Take Rate

What is take rate?

Take rate is the share of the money flowing across a platform that the platform keeps as revenue. Bill Gurley defines the percentage rake as the amount a marketplace charges as a percentage of gross merchandise sales, which typically represents its net revenues. The word rake comes from casinos: the commission the house earns for operating a poker game.

What are take rates?

The plural matters, because the number is meaningless without the denominator attached to it. Every platform defines its own volume measure, and the definitions are not equivalent. Four real examples, each from the company's own annual report, show both the spread and the naming problem.

Etsy is the cleanest case because it discloses the ratio itself. In its 2025 annual report Etsy reports gross merchandise sales of $11,916,900 thousand and revenue of $2,883,501 thousand, and gives a revenue take rate of 24.2 percent, which it defines as revenue divided by GMS. Verify it: $2,883,501 / $11,916,900 = 24.2%. The prior year was $2,808,332 thousand over $12,586,952 thousand, or $2,808,332 / $12,586,952 = 22.3%, matching the 22.3 percent Etsy discloses. Note that GMS fell while revenue rose, which is exactly how a take rate expands.

Airbnb does not use the phrase, so the ratio has to be computed. Its 2025 report gives gross booking value of $91,273 million and revenue of $12,241 million: $12,241 / $91,273 = 13.41%. Airbnb defines GBV as the dollar value of bookings on the platform in a period, inclusive of host earnings, service fees, cleaning fees and taxes, net of cancellations and alterations.

DoorDash calls the same ratio something else entirely. It defines net revenue margin as revenue expressed as a percentage of marketplace gross order value, and reports 13.4 percent for 2025, consistent with 2024. Its inputs are marketplace GOV of $102,018 million and revenue of $13,717 million: $13,717 / $102,018 = 13.45%.

Apple sets its rate by rule rather than reporting a ratio. Apple states that during a subscriber's first year of service the developer receives 70 percent of the subscription price minus applicable taxes, and that after a subscriber accumulates one year of paid service the developer's net revenue increases to 85 percent. Its Small Business Program features a reduced commission rate of 15 percent on paid apps and in-app purchases, available to developers who made up to 1 million US dollars in proceeds in the prior calendar year across all their apps and to developers new to the App Store, with the standard rate applying to future sales once a participating developer passes the 1 million threshold in the current year.

Read those four together and the useful conclusion is not the ranking. It is that a 24 percent take rate on items sold, a 13 percent take rate on bookings including taxes and cleaning fees, and a 30 percent commission on a subscription price are three different measurements. Comparing them directly is a category error.

What is take rate in fintech?

The arithmetic is identical and the denominator changes. In payments and fintech the volume measure is transaction or payment volume rather than merchandise value, so the ratio is revenue over the dollars processed rather than over the value of goods sold.

Three cautions follow, and they matter more here than in consumer marketplaces. First, the naming is unstandardized; DoorDash's net revenue margin is the same computation Etsy calls revenue take rate, and payments companies use their own labels again. Second, the denominators in payments are typically far larger relative to the service delivered, so the percentages look small without meaning the business is worse. Third, a percentage quoted without its denominator named is uninterpretable, which is the single most common way these figures mislead.

The mechanics

A take rate is set by three constraints, and Gurley's framing is the most useful one.

The first is the bypass route. If buyers and sellers can find each other and transact off-platform, the rate is capped by how easy that is. Gurley's warning is direct: high rakes create a natural impetus for suppliers to look elsewhere, which endangers sustainability.

The second is the value actually delivered. A platform that generates demand a seller could not reach alone can charge more than one that merely hosts a listing.

The third is the strategic risk of charging what you can. Gurley calls it the most dangerous strategy for any platform company to price too high, to charge a greedy and overzealous rake that could undermine the whole point of having a platform, and describes a high rake as a pricing umbrella that competitors can exploit.

A worked example, on comparability

Gurley's own illustration is the right one to check because it shows the method on a company whose numbers were public. He gives eBay's 2011 marketplace revenues as approximately $6.6 billion against GMS of approximately $68.6 billion, for a rake percentage of just under 10 percent. Verify: $6.6 / $68.6 = 9.62%, which is indeed just under 10.

Now put that beside the figures above, computed identically:

• Etsy 2025: $2,883,501 / $11,916,900 = 24.2%
• DoorDash 2025: $13,717 / $102,018 = 13.45%
• Airbnb 2025: $12,241 / $91,273 = 13.41%
• eBay 2011: $6.6 / $68.6 = 9.62%

Four marketplaces, one formula, a range from under 10 percent to over 24 percent. The reason Etsy sits highest is not that it extracts more per transaction in some abstract sense; it is partly that its denominator excludes shipping fees and is net of refunds, while Airbnb's includes taxes and cleaning fees and DoorDash's includes taxes, tips and consumer fees. Denominator definitions move the ratio by several points before any pricing decision is made.

How it shows up in the documents

In an annual report, look for the non-GAAP or key metrics discussion rather than the financial statements. That is where Etsy defines revenue take rate as revenue divided by GMS, where DoorDash defines net revenue margin as revenue as a percentage of marketplace GOV, and where Airbnb defines GBV. Each of those definitions carries an exclusion list, and the exclusion list is where the analytical work is.

For a platform that sets rates by policy rather than reporting a ratio, the source is the developer or seller agreement and the program pages. Apple's Small Business Program page, for instance, carries both the 15 percent rate and the 1 million dollar proceeds qualification rule.

Common mistakes

• Comparing take rates across platforms without reading the denominators. Shipping, taxes, tips and consumer fees are in some and out of others.
• Treating a rising take rate as pricing power. Etsy's rose while its GMS fell; the ratio can improve because the denominator shrank.
• Confusing a headline commission with a realized take rate. Apple's subscription commission drops from 30 percent to 15 percent after a subscriber's first year and to 15 percent under the Small Business Program, so the realized rate across a developer base is lower than the headline.
• Assuming a low rate means weak monetization. In payments the denominator is the dollars processed, which is a much larger base than merchandise value.
• Modeling a rate increase without modeling disintermediation. Gurley's point is that the incentive to go around the platform rises with the rake.

How it relates to adjacent terms

Unit economics is where a take rate becomes meaningful or not. The same 15 percent can be excellent or fatal depending on the cost to serve each transaction, which is why DoorDash reports gross profit as a percentage of marketplace GOV alongside its net revenue margin.

Network effects are what let a platform hold a rate. The constraint Gurley identifies is bypass, and the only durable defense against bypass is that each side needs the platform to reach the other.

Revenue multiple is where the market prices the judgment. Two platforms with identical volume and different take rates have different revenue, and the one with the higher rate is also the one carrying more disintermediation risk, which is a large part of why comparable platforms trade at different multiples of the same GMV.

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