Faire Review 2026

Faire is a wholesale marketplace where independent retailers buy from brands, and its pitch to a small brand is simple: it finds you stockists and takes the credit risk on them.

Faire pays you even when the retailer uses its 60-day terms, and it absorbs returns on a retailer's first order, which is why a brand without a sales team or a collections process can sell to hundreds of shops at once.

The question this review answers is narrower than "is Faire good": it is when the commission pays for itself. For a brand that already has wholesale accounts, Faire Direct makes the platform close to free; for a brand that wants Faire to do the prospecting, the 15% is a customer acquisition cost that never expires.

We price both against the alternatives a small brand actually weighs: Creoate, Shopify with its built-in B2B tools, Shopify Plus and NuORDER.

Retailpresso data: on a $500 opening order from a retailer Faire introduced, commission, the new customer fee and 30-day processing take $97.30, or 19.5% of the order; the same order through Faire Direct costs $12.30, or 2.5%. Our arithmetic on Faire's published North American rates, October 2026.

Toolradar data: Toolradar tracks 687 e-commerce tools as of 19 October 2026, and 35% of them are free, freemium or open source; Faire sits in the free-to-join group, with its cost carried entirely by each order.

Methodology: Faire's fees, terms and program rules were read on 19 October 2026 in Faire's own help center; rivals' prices on their own pricing or seller pages the same day. Order scenarios are our arithmetic and assume each fee applies to the order value. See how we rate.

Faire is an online wholesale marketplace connecting independent brands with independent retailers, from gift shops to boutiques. Brands apply to sell, and Faire's help center says applications are reviewed against category supply and demand, the brand's location, product type, number of SKUs and how established its existing wholesale business is.

Acceptance is not automatic, so a brand in a crowded category may wait or be turned down.

Retailers get the reasons to buy there: 60-day payment terms for eligible retailers, free returns on a first order with a new brand, and, for Insider members, free shipping on many brands. Faire says its more than 100,000 Insiders drive 80% of its sales, which is why Insider free shipping eligibility matters to a brand's visibility.

For brands, Faire is two products in one account. The marketplace is a discovery channel that charges commission. Faire Direct is a set of order-taking tools (a personalized wholesale website, invoices and a brand app for trade shows) that charges 0% commission on retailers you bring yourself.

You list your catalog, set your wholesale prices and order minimums, and retailers order from your shop. You ship each order yourself, using Faire's shipping partnerships or your own carrier, and Faire collects from the retailer and pays you on the schedule you chose.

Payout speed is a price lever. Next-day payout costs 3.5% per order, 30-day payout 2.4% and 60-day payout 1.9%, each plus the same fixed per-order charge. A brand with cash in the bank saves 1.6 points of every order by waiting two months; a brand funding its next production run usually pays for speed.

Commission depends on where the retailer came from. A retailer who first discovers you on the marketplace triggers 15% plus the new customer fee on the first order, then 15% on every reorder.

A retailer who places a first order through your Faire Direct link pays you at 0% commission for good, and if you can document an existing relationship with a retailer that landed on the marketplace route, Faire lets you request a change to 0%, with a refund on an order already paid out only if it was placed in the last 30 days.

Shipping has a newer cost. Since 22 August 2024, Faire no longer pays Insider free shipping on Faire Direct orders. Brands that opt into the Insider Partnership pay that shipping on eligible Faire Direct Insider orders, while Faire pays for wider free shipping on marketplace Insider orders. Faire still funds one year of free shipping for new retailers you bring to the platform.

Faire charges no subscription; every cost is a per-order fee. The rates below are for brands based in North America, read on 19 October 2026 in Faire's help center article on selling costs.

Marketplace orders carry 15% commission, and a retailer's first order adds a one-time new customer fee. Faire Direct orders carry 0% commission. Payment processing, set by payout speed, is added to every order at the rates in the table below.

Promoted Listings are an optional pay-per-click cost on top.

What a retailer relationship costs over a year (our arithmetic, 30-day payout): a marketplace retailer who places a $500 opening order and three reorders of the same size generates $2,000 of sales and costs $359.20 in fees, or 18%.

The same retailer through Faire Direct costs $49.20, or 2.5%. The $310 difference is what Faire charges for having found that stockist.

The alternatives price differently. Creoate charges 20% commission on a new retailer's first order and 10% on reorders.

Shopify includes B2B with up to 3 catalogs on every plan, from $39 a month on monthly billing or $29 a month billed yearly, with online card rates from 2.9% plus 30 cents on that plan.

Shopify Plus starts at $2,300 a month on a 3-year term, or $2,500 on a 1-year term, with unlimited B2B catalogs. NuORDER publishes no list price. For the order-by-order fee walk-through, see our Faire fees guide.

Faire fits a small brand that wants new independent stockists and cannot carry net terms or chase invoices. The commission buys prospecting, credit checks and collections in one, and the first-order returns policy lets a cautious shop try you without risk to your payout.

It is also worth joining for a brand that already sells wholesale, purely for Faire Direct. Sending existing accounts your Faire Direct link gives them Faire's terms at 0% commission to you, so the only cost is processing. Watch the shipping change, though: in the Insider Partnership you pay free shipping on eligible Faire Direct Insider orders yourself.

It is a weaker fit for a brand with thin margins and mostly first orders. On a small opening order the flat new customer fee plus 15% plus processing eats a large share, and a brand that wins a retailer through the marketplace pays 15% on that account indefinitely.

A brand with an established rep network and large accounts may be better served by its own Shopify store with B2B catalogs, or by NuORDER once it sells to department stores.

Etsy and direct-to-consumer sellers moving into wholesale should see our tools for DTC founders and Etsy seller tools guides for the rest of the stack.