How Do You Get Paid On Mercari? (And When…)

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At A Glance
To get paid on Mercari you must first list and sell an item. After the buyer confirms that the item is delivered the funds are added to your Mercari balance. If the buyer doesn’t rate within three days of delivery, Mercari automatically releases the funds to your balance. You can use this balance for purchases on Mercari or transfer it to your bank account. Bank transfers are processed within 2-5 days via ACH Direct Deposit. For immediate access to your funds, opt for Mercari’s Instant Pay, which has a $2 fee and a $500 monthly limit.

If you want to make fast money online, well, go ahead and join the club. Everyone does.

Not only that, people want it to be fast and easy. Unfortunately, that’s not how things work.

If you are one of the few smart people on earth who have figured out how to make money by selling things on Mercari, you might be wondering how Mercari is going to pay you. I mean, you earned it, right?

Well, getting paid on Mercari isn’t hard but it isn’t exactly fast either.

Let’s go over exactly how it works.

How to Get Paid on Mercari

To get paid on Mercari, sell something. Or, at least, that will start the ball rolling.

However, selling something does not immediately get you access to the money from the sale. This would make it too easy for scammers to keep people’s money and never send the item.

Instead, Mercari keeps everyone safe by holding the funds until tracking shows that the item is delivered, the buyer confirms that they received the item, and they rate the seller.

But don’t worry, if your buyer is unresponsive Mercari isn’t going to leave you out in the cold. They give the buyer a three-day buffer to receive, inspect, and test the item to make sure everything is in good working order.

The funds will be released as soon as they rate you within that time period and, if they don’t get around to it, Mercari will assume that everything went well and release the funds to your account.

If the buyer has an issue with the item sent they have those three days to open a case with Mercari or request a return. This will stop the funds from being released until the issue is resolved (and, if the item is returned the seller will never receive any funds).

If three days have passed or the buyer has already rated the seller then there is no possibility of a return or case being opened unless there is fraud or other significant issue (and even then you’ll probably need a police report to force Mercari isn’t solving the issue…we had to get one…).

Your Mercari Balance

When you sell an item on Mercari, you don’t receive a check or funds straight to your bank account.

Instead, the funds are added to your “balance”. Your balance, held by Mercari, is the money that you earned from your transaction after Mercari takes its fee percentage.

In other words, you never need to worry about shipping costs or fees on Mercari because, by the time you get your money, they have already taken their piece of the pie.

Once you have a balance available you have two options: use it for purchases on Mercari or transfer it to your bank account where you can use it for everyday purchases.

How To Transfer Your Mercari Balance To Your Bank

Once you’ve decided that make your funds your own and add them to your bank account, just go to My Page > Balance > and choose to transfer your funds. On the app, you can simply click on your balance and it will then give you the option to transfer it.

Mercari transfers their funds through ACH Direct Deposit. Meaning that you have to have your bank account attached to Mercari and, once the clearinghouse batch processes your order, it will be on its way to your bank.

Direct deposit requests are typically processed the day after you request them and it can take anywhere from 2 to 5 days for the funds to show up in your account. Mercari guarantees a five-day timeline but it has never taken us that long

If you need your money faster, you can sign up for Mercari’s Instant Pay. This means you’ll have access to your money within minutes.

However, Instant Pay has a few additional hoops:

• You have to be I.D. verified. This means uploading pictures of your driver’s license (or other acceptable I.D.) and having someone from Mercari’s customer service manually check it. We are verified (as are millions of other Mercari sellers) and have had no problems with it but it might make you uncomfortable.
• The instant transfer has a $2 fee, no matter the amount you are withdrawing. If you’re going to use instant transfer, you’re better off transferring large amounts at a time. If I transferred my earnings via instant transfer every couple of sales it could easily add up to another 5% of profits lost.
• There is a $500 monthly limit for instant transfers. After you reach that point you can still transfer via the slow method.

It’s obviously up to you what method you choose. In my case, I choose to simply cash out via the slow method every Friday and count on having the money in my account the next Tuesday.

To recap:

It’s worth noting here that there are no other payment options. You cannot be paid on Mercari via PayPal, check, mailed cash, Bitcoin, etc. You can either attach your bank account for transfers or use your balance on the app.

Conclusion

Hopefully, figuring out how to get paid on Mercari wasn’t very hard. Knowing how Mercari pays can mean that you get to keep more money in your own pocket which is the point of selling things after all.

Happy sales!