eBay Excludes Live Sales From Top Rated Plus, Seller Standards & Service Metrics
eBay is removing Live transactions from Seller Standards, Service Metrics and Top Rated Plus eligibility beginning October 15, separating livestream sales from performance programs that can increase or reduce fees on a seller's regular marketplace business.
The update was shared in an email sent to eBay Live sellers this week.
Starting October 15, 2026, transactions completed through eBay Live will no longer be included in your Seller Level, Top Rated Plus eligibility, or Service Metrics.
Your eBay Live performance will be evaluated separately, and consequences may still apply to your Live selling activity. Your Live orders will remain visible in your order history, reports, and payout information.
eBay says the change is being made because Live is a "fast-moving and interactive selling experience" with transaction patterns that differ from the wider marketplace, making separate evaluations a clearer and more accurate measure of seller performance.
Seller Standards and Service Metrics can directly affect what sellers pay. Under eBay's current selling fee policy, sellers rated Below Standard are charged an additional 6% final value fee on applicable sales the following month, increasing to 7% after four consecutive months at that level. Sellers with a Very High Item Not As Described rate under Service Metrics can be charged an additional 5% in affected categories, increasing to 6% after four consecutive months.
Those fees are calculated on the total amount of the sale including shipping and sales tax and come on top of regular final value fees and any applicable advertising costs. If both apply, eBay charges only the Below Standard additional fee rather than stacking the two penalties.
In 2024, Value Added Resource reported on longtime seller MaxOptical facing Service Metrics penalties after more than 20 allegedly fraudulent returns pushed its Item Not As Described rate higher, despite the seller providing evidence of abusive buyer activity to eBay.
Liz Morton
Top Rated sellers can receive a 10% discount on final value fees for qualifying Top Rated Plus listings that offer same or one-business-day handling and 30-day or longer free returns.
To qualify as a Top Rated seller in the US, an account must have at least 100 transactions and $1,000 in sales with US buyers over the previous 12 months, along with meeting eBay's requirements for transaction defects, cases closed without seller resolution, late shipments and tracking.
Beginning October 15, Live transactions will no longer contribute to those calculations, creating another significant difference between Live and traditional eBay selling alongside the lower fees and other incentives the company is already using to bring more sellers into livestreaming.
eBay introduced standardized public US Live rates in July, charging a combined 6.9% plus a per-order fee for coins, bullion and eligible sneakers and 8.9% for most other categories. By comparison, sellers without a Store subscription pay 13.6% plus a per-order fee in most regular marketplace categories.
The difference can be even larger on higher-priced items because eBay caps the commission portion of Live fees at $100 per item. Live-created listings also carry no insertion fee, while Promoted Listings General ad fees are waived when qualifying items sell during a Live event.
Liz Morton
Earlier this month, the company rolled out a new self-service registration process giving qualifying business sellers immediate access to Live Studio, while offering some newly approved sellers up to $100 in matched sales for completing their first public livestream.
Liz Morton
CEO Jamie Iannone has repeatedly pointed to eightfold year-over-year Live GMV growth as evidence that the strategy is gaining traction, though eBay has not disclosed enough underlying data to show the actual scale of that growth or how much is being driven by adding countries, categories and sellers along with lower fees, coupons and other company-funded promotions.
eBay says most Live sellers are not expected to see a lower status under the new calculation and some may see an improvement, with any lower status resulting from the change delayed until the November 20 evaluation.
Live volume could also affect the period used for some evaluations. eBay generally looks back three months for sellers with more than 400 transactions during that period and 12 months for lower-volume sellers, so removing Live sales could change the evaluation window for accounts near that threshold.
eBay has not yet detailed the standards it will use to evaluate Live performance or what consequences sellers could face under that separate system. The Seller Performance page linked in the email has also not yet been updated with details of the October 15 change.
The company has not responded to a request for comment or additional information as of publishing.
