Start where your price band fits. Since March 2026, products under Rs 1,000 carry zero referral fee on Amazon across more than 1,800 categories and zero commission on Flipkart, while Meesho charges zero commission at every price. That change makes shipping, returns and advertising, not commission, the costs that decide your margin on most small products. You need PAN, a bank account and, for most categories, a GSTIN, with a narrow enrolment number route for small sellers who sell goods only inside their own state. Fee figures in this article are as of November 2026. Check your own seller panel before you price, because category rates differ.
The short version: where to start
| Your position | Starting point |
|---|---|
| Product under Rs 1,000, first online sales, low budget | Meesho or Flipkart or Amazon, compare shipping on your panel |
| Product under Rs 1,000, brand building and search traffic matter | Amazon, with zero referral fee in most categories |
| Product above Rs 1,000 | Compare category commission carefully on each panel before listing |
| Food product | Fix your FSSAI category first, then list |
| No GSTIN, sales only inside your state, below the registration limit | Enrolment number route may apply, platform policy also applies |
A warning before the detail. Older guides are badly out of date on this topic. One widely found guide still lists Meesho commission at 15 to 20 percent. Meesho's own seller material says commission is zero. The same guide quotes pre 2026 Amazon and Flipkart ranges with no mention of the March 2026 reset. If a fee table does not mention March 2026, do not price from it.
Amazon: what changed on 16 March 2026
Amazon's own seller blog, opened for this article in November 2026, confirms four changes from 16 March 2026. First, zero referral fee on products under Rs 1,000, applying to more than 1,800 categories and covering more than 12.5 crore products. Second, lower Easy Ship costs, with a saving of Rs 15 per order across weight handling and closing fees. Third, referral fees above Rs 1,000 reduced by 4 to 9.5 percentage points in key categories such as fashion, home and grocery. Fourth, lower self ship closing fees: Rs 20 for products under Rs 300, down from Rs 45, and Rs 26 for products from Rs 300 to Rs 500, down from Rs 35.
Amazon's own illustration makes the size of the change clear. For a product priced at Rs 899, total fees fell from Rs 324 to about Rs 100, a saving of Rs 224 per unit, or about 69 percent. For a Rs 299 product, Amazon states a saving of Rs 15 per order and about a 21 percent reduction in total fees for Easy Ship sellers in that illustration.
To register, you go through Amazon Seller Central with GSTIN, PAN, bank account details and a pickup address, as described in seller guides consulted. Amazon charges no monthly subscription in the fee structure described on its fee page summaries. You pay per order: referral fee where it applies, closing fee, and weight handling or fulfilment charges depending on whether you use Easy Ship, Fulfilment by Amazon or self ship, plus GST at 18 percent on Amazon's fees. Confirm the exact referral rate for your category above Rs 1,000 in Seller Central or the revenue calculator. Category rates above Rs 1,000 vary widely, and a single percentage printed in an article would mislead you.
One later change deserves a note for accuracy. Seller fee summaries consulted in November 2026 record that closing fees rose slightly again in September 2026 for some bands. That is exactly why this article date stamps its figures and sends you to your own fee preview for the final number. The March 2026 structure, zero referral under Rs 1,000, is the decision relevant fact. The last few rupees of closing fee belong to your panel on the day you list.
Flipkart: zero under Rs 1,000, and no public rate card above it
Flipkart also moved products under Rs 1,000 to zero commission in March 2026, as reported from Flipkart's own fees page in the research for this article. Above Rs 1,000, there is no single public rate card you can trust. Commission depends on your category and your seller tier, described in guides as Bronze, Silver, Gold and Platinum, and the authoritative figure sits inside Seller Hub under Reports, My Commission Structure.
Reported ranges for above Rs 1,000 commission cluster around 3 to 22 percent for most categories, with fixed fee and shipping charged on top. Treat that range as secondary source only. It tells you the order of magnitude for planning. It does not tell you your rate. Any article that prints one Flipkart percentage as fact for all sellers is inventing precision that Flipkart does not publish.
Later reporting in 2026 also describes Flipkart extending zero commission to all fashion products at any price from July 2026. If you sell fashion, verify that position in your Seller Hub, because a category wide change of that size materially changes where fashion sellers should list first. Do not rely on a July headline for an October pricing decision without the panel check.
Your Flipkart workflow is: register as a seller, complete GSTIN and bank verification for the categories that require it, open My Commission Structure, note your commission, fixed fee and shipping for your category and zones, and only then set your price.
Meesho: zero commission does not mean zero cost
Meesho charges zero commission for any seller, at any price, in every category, per Meesho's own seller material consulted. You keep 100 percent of the sale price before other costs. That last phrase is the whole lesson of this section.
Zero commission leaves at least four real costs. Shipping through Meesho logistics, charged by weight and zone, with slabs that are shown in your supplier panel rather than in a single public table verified for this article. A platform or seller service charge on some orders, reported in third party fee breakdowns at roughly Rs 25 to Rs 30 per order, which you should confirm in your settlement reports because Meesho's own public pages consulted did not state a single universal figure. Returns and return shipping, which in value fashion and home categories can exceed every other fee line. Advertising, if you choose to promote listings. GST at 18 percent applies on chargeable fees where they arise.
For registration, Meesho's supplier page material lists GSTIN, PAN card and an active bank account. For most categories GSTIN is mandatory on Meesho, with narrow exemptions noted for some low priced products, to be checked during registration for your exact category. Register at supplier.meesho.com, list with clear photos and titles, set a price using the full fee stack in the worked example below, and dispatch through Meesho logistics when orders arrive.
Guides that stop at zero percent leave a new seller unable to price. A Meesho price must carry product cost, packaging, shipping, an allowance for returns, and any ad spend, with commission at zero as only one line among several.
GST: three layers, and most guides give you only one
Layer one is the default law. Selling through an electronic commerce operator that collects tax at source normally requires GST registration for the seller, under the compulsory registration approach in Section 24 of the CGST Act as described in the guides consulted. For most marketplace sellers who sell across India, the practical answer remains simple: get a GSTIN before you list.
Layer two is the relaxation from 1 October 2023. Under Notification 34/2023 Central Tax, a person below the GST registration limit who sells goods can declare their PAN on the GST portal, obtain an enrolment number, and sell through e-commerce operators within one state only, with no inter state sales. Composition dealers can also sell through e-commerce within their own state from the same date, as reported in the research. This route is narrow by design: goods only in the enrolment discussion, one state only, below the limit, and no dispatch across a state border.
Layer three is platform policy, which can be stricter than the law. Flipkart asks for GSTIN for most categories. Meesho accepts GSTIN as the standard document, and reporting consulted indicates enrolment ID acceptance for eligible one state sellers in the cases the platform allows. Amazon registration flows are built around GSTIN. A legal permission to sell with an enrolment number does not oblige a platform to onboard you for every category.
If you are weighing composition against regular registration more broadly, read Composition scheme vs regular GST before you choose, because e-commerce selling interacts with that choice.
Tax collected at source needs one clear line. E-commerce operators collect TCS on net taxable sales. Guides consulted report the rate as 0.5 percent after a halving from 1 percent with effect from 10 July 2024 under Notification 15/2024, split as 0.25 percent CGST plus 0.25 percent SGST for an intra state sale, or 0.5 percent IGST for an inter state sale. Mark that rate for re-verification on the GST portal before you file, because TCS rates are notification driven. In substance, TCS is not a marketplace fee. It is tax collected in advance and accounted for through your GST returns and electronic cash or credit position, as your CA will show you. Budget it as a cash flow timing item, not as lost margin.
First steps checklist, per platform
On all three platforms the sequence is the same. Register the seller account with PAN, bank account and GSTIN or, where eligible and accepted, the enrolment number. Complete tax and pickup address verification. Build the catalogue with honest photos, a title that states the product, size and material in plain words, and the correct category, because category decides commission above Rs 1,000. Price from the fee stack, never from a competitor's price alone. Choose the dispatch model: Amazon Easy Ship, Fulfilment by Amazon or self ship; Flipkart dispatch through its logistics arrangements including Ekart; Meesho logistics from your pickup point. Prepare packaging that survives a return journey, because a damaged return is a total loss of that unit's margin. Keep dispatch time promises you can meet in a busy week, not only on a quiet day.
Two channels sit beside marketplaces and belong in a complete plan. If your product suits government buyers, GeM seller registration covers selling to government as a separate route. If you sell food, fix licensing first with FSSAI licence: which one your food business needs before any marketplace will onboard the food category properly. A later route to evaluate is ONDC. See ONDC for small sellers when you are ready to compare an open network with the three marketplaces in this article.
Starting budget: an honest note
Ranking guides consulted cite realistic starting budgets of roughly Rs 25,000 to Rs 40,000 for Meesho and Rs 60,000 to Rs 1 lakh for Amazon. Label those correctly: they are guide estimates, secondary source only, not platform figures. No platform in the material opened for this article publishes a required starting budget.
The useful way to use those ranges is as a checklist of where money goes: initial stock, packaging material, catalogue photos, samples for quality checks, and a small test advertising budget. A manufacturer making their own product needs less stock cash than a trader buying stock in advance. Do not borrow against a guide's budget range. Build your own from your product cost and your first order target.
Worked example: one Rs 899 bedsheet on all three platforms
Take a Lucknow home textiles maker with turnover of Rs 42 lakh, GST registered, selling one cotton double bedsheet at a customer price of Rs 899, with weight under 500 grams. Making cost is Rs 420 and packaging is Rs 25, so landed cost before marketplace fees is Rs 445. Every fee assumption is stated. Replace each figure with your own seller panel figure before you price a real listing.
Meesho at Rs 899. Commission at 0 percent equals Rs 0. Payout before shipping, returns and advertising is the full Rs 899. Margin before shipping: Rs 899 minus Rs 445 equals Rs 454. This article does not invent a Meesho shipping figure, because Meesho shipping slabs were not verified on Meesho's own pages in this research. Your supplier panel shows your shipping by weight and zone. If, purely as an illustration of method, your panel shipping were Rs 70 and a platform charge of Rs 27 applied, deductions would be Rs 97 plus GST on chargeable fees, and your margin would fall accordingly. Treat any such numbers as placeholders until your settlement report confirms them.
Amazon at Rs 899, Easy Ship illustration using Amazon's own blog example. Amazon states total fees for a Rs 899 product are now about Rs 100 after the March 2026 change, down from Rs 324. The referral component is Rs 0 because the price is under Rs 1,000. Margin illustration: Rs 899 minus total fees of Rs 100 minus landed cost of Rs 445 equals Rs 354, before returns and advertising. If that Rs 100 fee figure is ex GST, GST at 18 percent on fees is Rs 18, and the margin becomes Rs 336. Check in the revenue calculator whether the fee preview for your category is shown inclusive or exclusive of GST, because that one setting changes the answer by Rs 18 on this order.
Flipkart at Rs 899. Commission is 0 percent under Rs 1,000 from March 2026. The remaining deductions are the fixed fee plus shipping, which are tier and zone specific and visible only in Seller Hub. The honest formula is: payout equals Rs 899 minus your fixed fee minus your shipping, minus GST on those fees. As a clearly labelled placeholder only, if your fixed fee were Rs 20 and shipping Rs 55, total fees would be Rs 75, GST on fees at 18 percent would be Rs 13.50, total deductions Rs 88.50, and margin would be Rs 899 minus Rs 88.50 minus Rs 445, which equals Rs 365.50. Replace the placeholder fee and shipping with your rate card figures. The placeholder proves the method, not your price.
The price cliff above Rs 1,000. Price the same bedsheet set at Rs 1,299 and it leaves the zero referral band on Amazon. Referral then equals Rs 1,299 times your category rate from Seller Central, plus closing and shipping, plus GST on fees. Because Amazon cut above Rs 1,000 referral by 4 to 9.5 percentage points in key categories without a single universal rate, this article does not print a category rate without Seller Central verification. On Flipkart, the same move into above Rs 1,000 commission depends on your tier rate card. On Meesho, commission stays at zero at Rs 1,299 as it does at every price, so shipping and returns remain the deciding lines.
Lesson: at Rs 899, the March 2026 changes make all three platforms commission free on this item. Shipping cost, returns rate and advertising decide where this maker earns most. Commission comparisons from before March 2026 would give exactly the wrong answer for this product.
Common mistakes
Pricing from commission alone. At under Rs 1,000, commission is zero almost everywhere in this comparison, while shipping and returns are not zero anywhere. Price the full stack.
Listing pan India on an enrolment number. The enrolment route is one state only, with no inter state sales. A pan India listing on that basis breaks the condition on the first out of state order.
Using one price for all three platforms. Fee stacks differ by platform, category, tier and zone. The same product can need three prices to protect the same margin.
Ignoring GST on marketplace fees. Fees attract GST at 18 percent in the structures described. A margin worked out on ex GST fees without adding the tax overstates what you keep, subject to input credit treatment your CA confirms.
Ignoring returns in the price. In fashion and home categories, returns are a cost line, not a surprise. Build an allowance from your first month's actual return rate and revise the price if the rate is worse than you assumed.
Skipping the food licence. A food listing without the correct FSSAI category creates onboarding and compliance trouble that no fee saving repairs.
Frequently asked questions
Register on supplier.meesho.com with PAN, a bank account and GSTIN for most categories, list products with clear photos and a price built from the full fee stack, and dispatch through Meesho logistics when orders come. Commission is zero. Shipping, any platform charge, returns and advertising still apply.
Sources: Amazon Seller Central fee change announcement of March 2026, Meesho supplier material, Flipkart seller fee reporting, GST Notifications 34/2023 and 15/2024 as cited, verified November 2026. Rules and rates change; check the official portal before you apply.