TikTok Shop Inventory Management: How to Prevent Stockouts Before They Kill Your Momentum
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TikTok Shop takes around 6% of every sale you make as a referral fee—but your real cost per order depends on affiliate setup, shipping model, and whether you're still in your promotional window. Most sellers don't realize how much they're actually losing until they see the math laid out.
This guide breaks down every fee TikTok charges, walks through how to calculate your true profit per order, and shows where margin leaks typically hide.
A TikTok Shop fee calculator estimates your net profit after platform deductions. TikTok Shop charges US sellers a unified referral fee of 6% on most product categories (5% for select jewelry), which covers both commission and payment processing in a single charge. The calculator subtracts this—along with shipping, COGS, and affiliate payouts—from your selling price.
Here's the thing: your TikTok Shop dashboard shows gross sales, not profit. That revenue number looks great until you realize it doesn't reflect what actually hits your bank account. A fee calculator closes that gap by modeling every cost layer before you commit to a price or launch a product.
Most sellers find their actual margins run 10–15% lower than expected once all deductions are visible. That difference often separates a product worth scaling from one quietly bleeding cash.
TikTok Shop's fee structure stacks several charges on top of each other. The total cost per order typically lands between 6% and 26%+ of your order value once you factor in the referral fee, affiliate commissions, and shipping.
The referral fee is TikTok's primary cut from each sale. In the US, TikTok uses a unified referral fee model that combines both the marketplace commission and payment processing into a single charge—there is no separate transaction fee. Rates as of 2025:
| Product Category | Referral Fee (US) |
|---|---|
| Electronics | 6% |
| Fashion & Apparel | 6% |
| Beauty & Personal Care | 6% |
| Home & Garden | 6% |
| Food & Beverages | 6% |
| Books, Toys & Media | 6% |
| Jewelry (Diamond, Gold, Jade, Platinum, Ruby/Sapphire/Emerald) | 5% |
| Pre-Owned & Collectibles | 5% (3% on portion over $10K) |
| New Sellers (promo) | 3% for first 30 days |
TikTok's official New Seller Referral Fee Promotion offers a 3% rate for the first 30 days after your initial sale—provided you make your first sale within 60 days of onboarding. After that window closes, standard category rates kick in.
In the US, the referral fee is a unified charge—it already includes payment processing. There's no separate transaction fee on top of the 6% referral rate. This simplifies your math compared to platforms that itemize gateway fees separately.
Note that regions outside the US have different fee structures. The UK charges 9% commission (since September 2024), and EU5 markets (Germany, Spain, France, Italy, Ireland) moved to 9% in January 2026. Always check your specific market's Seller Center for the current structure.
When affiliates drive your sales, their commission stacks on top of TikTok's platform fees. You set this rate yourself—typically 10–20%—and it comes directly from your margin, which aligns with industry-wide affiliate rates of 5–30%.
A product with a 6% TikTok referral fee and a 15% affiliate payout means 21% of revenue disappears before shipping or COGS even enter the picture.
Understanding the complete fee picture prevents margin surprises down the line. Here's what gets deducted from a typical order:
| Fee Type | Typical Rate (US) | Applied To |
|---|---|---|
| Referral Fee (unified) | 6% (most categories) | Customer Payment + Platform Discount − Tax |
| Referral Fee (jewelry) | 5% | Same as above |
| Affiliate Commission | 10–20% (seller-set) | Order subtotal |
| Refund Admin Fee | 20% of referral fee (capped $5/SKU) | Refunded orders only |
| Shipping Subsidy Clawback | Varies | Promotional periods |
| Coupon/Promo Deductions | Varies | Seller-funded discounts |
TikTok calculates the referral fee using this formula: Referral Fee = Rate × (Customer Payment + Platform Discount − Tax). Note that customer payment includes any shipping the buyer pays. If a customer pays $40 for a product plus $5 shipping, TikTok calculates the fee on the full $45—not $40.
TikTok occasionally subsidizes shipping during promotional events, which can boost conversion rates. Outside those windows, however, sellers absorb shipping costs directly or pass them to buyers.
Free shipping offers eat into margins fast. A $7 shipping cost on a $30 product with 25% gross margin leaves almost nothing after platform fees.
Platform-wide promotions—like TikTok's seasonal sales events—sometimes come with TikTok-funded discounts. Seller-funded coupons, on the other hand, reduce your payout dollar-for-dollar.
The distinction matters: a 10% TikTok-funded discount doesn't touch your margin, while a 10% seller coupon does.
Pro Tip: Use the Dashboardly Fee Calculator to model all fee layers—referral fee, affiliate commission, and shipping—before committing to a price. Seeing every deduction stacked together prevents margin surprises after launch.
Accurate profit calculation requires five inputs. Miss one, and your margin estimate will be off—sometimes by a lot.
Gross margin: Profit before operating expenses (Revenue − COGS)
Net margin: Profit after all costs including fees, shipping, and ad spend
A healthy TikTok Shop product typically targets 20–30% net margin after all deductions. Below 15%, any cost increase can wipe out profitability entirely.
Seeing red numbers in your calculator isn't uncommon. Here's what usually causes it:
Negative margins don't always mean a bad product. Sometimes the fix is adjusting your affiliate rate from 20% to 12%, or raising your price by $3. For a deeper dive into identifying which products earn and which ones drain cash, see our guide to calculating true profit on TikTok Shop.
Margins vary widely by category and business model. Dropshippers typically operate on thinner margins (10–15%) but with lower overhead. Private label brands often target 25–35% net margins to fund growth.
| Business Model | Target Net Margin |
|---|---|
| Dropshipping | 10–15% |
| Wholesale / Resale | 15–20% |
| Private Label | 25–35% |
| Handmade / Custom | 30–50% |
If your margins fall below your model's benchmark, revisit pricing or cost structure before scaling. Tracking your key TikTok Shop metrics regularly helps you catch margin erosion early.
Affiliate-driven sales cut both ways. Creators bring traffic you wouldn't otherwise capture, but their commission stacks on TikTok's fees.
Referral fee (6%): $3.00
Affiliate commission (15%): $7.50
Total fees: $10.50 (21% of revenue)
That's before COGS or shipping. Sellers who don't model affiliate economics often discover their best-selling products are actually their least profitable. Use SKU-level ROI tracking to isolate which creator partnerships actually generate profit—not just volume.
Shipping impacts profit differently depending on who pays:
Free shipping converts better—but if you're absorbing $6 in shipping on a $25 product, that conversion boost might not offset the margin hit.
Refunds reverse your revenue, but TikTok doesn't fully refund the referral fee you paid. Instead, TikTok keeps a 20% Refund Administration Fee (capped at $5 per SKU), and affiliate commissions may not be returned at all.
A 10% return rate can distort profit calculations significantly. Basic calculators that don't account for returns will show margins higher than reality.
Refund Admin Fee: TikTok charges a 20% Refund Administration Fee on the original referral fee for each refunded SKU—capped at $5. So even when an order is returned, you still lose a portion of the commission to processing costs.
TikTok Ads cost isn't a platform fee, but it directly affects whether your sales are profitable. A product with 25% margin looks healthy until you realize you spent $8 in ads to acquire that $30 order.
Most fee calculators don't include ad spend fields. To get true profitability, either add your average cost-per-acquisition manually or use a tool that integrates ad data automatically.
Calculate your break-even ROAS by dividing 1 by your net margin percentage. At 25% margin, you need at least 4× ROAS to break even on ad-driven sales.
See verified fees, refunds, and ad spend for every TikTok Shop order—reconciled against your actual payouts.
Get Started Free →Even experienced sellers make calculation errors that hide margin problems:
Work backward from your target margin. If you want 25% net profit and your total costs (COGS + shipping + fees) equal $22, your minimum selling price is $29.33.
Test prices against actual payout data, not estimates. TikTok's fee structure has enough variables that a $1 price change can swing margins by 3–4 percentage points.
Static calculators provide useful estimates for product research and pricing decisions. They can't, however, account for what actually happens after you start selling.
Refund rates, fee changes, ad performance, and COGS fluctuations all affect real profitability. A calculator shows you a snapshot; ongoing profit tracking shows you the truth.
For sellers processing more than 50 orders per day, the gap between estimated and actual profit often exceeds 8–12%. Understanding how analytics tools work helps you close that gap by replacing estimates with verified, reconciled data.
Dashboardly syncs directly with TikTok Shop's API to pull actual order data, verified fees, refunds, and ad spend in real time. Instead of estimating margins in a calculator, you see exactly what each product, creator, and campaign actually earned.
The platform reconciles your TikTok payouts automatically—no more spreadsheet exports or manual fee calculations. For agencies managing multiple stores, Dashboardly's multi-store view consolidates everything into one dashboard.
Dashboardly automatically deducts every fee — referral, payment processing, affiliate commissions, refund admin — and shows your true net profit per order in real time.
Start Your Free Trial →TikTok Shop has no monthly subscription or listing fees. Sellers only pay referral fees on completed sales. This zero-subscription model fueled explosive growth—TikTok Shop hit $26.2 billion in global GMV in just the first half of 2025, nearly doubling the $33.2 billion full-year total from 2024. The platform is on track to surpass $66 billion for 2025.
TikTok's 6% unified referral fee (US) is significantly lower than Amazon's 8–15% referral fees. Shopify charges 2.9% + $0.30 per transaction but no commission. However, TikTok sellers often spend more on affiliate commissions (10–20%) and ad spend to drive traffic, whereas Amazon benefits from built-in buyer intent. Total cost of selling depends heavily on your business model and traffic strategy.
Yes, significantly. US sellers pay a 6% unified referral fee for most categories. UK sellers saw their commission rise to 9% in September 2024, and EU markets (Germany, Spain, France, Italy, Ireland) followed in January 2026, also moving to 9%. New EU sellers can qualify for a temporary 4% rate for 60 days. Always check your specific market's Seller Center for current rates.
TikTok occasionally offers reduced rates to top-performing sellers through invite-only programs like TikTok Shop Mall, which provides greater exposure and trust signals in exchange for higher volume commitments. Eligibility typically requires consistent high GMV and strong shop performance metrics. The new seller 3% promotional rate is the most common discount—available to all sellers who make their first sale within 60 days of onboarding.
TikTok updates fee structures periodically, typically with 30-day notice in Seller Center. Recent changes include the US moving to a unified 6% referral fee in April 2024, the UK increasing to 9% in September 2024, and EU5 markets jumping from 5% to 9% in January 2026. The Refund Administration Fee rules were also updated in May 2025 (capped at $5 per SKU). Monitor your Seller Center regularly—rates trend upward as TikTok matures in each market.
When a customer returns a product, TikTok charges a refund administration fee equal to 20% of the original referral fee, capped at $5 per SKU. This means every refund costs you more than just the lost sale — you lose the revenue, the product, shipping costs, and still owe a portion of the platform fee. High-return categories like apparel should factor this into pricing from day one.
Divide 1 by your gross margin after subtracting all platform fees and commissions. For example, if your product has a 40% gross margin and TikTok fees consume 15%, your effective margin is 25% — making your break-even ROAS 4.0x. Any campaign below that threshold is losing money on every sale, even if revenue looks healthy on the dashboard.
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