Cost question · Tier B
Search this question and the same results page will tell you $200, $1,500, $5,000, and $250,000 — a hundred times apart. They are not all lying. They are answering for different doors and calling it one question. Here is the question answered properly: per door, from dated fees, with the basket shown.
Ask about 'selling online' and you have asked about at least seven different businesses: a file sold on Etsy, a shirt printed per order, a garage's worth of used goods, a live auction, a catalog listing on Amazon, a store of your own. Their starter costs run from $0 to several hundred dollars before the first sale — and the $250,000 answer is about starting a company, quoted into a question about starting to sell.
The second trick is quieter: most answers count the platform's charges and stop there. They leave out the samples, the first inventory, the shipping supplies — and, for your own store, the traffic. Count everything and the numbers stop contradicting; they just become different doors' numbers.
| Door | Cash before your first sale | What the money actually is |
|---|---|---|
| Resale apps (eBay, Poshmark, Mercari) | $0–$25 | Nothing, if your first inventory is your own shelves. A scale and mailers if you want to be serious. |
| Etsy — digital products | $19–$33 | Set-up fee ($15–$29) + first 20 listings at $0.20. Software can be $0. |
| Amazon — the ladder | $40–$150 | First small inventory + shipping supplies. The plan charges only when you sell. |
| Etsy — print on demand | $55–$95 | Set-up fee + listings + the two sample orders that keep you honest. |
| Etsy — handmade & vintage | $60–$175 | Set-up fee + listings + one materials batch. Your materials decide where in the range you land. |
| Whatnot — live selling | $90–$265 | A starter table of inventory deep enough to fill a show, plus supplies. |
| Your own store (Shopify) | $69–$400+ | First month + domain at the floor. The honest typical basket — with a real traffic test — is about $154, and traffic is the line that grows. |
Every figure from the dated fee dataset, checked October 2026. These are costs to open and reach a first sale — not predictions of what you will earn, which no honest page can give you.
A beginner with $300 on the wrong door (an own-store with no audience, or Amazon inventory for a gated category) is poorer in a month than a beginner with $25 on the right one (their own closet, listed this week). That is why this site runs a finder instead of a price list: the same budget is generous on one door and an insult on another, and the difference is your starting point — what you have, your hours, your shipping and camera answers.
If your number is truly $0, there is still a door — exactly one — and the no-money page is honest about it. If your number is $500, the $500 page shows where that money does the most work and where it evaporates.
The First Door Kit's real-numbers budget sheet starts from your actual budget — $25, $100, $500 — and maps it onto the door the finder picks, line by line, so 'about $100' becomes a shopping list, not a vibe.
Included in the $39 First Door Kit
No — not for a beginner. The Individual plan charges $0.99 only when an item sells. Professional pays off around 40 sales a month. Counting it as a starting cost is how starter-cost articles inflate themselves.
Platforms let individuals open accounts with personal ID and tax information. Licenses and business structures are local, legal questions that depend on where you live and what you sell — and they are the same across doors, so they do not change which door fits. Get local advice when sales are real.
Because the average of $0 and $400 is a number that describes nobody. Doors, not averages.