If you have decided to sell your LEGO collection, the next question is where. eBay and BrickLink are the two most common answers, and both can work. But “can work” and “worth your time” are different things. Once you count the fees, the hours, and the risk involved in doing it yourself, selling your whole collection to a buyer in one transaction often comes out ahead, especially for anything beyond a single valuable set.
Here is an honest look at what each option actually costs, in money and in time, so you can decide what is right for your collection. If you have not yet figured out roughly what your LEGO is worth, our guide to LEGO values is a good place to start before you read further.
Selling on eBay
eBay gives you the largest possible audience, and for a single in-demand set, that can mean a strong price. But it is not free to sell there, and the fees are easy to underestimate.
The costs:
- Final value fee. Most categories, including toys and collectibles, run around 13.6% of the total sale amount. That percentage applies to the item price plus whatever shipping the buyer pays, not just the item price alone.
- Per-order fee. A small flat fee, roughly $0.30 to $0.40, on top of the percentage.
- Optional promoted listings. If you want better visibility, you can pay an additional percentage, often another 2% to 8%, only charged if the promotion leads to a sale.
- Your time. Photographing, writing descriptions, answering buyer questions, packing, and shipping every single sale.
On a $100 LEGO sale, a roughly 13.6% final value fee plus the per-order fee takes about $14 before you have paid a cent for shipping materials or your own packing time. For a large collection sold set by set, that adds up fast, and it is spread across dozens of individual listings, each one requiring its own photos, description, and buyer interaction.
What eBay is good for: a single high-value, high-demand set, like a retired UCS Star Wars set, where the size of the audience can push the price above what a bulk buyer would offer for that one item.
What it is not great for: collections of any real size. Multiply the listing effort and the fees across 20, 50, or 100 sets, and the time cost alone becomes significant, even before you factor in slow sales, lowball offers, and the occasional problem buyer.
Selling on BrickLink
BrickLink is the marketplace built specifically for LEGO, and its fees are structured differently than eBay’s.
The costs:
- Commission. BrickLink’s commission is tiered by sale amount, generally around 3% on sales up to $500 and higher above that. That is meaningfully lower than eBay’s flat percentage.
- Payment processing. Commission is not the whole story. Whichever payment method you use, whether PayPal or another processor, typically adds a separate 2% to 3% or more on top.
- No listing fees and no monthly store cost for a basic shop, which is a real advantage over eBay if you are listing a large number of items.
- Your time, and often more of it than eBay. BrickLink is built around cataloging individual sets and parts precisely, with condition grades, completeness notes, and part-by-part listings for bulk lots. It rewards sellers who enjoy the detail work, and it punishes sellers who do not have the time for it.
What BrickLink is good for: individual sets, rare minifigures, and parts sold to a dedicated audience of collectors and builders who specifically shop there. Because the buyers are LEGO-specific, well-priced rare items can move quickly.
What it is not great for: anyone who wants to be done quickly. Setting up a seller account, learning the cataloging system, and listing a large or mixed collection piece by piece is a real time investment, and payouts trickle in one sale at a time rather than arriving all at once.
Selling Your Whole Collection to a Buyer
The alternative to listing individual items yourself is selling the entire collection in one transaction to a buyer like us. The trade-off is straightforward: you likely will not get the single highest possible price on every individual item the way a patient eBay or BrickLink listing might eventually bring, but you avoid nearly all of the costs and effort described above.
What that looks like:
- No listing fees, no final value fees, no payment processing cut. The quote we give you is what you are paid.
- No photographing, describing, or answering buyer messages for dozens or hundreds of individual items. One list or a set of photos covers your whole collection.
- One evaluation, one offer, one shipment. You are not managing separate sales over weeks or months.
- Free shipping. Once you accept an offer, we send shipping labels and cover the cost.
- Fast, single payment. Once your collection is checked in, you are paid within 48 hours by check, Venmo, or PayPal, rather than waiting on individual buyers to pay and payment holds to clear.
For a single, exceptionally valuable set, that trade might not make sense; a patient eBay or BrickLink listing could bring more. But for most collections, especially larger ones, mixed ones, or ones you simply want gone without a part-time job’s worth of listing work, one transaction at a fair price is worth more than the marginal extra dollars you might chase down over months of individual sales.
Comparing the Three Options
| Factor | eBay | BrickLink | Selling to a Buyer |
|---|---|---|---|
| Typical fees | ~13.6% + per-order fee | ~3-5% commission + separate payment processing | None deducted from your offer |
| Time to list | High, per item | High, per item, more detailed cataloging | Minimal, one list or photo set |
| Shipping | You pack and pay, per sale | You pack and pay, per sale | Free, we provide labels |
| Payment timing | Per sale, as items sell | Per sale, as items sell | One payment, within 48 hours of check-in |
| Best for | A single high-demand set | Rare individual sets, minifigures, parts | Full or mixed collections, any size |
How to Decide What’s Right for You
A few questions worth asking yourself:
- Do you have one exceptionally valuable set, or a broad collection? A single standout piece might be worth listing yourself. A broad or mixed collection usually is not worth the per-item effort.
- Do you have time to photograph, list, and ship dozens of individual items? If not, the fees you would save by doing it yourself get eaten up by the value of your own time.
- Do you want cash now, or are you comfortable waiting weeks or months for items to sell one at a time? Selling to a buyer means one payment, fast. Marketplace selling means a trickle of payments over an unpredictable timeline.
- Not sure what your collection is even worth yet? Start with our guide to LEGO values to understand what drives the price before you decide how to sell.
Skip the Listings and Sell Your Whole Collection Today
If reading through fee percentages and listing workflows makes selling your LEGO sound like more trouble than it’s worth, that is exactly the problem we solve. Tell us what you have, get a free quote within two business days, and if you accept, we cover shipping and pay you within 48 hours of your collection arriving. No fees, no listings, no waiting on individual buyers.
Get your free LEGO quote here »
Frequently Asked Questions
BrickLink’s commission is generally lower than eBay’s final value fee, though BrickLink sellers also pay separate payment processing fees on top. Either way, both involve per-item fees that a single sale to a buyer avoids entirely.
Neither eBay nor BrickLink is really built for offloading a large collection at once, since both require listing and managing each item individually. Selling the whole collection to a buyer in one transaction is typically faster and less work.
Yes. BrickLink requires you to build a buyer account and reputation before you can open a seller account, and setting up a shop involves its own learning curve for cataloging sets and parts correctly.
Yes. eBay’s final value fee is calculated on the total amount the buyer pays, including the shipping charge, not just the item price.
Sending a list or photos to a buyer for a single collection-wide quote is generally the fastest route, since it skips individual listings, waiting for each item to sell, and separate shipments.
