Most Brands Are Overpaying on Faire
If you're selling on Faire and haven't looked closely at the commission structure, you're probably leaving thousands of dollars on the table every year. Not because Faire is ripping you off — but because the default path is the most expensive one, and most brands never move off it.
Faire's fee structure isn't a flat rate. It's a sliding scale that rewards brands who bring their own buyers to the platform. The question is whether you're working that scale or just accepting whatever shows up.
How Faire's Commission Actually Works
Here's the breakdown that matters:
- 25% commission on first orders from buyers Faire found for you through the Marketplace
- 15% commission on reorders from those same Marketplace-sourced buyers
- 0% commission on orders from buyers you brought to Faire yourself through Faire Direct
Read that last line again. Zero percent. If you drove the buyer to Faire, you don't pay a commission on their orders. Ever.
On top of commissions, there's a payment processing fee that varies based on your payout timing. Choose the 60-day payout window and you'll pay the lowest processing fee. Want your money faster? The fee goes up. Since Faire gives retailers 60-day payment terms anyway, aligning your payout to that window makes financial sense unless your cash flow demands otherwise.
Faire Direct: The 0% Path Nobody Talks About
Faire Direct is the single most underused tool on the platform. It lets you bring your own retailers to Faire and keep 100% of the sale (minus the small processing fee). Here's how it works:
Upload your retailer contacts. If you have email addresses for wholesale buyers — from trade shows, your website, cold outreach, anywhere — you can upload them directly into Faire Direct. When those retailers place an order, it's tagged as your lead. Zero commission.
Share your Faire Direct referral link. Every brand gets a unique link. When a retailer clicks it and creates an account, they're permanently attributed to you. Use this link in your emails, your outreach, your follow-ups.
Install the Faire widget on your website. If you have a wholesale page (and you should), the Faire widget links visitors directly to your Faire Direct storefront. Any retailer who comes through gets tracked as your lead. Zero commission, automatically.
There's a sweetener for the retailers too — buyers who come through your Faire Direct link get a $300 opening order credit and free shipping for a year. That's a real incentive you can use in your pitch.
The Math That Matters
Let's put real numbers on this. Say you're doing $50,000 a month through Faire.
Scenario A: 100% Marketplace orders. You're paying roughly 20% blended commission (mix of first orders at 25% and reorders at 15%). That's about $10,000 a month in commissions. $120,000 a year gone.
Scenario B: 60% Faire Direct, 40% Marketplace. Your Faire Direct orders cost you nothing in commission. Your Marketplace orders still run at the blended rate. Monthly commissions drop to about $4,000. Annual commissions: roughly $48,000.
That's $72,000 a year back in your pocket. Same products. Same platform. Same buyers placing orders. You just changed how they got there.
Even a modest shift matters. Moving just 30% of your orders to Faire Direct on that same $50K monthly volume saves you over $36,000 a year. That's a new hire. That's a trade show budget. That's margin you can reinvest in product development.
Five Strategies to Shift Your Commission Mix
1. Build Your Own Lead Pipeline
Stop waiting for Faire's algorithm to send you buyers. Find retailers yourself through Google Maps, industry events, social media, and trade shows. Pre-qualify them, then upload their information to Faire Direct before they ever find you on the Marketplace. If they discover you organically first, that's a 25% commission you'll never get back.
2. Put the Faire Widget on Your Website
This is the easiest win. Any retailer browsing your site who clicks through to your Faire storefront via the widget gets attributed to you. It takes 15 minutes to set up and pays for itself on the first order.
3. Use Faire Direct Links in Every Cold Email
If you're doing any outreach to potential wholesale buyers — and you should be — every email should include your Faire Direct link. Not your generic Faire storefront URL. Your Direct link. One click of the wrong link is the difference between 0% and 25%.
4. Upload Trade Show Contacts Immediately
You just spent three days and $5,000 at a trade show collecting business cards and scanning badges. Upload those contacts to Faire Direct before you even unpack your booth. If those retailers go home and search for you on Faire's Marketplace before you upload them, you just paid 25% commission on a buyer you already found.
5. Never Buy Email Lists
This is the one that can actually hurt you. Faire monitors the quality of contacts uploaded through their marketing tools. If you're uploading purchased lists full of bad addresses, you risk getting banned from Faire Direct entirely. Build your list the right way — real contacts from real interactions.
The Payout Timing Play
One more lever most brands ignore: payout timing.
Faire offers different payout windows, and the processing fee changes with each one. The 60-day payout carries the lowest fee. Since Faire extends 60-day terms to retailers anyway, your money is following the same timeline regardless — you're just deciding how much you want to pay to speed it up.
If your cash flow allows it, the 60-day window is the smart default. If you need faster access to revenue, just know you're paying a premium for it and factor that into your pricing.
Stop Subsidizing Faire's Growth With Your Margins
Faire built a great platform. Buyers love it, and it genuinely opens doors for brands that would never get in front of thousands of retailers on their own. That's worth paying for.
But paying 25% commission on a buyer you found yourself, emailed yourself, and convinced to order? That's not paying for distribution. That's a missed opportunity.
The brands that treat Faire Direct as a core part of their sales strategy — not an afterthought — are the ones keeping more of every dollar. The playbook isn't complicated. It's just deliberate.
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At Smoothed, we help Faire brands build the lead pipelines and outreach systems that shift orders from 25% commission to 0%. If you want to stop leaving money on the table, [let's talk](https://smoothed.io).