The take rate often refers to a fee collected by a marketplace, payment provider, or service provider for facilitating a transaction between the buyer and seller.
Take rates are certainly nothing new and have probably existed for as long people have come together to conduct business in marketplaces.
A marketplace is a platform where buyers and sellers interact and transact. The platform acts as a marketplace that will generate revenues in fees from one or all the parties involved in the transaction. Usually, marketplaces can be classified in several ways, like those selling services vs. products or those connecting buyers and sellers at B2B, B2C, or C2C level. And those marketplaces connecting two core players, or more.
In this more traditional scenario, the take rate is usually a fee collected by an intermediary for connecting the buyer and seller.
Today, however, take rates have become more prevalent and multifaceted.
This is due to the rise of eCommerce and numerous fintech companies that have disrupted the way consumers purchase goods and services.
In most instances, the take rate is a fee that a marketplace collects from a third-party seller or service provider for transactions on their platform.
The most obvious example is a product-centric marketplace such as Amazon or eBay where the take rate is 5-20%.
In 2021, eBay’s take rate was 11.19%. It means that eBay takes a cut of over 11% for each transaction happening through the platform. For instance, in 2021, on a total of over $87 billion in gross merchandise value on top of the platform, the company generated almost ten billion in transaction revenues.
Take rates are also a critical source of revenue for service-based platforms such as Airbnb and Uber, with the exact rate dependent on the average order value and frequency.
Airbnb’s take rates, also called fees, that the platform charges to hosts range between 15-20%. In Q3 2022, Airbnb’s take rate was around 18.5%, compared to 18.8% in 2021 on almost a hundred million nights booked over the platform. Airbnb’s gross booking value per night was $156.44 in Q3 2022, and the total gross booking value was $15.6 billion.In general, a Uber Eats rider might make anywhere between $15-20 an hour in the US. Uber Eats has a take rate of 17-20% on each order placed by the customer. Uber Eats riders’ hourly rates can vary based on geography and route availability.
Take rates may also apply to service providers such as PayPal or Stripe, with these companies collecting a fee for facilitating the transaction itself.
Calculating take rate
To calculate the take rate, we’ll return to the example of a product-centric marketplace such as Amazon.
The calculation itself involves simple arithmetic, but it is sometimes more difficult to find the relevant data in the company’s financials.
What’s more, in the case of Amazon, the take rate also varies based on the product category.
Nevertheless, take rate can be calculated by dividing the:
The Gross Merchandise Volume (GMV) by the total referral fees (commissions).
If an eCommerce company had a GMV of $500 million and $50 million in referral fees from the sale of electronics in 2022, the take rate for that product category would be 10%.
For payment providers and related services, the calculation is more simple.
If a consumer uses PayPal to buy a new camera for $1000, the payment provider may pay the seller $970 and keep the remaining $30 (equivalent to a 3% take rate).
Further applications of take rate
More broadly, take rate can be used to reference the number of users who perform a certain action.
The metric is used in traditional marketing funnels to reflect the fact that these funnels contain multiple stages.
For instance, take rate may refer to the percentage of prospects who clicked on an ad or signed up for a newsletter.
This should not be confused with conversion rate, which commonly refers to the percentage of users who performed one of the aforementioned actions and then went on to purchase the product.
Outside of a standard marketing funnel, a meal subscription company’s take rate may be the percentage of its customers who ordered a particular meal out of all the meals on its menu.
It may also define the take rate to be a measure of how many meals were purchased in a specific time period as a percentage of the total number of orders over a week, month, season, etc.
Key takeaways
Most often, the take rate refers to a fee collected by a marketplace, payment provider, or service provider for facilitating a transaction between the buyer and seller.
Take rates are also a critical source of revenue for service-based platforms such as Airbnb and Uber, with the exact rate dependent on the average order value and frequency. For product-based marketplaces, take rate depends on the product category and Gross Merchandise Volume (GMV).
Take rate can be used more broadly to reference the number of users who perform a certain action. These actions may pertain to the various stages of a traditional marketing funnel or any other action of the company’s choosing.
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Business modelinnovation is about increasing the success of an organization with existing products and technologies by crafting a compelling value proposition able to propel a new business model to scale up customers and create a lasting competitive advantage. And it all starts by mastering the key customers.
Digital and tech business models can be classified according to four levels of transformation into digitally-enabled, digitally-enhanced, tech or platform business models, and business platforms/ecosystems.
A digital business model might be defined as a model that leverages digital technologies to improve several aspects of an organization. From how the company acquires customers, to what product/service it provides. A digital business model is such when digital technology helps enhance its value proposition.
A tech business model is made of four main components: value model (value propositions, mission, vision), technological model (R&D management), distribution model (sales and marketingorganizational structure), and financial model (revenue modeling, cost structure, profitability and cash generation/management). Those elements coming together can serve as the basis to build a solid tech business model.
A platform business model generates value by enabling interactions between people, groups, and users by leveraging network effects. Platform business models usually comprise two sides: supply and demand. Kicking off the interactions between those two sides is one of the crucial elements for a platform business model success.
A Blockchain Business Model is made of four main components: Value Model (Core Philosophy, Core Value and Value Propositions for the key stakeholders), Blockchain Model (Protocol Rules, Network Shape and Applications Layer/Ecosystem), Distribution Model (the key channels amplifying the protocol and its communities), and the Economic Model (the dynamics through which protocol players make money). Those elements coming together can serve as the basis to build and analyze a solid Blockchain Business Model.
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While the term has been coined by Andrew Lampitt, open-core is an evolution of open-source. Where a core part of the software/platform is offered for free, while on top of it are built premium features or add-ons, which get monetized by the corporation who developed the software/platform. An example of the GitLab open core model, where the hosted service is free and open, while the software is closed.
Cloud business models are all built on top of cloud computing, a concept that took over around 2006 when former Google’s CEO Eric Schmit mentioned it. Most cloud-based business models can be classified as IaaS (Infrastructure as a Service), PaaS (Platform as a Service), or SaaS (Software as a Service). While those models are primarily monetized via subscriptions, they are monetized via pay-as-you-go revenue models and hybrid models (subscriptions + pay-as-you-go).
Open source is licensed and usually developed and maintained by a community of independent developers. While the freemium is developed in-house. Thus the freemium give the company that developed it, full control over its distribution. In an open-source model, the for-profit company has to distribute its premium version per its open-source licensing model.
The freemium – unless the whole organization is aligned around it – is a growth strategy rather than a business model. A free service is provided to a majority of users, while a small percentage of those users convert into paying customers through the sales funnel. Free users will help spread the brand through word of mouth.
A freeterprise is a combination of free and enterprise where free professional accounts are driven into the funnel through the free product. As the opportunity is identified the company assigns the free account to a salesperson within the organization (inside sales or fields sales) to convert that into a B2B/enterprise account.
A marketplace is a platform where buyers and sellers interact and transact. The platform acts as a marketplace that will generate revenues in fees from one or all the parties involved in the transaction. Usually, marketplaces can be classified in several ways, like those selling services vs. products or those connecting buyers and sellers at B2B, B2C, or C2C level. And those marketplaces connecting two core players, or more.
B2B, which stands for business-to-business, is a process for selling products or services to other businesses. On the other hand, a B2C sells directly to its consumers.
A B2B2C is a particular kind of business model where a company, rather than accessing the consumer market directly, it does that via another business. Yet the final consumers will recognize the brand or the service provided by the B2B2C. The company offering the service might gain direct access to consumers over time.
Direct-to-consumer (D2C) is a business model where companies sell their products directly to the consumer without the assistance of a third-party wholesaler or retailer. In this way, the company can cut through intermediaries and increase its margins. However, to be successful the direct-to-consumers company needs to build its own distribution, which in the short term can be more expensive. Yet in the long-term creates a competitive advantage.
The C2C business model describes a market environment where one customer purchases from another on a third-party platform that may also handle the transaction. Under the C2C model, both the seller and the buyer are considered consumers. Customer to customer (C2C) is, therefore, a business model where consumers buy and sell directly between themselves. Consumer-to-consumer has become a prevalent business model especially as the web helped disintermediate various industries.
A retail business model follows a direct-to-consumer approach, also called B2C, where the company sells directly to final customers a processed/finished product. This implies a business model that is mostly local-based, it carries higher margins, but also higher costs and distribution risks.
The wholesale model is a selling model where wholesalers sell their products in bulk to a retailer at a discounted price. The retailer then on-sells the products to consumers at a higher price. In the wholesale model, a wholesaler sells products in bulk to retail outlets for onward sale. Occasionally, the wholesaler sells direct to the consumer, with supermarket giant Costco the most obvious example.
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In a franchained business model (a short-term chain, long-term franchise) model, the company deliberately launched its operations by keeping tight ownership on the main assets, while those are established, thus choosing a chain model. Once operations are running and established, the company divests its ownership and opts instead for a franchising model.
Businesses employing the brokerage business model make money via brokerage services. This means they are involved with the facilitation, negotiation, or arbitration of a transaction between a buyer and a seller. The brokerage business model involves a business connecting buyers with sellers to collect a commission on the resultant transaction. Therefore, acting as a middleman within a transaction.
Dropshipping is a retail business model where the dropshipper externalizes the manufacturing and logistics and focuses only on distribution and customer acquisition. Therefore, the dropshipper collects final customers’ sales orders, sending them over to third-party suppliers, who ship directly to those customers. In this way, through dropshipping, it is possible to run a business without operational costs and logistics management.
Gennaro is the creator of FourWeekMBA, which reached about four million business people, comprising C-level executives, investors, analysts, product managers, and aspiring digital entrepreneurs in 2022 alone | He is also Director of Sales for a high-tech scaleup in the AI Industry | In 2012, Gennaro earned an International MBA with emphasis on Corporate Finance and Business Strategy.
