Updated July 2026
Good Circles vs the national marketplaces — honestly
Good Circles is not "better than Amazon at being Amazon" — it's a different structure. National platforms take 15–30% of each sale and own the customer; Good Circles takes a 1% fee on profit, gives the shopper ~10% back, and routes 10% of profit to a nonprofit the shopper elects. Where each one wins depends on what you sell, your margins, and whether you want national reach or local loyalty — this page maps it honestly.
Side by side
| Good Circles | National marketplaces | |
|---|---|---|
| Fee basis | A 1% fee on profit | 15–30% of the SALE (Amazon ~15% referral; Etsy ~20% combined; DoorDash up to 30%) |
| Shopper price | About 10% lower, automatic | Full price (delivery apps often higher) |
| Community funding | 10% of merchant net profit → shopper-elected nonprofit | None |
| Visibility | No ad spend — demand arrives via nonprofit supporters | Pay-to-be-seen ads increasingly required |
| Customer relationship | Local, repeat, yours | Owned by the platform |
| Reach | Local-first (Mississippi, Sept 2026 →) | National/global — genuinely bigger reach |
| Logistics | No delivery fleet | Delivery apps run fleets; Amazon runs FBA |
Third-party fee figures are the verified numbers maintained on our marketplace fees comparison (sources and verification dates per platform).
Vs Amazon and eBay: it depends on your margins
Honest answer first: for some high-margin sellers, per-sale cash on Amazon or eBay can be comparable to Good Circles — their referral-fee percentages hit hardest at low margins, gentlest at high ones. What never changes is the structure: on Good Circles you skip pay-to-be-seen advertising, keep the customer relationship, and every sale funds your buyer's elected nonprofit. If reach is what you need — a national audience for a shippable niche product — big marketplaces genuinely deliver that, and we say so. Run your own numbers in what big platforms cost local businesses.
Vs delivery apps: a clear economic win
Restaurant economics on 15–30% commissions are brutal — that range often consumes most of an order's margin. Good Circles' 1% fee on profit is a different universe for in-person and pickup business. The honest limit: Good Circles doesn't run a driver fleet. If third-party delivery is core to your volume, apps still do that job — see the per-platform honest math on DoorDash and Uber Eats.
Vs Yelp: discovery vs transaction
Yelp answers "where should I go?" — reviews and listings, monetized with ads. Good Circles answers "buy it here, and here's why": an actual transaction with an automatic ~10% saving and nonprofit funding attached. They're not substitutes; a local business can sensibly maintain a Yelp presence for discovery while selling through Good Circles for the sale itself and the loyalty loop that follows it.
The one metric where local-first always wins
Total local value. Count everything a sale creates — the business's profit, the customer's saving, the nonprofit's funding — and the community marketplace wins in every case we've modeled, because none of it leaves town. That's the honest pitch: not "always more cash per sale," but more value, kept local. See what a community marketplace is and how the model works.
Questions
Good Circles vs national platforms — FAQ
Is Good Circles better than Amazon for a local business?
It depends on your margins — we won’t pretend otherwise. Good Circles charges a 1% fee on profit while Amazon takes a referral fee of about 15% of the sale, so on per-sale cash Good Circles usually wins for lower-margin goods and can be comparable for high-margin ones. Where it always differs: local customers, no ad spend to be visible, and community funding from every sale.
How is a community marketplace different from a big platform?
A big platform maximizes extraction from each transaction; a community marketplace restructures the transaction so value stays local. On Good Circles a sale leaves the shopper saving about 10%, the business keeping 89% of its profit, and about 10% of profit funding a nonprofit the shopper elected — instead of 15–30% of the sale leaving town.
Is Good Circles an alternative to Yelp?
Partly. Yelp is discovery-only — reviews and listings, with revenue from ads. Good Circles is transactional: customers don’t just find a business, they buy from it, and every purchase carries the savings and nonprofit funding. If you want to be found, Yelp helps; if you want a sale with built-in loyalty, that’s what Good Circles is for.
Does Good Circles beat delivery apps for restaurants?
On economics, clearly: delivery apps commonly take 15–30% of each order — often most of a restaurant’s margin — while Good Circles takes a 1% fee on profit. What Good Circles doesn’t do is operate a driver fleet; it’s a marketplace and community channel, not a logistics company.
Local-first, structurally different
Keep 89% of your profit on a 1% fee on profit. Early access in Meridian — September 2026 launch, Jackson metro first.