There are no fees for buyers
There are no fees for buyers
The literal claim
True. No commission is charged to a buyer at the point of purchase. Your cost is the listed price plus whatever network fee your own wallet pays to broadcast.
Why it does not mean what it sounds like
Vendor fees exist and they are priced into listings. A platform with no buyer commission and high vendor fees produces higher listed prices than one with a small buyer commission and low vendor fees. The buyer pays in both cases, and the difference is visibility rather than incidence.
This phrasing is used promotionally right across this space precisely because it is literally accurate while creating an impression that is not. Comparing platforms on advertised buyer commission tells you almost nothing. Comparing the price of a comparable listing across two platforms tells you nearly everything, because it folds in every fee including the ones nobody advertises.
What you actually pay
- Listed price
- Already contains the vendor fee. This is the part most people think is fee free.
- Network fee
- Paid by your wallet, not the platform. Small on Monero and it rewards funding once rather than repeatedly.
- Withdrawal
- Moving a balance off the platform pays a network fee again.
- Dispute filing
- Genuinely nothing. The cost of a frivolous dispute is reputational, which is the correct design.
The cost that dwarfs all of it
The structural effect of a two part vendor fee is worth knowing too. A listing component that is roughly fixed falls hardest on cheap items, and a settlement component that scales with value falls hardest on expensive ones. That is why the same item sometimes costs more per unit in small quantities than the price difference alone explains. It is fee structure showing through rather than a vendor being opportunistic.