph the item packed before it leaves; if a buyer claims damage, your photos are your evidence.

One more honest note: shipped Marketplace sales have the worst payout timing of any major platform. If cash flow matters to you — and it should — treat shipped Marketplace orders as a bonus channel, not the main event.

The identity and tax bits

Two administrative facts that surprise new sellers. First, in the US, once you cross $500 in shipped sales processed through Facebook, you will be asked to verify your identity, including a Social Security number. This is tax compliance, not suspicion — payment processors are required to collect it. Local cash sales do not trigger this.

Second, selling income is taxable income, whether or not anyone sends you a form. Keep simple records: what you sold, for how much, and what you paid for it originally. A spreadsheet is enough. Nobody enjoys this part, but the sellers who get hurt are the ones who discover it in April.

When Marketplace is the wrong tool

Honesty requires the limits too. Marketplace is weak for high-volume selling — no real seller tools, no inventory management, and commercial-scale activity risks restriction. It is weak for shipped goods compared to eBay or Etsy, with slower payouts and thinner buyer protection. And it is useless for digital products or services, which is not what the platform is for.

Use it for what it is: the fastest way to turn local stuff into local cash, with zero fees. For everything else, there are platforms built for the job.

That is the whole pitch, really. Take good photos, price honestly, meet in daylight, keep every dollar. The platform did not make selling complicated. The scammers did — and now you know their playbook.

Start with one item you already own and no longer need. The first sale teaches you more than any guide — including this one — about pricing, messaging, and the particular comedy of buyers who ask "is this available" and then vanish. After that, it is just repetition with better photos.