What is a take rate?
Take rate is the percentage of each transaction's value that a platform keeps as revenue. If a marketplace processes $1,000 in sales and keeps $50, its take rate is 5%. If a payment provider processes $1 billion and earns $15 million in fees, its take rate is 1.5%.
Take rate is how most platforms and payment providers make money. Instead of selling products directly, they connect buyers and sellers and keep a slice of every transaction that flows through them.
How to calculate take rate
The formula is simple: divide the fees earned by the total transaction volume.
For marketplaces:
Take rate (%) = fees or commissions earned / gross merchandise volume (GMV)
GMV is the total value of everything sold through the platform. If a marketplace has $500 million in GMV and earns $50 million in fees, its take rate is 10%.
For payment providers:
Take rate (%) = fee revenue / total payment volume (TPV)
TPV is used instead of GMV because payment platforms process transactions rather than sell goods. A payment processor earning $20 million on $1 billion in TPV has a 2% take rate.
One important note: always calculate using net fee revenue, after subtracting refunds and chargebacks, not gross revenue. This gives a more accurate picture of what the platform actually keeps.
What affects take rate
Take rate is not fixed. It changes based on the type of platform, the size of transactions, and how much the platform does for its users.
- Transaction size and frequency: Platforms that handle many small transactions (food delivery, ride-hailing) usually charge a higher percentage to cover their costs per transaction. Platforms that handle fewer but much larger transactions (real estate, B2B procurement) charge a lower percentage on a bigger amount
- Services included: A platform that only moves money charges less than one that also handles fraud detection, disputes, compliance, and customer support. The more a platform does, the more it can reasonably charge
- Competition: In crowded markets where users can easily switch, take rates tend to fall. Platforms with strong network effects and loyal users can hold their rates higher
- B2B vs. B2C: Business-to-business platforms typically have lower take rates than consumer-facing ones, because business buyers are more price-sensitive and transaction values are higher
As a general reference, product marketplaces such as Amazon and eBay typically operate between 5% and 20%. Service platforms like Uber and Airbnb typically sit between 15% and 25%. Payment processors and fintech infrastructure providers typically range from 0.1% to 3%, depending on the rail and volume.
Take rate vs. related terms
Gross margin is different from take rate. Take rate measures how much revenue a platform captures from transactions. Gross margin measures how much is left after costs. A platform can have a high take rate and still have low margins if its operating costs are high.
Merchant discount rate (MDR) is the specific fee a merchant pays to accept card payments. It is one component of take rate for payment processors, but does not cover the full picture for platforms earning fees in multiple ways.
Net revenue rate is sometimes used instead of take rate. It refers to what a platform keeps after paying out third parties like card networks or revenue-sharing partners. For payment platforms with large pass-through costs, net revenue rate is a more honest measure of actual earnings.
