How we make money
What we charge, in full
Every rate we charge is on this page. There is no page two, no enterprise tier, and no number that changes once you are inside.
Commission, by category
Charged to the seller, on completed orders only. Published range: 5% to 20%.
| Category | Rate | Cap |
|---|---|---|
| Meat & livestock | Tiered — 15% on the first $1,000, 12% to $2,000, 10% to $3,000, 8% to $5,000, and 5% above that — each rate applying only to its own slice of the order | $300 |
| Baked goods, prepared food, drinks, restaurant | 20% | — |
| Produce, eggs, dairy, honey, preserves, canned, pantry, mushrooms, nurseries, subscriptions | 18% | — |
| Crafts & handmade | 15% | $250 |
| Flowers | 15% | $250 |
| Services | 15% | $500 |
| Coffee | 15% | — |
| Farmers market listings, agritourism | 12% | — |
| Fruit | 10% | — |
| Grain, seafood | 8% | — |
Why meat is tiered
A half beef is a single four-figure transaction, and a flat percentage on it would be indefensible. The tiers do the work, and each slice carries its own rate: $2,800 is charged $350, an effective 12.5%, and a $10,000 order works out at 7.8%, falling toward 5% as it grows. The rate falls as the order grows, which is the opposite of how most platforms treat their largest sellers.
We never take a floor amount out of a small sale
We had one briefly. A flat floor is 50% of a $3 sale, which breaks the published range and does it to the party this platform exists to protect. It was removed, and the database now refuses to store it at all.
What replaced it is a $2.00 small order fee charged to the customer, on delivery only, never on pickup, on orders under a $20 subtotal — and the app has to show exactly how much more to add to clear it. A threshold fee you cannot see is a junk fee.
Delivery by our drivers is a pass-through
The customer's delivery fee is quoted for the actual order. When one of our drivers carries it, the fee goes to that driver and Only Local Co. keeps none of it. Where a seller or a delivery partner carries the order with their own driver, the fee is settled with them under their own agreement. We earn when a producer makes a sale, not when a driver makes a delivery, and we publish no driver earnings figures because we will not advertise a number a driver's real week may not match.
Pickup is charged the same rate
Commission pays for the storefront, the payments, the customer relationship and the support behind every order. None of that is the drive. What changes on pickup is that your customer pays no delivery fee and you keep exactly what you would have kept.