Guide

How to set an eBay price floor (and never race to the bottom)

Automated repricing wins the sale — until it quietly sells your inventory at a loss. A price floor is the one rule that prevents that: a per-item minimum your price can never drop below, no matter what competitors do. Here's how to calculate one and put it on autopilot.

What a price floor actually is

A price floor is the lowest price you're willing to sell an item for and still come out ahead. Above it, you can compete on price freely; at it, you stop. It's the single guardrail that makes hands-off repricing safe — the difference between "undercut the competition" and "undercut the competition until I'm losing money."

The formula

floor = (item cost + shipping + fixed fees) ÷ (1 − fee % − minimum margin %)

Dividing by (1 − fees − margin) grosses the number up so that after eBay takes its cut you still keep the margin you wanted. Plug in your real numbers, not optimistic ones.

A worked example

Say an item costs you $8, ships for $4, eBay's final-value fee is about 13.25% + $0.30 (it varies by category — check yours), and you want a 15% minimum margin:

Fixed costs = $8 + $4 + $0.30 = $12.30
Divide by (1 − 0.1325 − 0.15) = 0.7175
Floor ≈ $17.14 — never list or reprice below this

Now you can undercut competitors all day in the band above $17.14 and know every sale clears your margin.

Floor vs. ceiling

A floor protects margin; an optional ceiling stops you overpricing when competitors vanish or a listing is briefly the only one. Most sellers need a floor on every item and a ceiling on a few.

Why "race to the bottom" is a myth (with a floor)

The fear is real but the cause isn't repricing — it's repricing without a floor. Industry data shows roughly half of automated reprices move prices up, not down. With a hard floor, the downward moves simply stop at your minimum. You capture the buy-now when you can win it profitably, and hold otherwise.

Putting it on autopilot

Doing this by hand across dozens or hundreds of listings is the real problem. Undercut tracks the lowest competitor on each item and reprices to win — then clamps to the floor you set. On Pro and Scale, AI tunes how aggressive to be so you keep margin instead of giving it away. You set the floor once; it enforces it forever.

Set your floors, then let it run.

14-day Starter trial, no card. Undercut competitors automatically — never below your minimum.

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FAQ

What if a competitor prices below my floor?

You hold at your floor and let them take the unprofitable sale. Winning every sale at a loss isn't winning.

Should the floor include eBay Store fees or promoted-listing fees?

If they materially affect an item's economics, fold them into the fee % so your floor stays honest.

Can I set one floor for everything?

You can set a default, but per-item floors are safer because cost and fees differ by product.