🇮🇳 Updated 2026-07-13 · 8 min read · every figure sourced & dated (dataset 2026.10)
2026 is the year Indian marketplaces went to war on commissions — and sellers of low-ticket products are the winners. Here's the current fee landscape, plus the two tax mechanics (GST-inclusive pricing and TCS) that most margin calculators get wrong.
In March 2026, Amazon.in expanded zero referral fees to products priced up to ₹1,000 across 1,800+ categories: apparel, fashion jewellery, grocery, home décor, beauty, toys and more. Flipkart matched within weeks, waiving commission below ₹1,000. For the enormous sub-₹1,000 segment the referral fee has effectively died; what you pay now is fixed fees (Amazon closing fee ₹2 at or under ₹300, ₹23 to ₹500, ₹48 to ₹1,000, ₹79 above; Flipkart fixed fee ₹15 at or under ₹300, ₹20 to ₹500, ₹35 to ₹1,000, ₹60 above, plus a 2% collection fee) and logistics. Above the waiver, normal rates return: Amazon.in apparel is 0% to ₹1,000, then 7–23%, Flipkart runs 0–25% by category. Meesho was already there: 0% commission on every category since its founding model, monetised through a ₹25–30 platform fee and its logistics network. Myntra waives commission below ₹500 in select fashion categories and runs a zero-commission "Rising Stars" programme for new Made-in-India D2C brands, but above that threshold fashion pays 15–30% and rates are contract-specific. JioMart runs a transaction-only model: 3–18% commission by category, a 2% payment fee, ₹10 at or under ₹300, ₹25 to ₹500, ₹35 to ₹1,000, ₹50 above closing fee, no monthly fee.
Two things make Indian marketplace math different from the US. First, your listed price contains GST. Under GST 2.0 (in force since 22 September 2025) most goods sit at 5% or 18%. A ₹499 kurta at the 5% slab is really ₹475.24 of revenue + ₹23.76 of tax you remit. Second, TCS at 0.5% is withheld by every marketplace — but it lands as credit against your GSTIN, so it's cash-flow, not cost. Same for the 18% GST charged on marketplace fees: input-credit-claimable if you're registered. Our comparator handles all three correctly and shows the creditable amounts as memo lines instead of silently eating your margin.
At ₹499 the commission waivers bite on four of the five channels, so fixed fees decide the ranking. On Meesho: ₹0 commission, ₹255.24 net (51.1% margin), before its ₹25–30 platform fee, which the dataset does not yet model. On Amazon.in: ₹0 referral, ₹232.24 net. On Flipkart: ₹0 commission but a fixed fee and collection fee, ₹225.26 net. On Myntra, this unit sits under the waiver too, so ₹0 commission and ₹225.24 net. JioMart has no sub-₹1,000 waiver, so it charges ₹24.95–₹74.85 and nets ₹145.41–₹195.31 (29.1–39.1%). Same product, and the spread between best and worst channel is wider than the product's own cost. Price the same unit at ₹999 and Myntra's fashion rate returns: ₹149.85–₹299.70 of commission. Run your own SKUs through the Catalog Analyzer to see this across your whole range at once.
Three, in different ways: Meesho charges 0% commission on all categories (you pay a ₹25–30 platform fee plus logistics). Amazon.in charges zero referral fee on products up to ₹1,000 across 1,800+ categories since March 2026. Flipkart matched with zero commission below ₹1,000 in March 2026. Above that, normal category rates apply on both — 0% to ₹1,000, then 7–23% on Amazon.in apparel, 0–25% across Flipkart's categories.
Marketplaces must collect Tax Collected at Source at 0.5% of your net taxable value (reduced from 1% in July 2024). It is NOT a cost — it is deposited against your GSTIN and fully claimable as credit in your GST returns. Treat it as a cash-flow delay, not a fee.
Listed prices in India are GST-inclusive. Under GST 2.0 (September 2025) most goods fall in the 5% or 18% slab. Your real revenue on a ₹499 listing at 5% GST is ₹475.24 — the ₹23.76 difference is tax you remit, so always compute margins on the tax-out price.
Only if you are not GST-registered. Registered sellers claim the 18% GST charged on commissions and fees back as input tax credit (ITC). Farolane shows it as a memo line, excluded from margin.
Every commission, fixed fee and payment fee above, and every figure in the worked example, is read from the Farolane dataset (2026.10) and run through the same engine as the calculators when this page is built, so the post cannot drift from the tools. Hand-written figures, with no dataset home yet: the GST 2.0 slabs, the 0.5% TCS rate, the 18% GST on platform fees, and Meesho's ₹25–30 platform fee. Rate cards we have not yet re-sourced line by line, so treat them as indicative: Flipkart, Myntra, JioMart.