What is Gross Merchandise Value (GMV)?

GMV is the total dollar value of all merchandise or services sold through a marketplace or platform over a given period, before any deductions. It equals orders multiplied by AOV. GMV is a volume metric, not a profit metric — it shows how much economic activity flows through the platform, not how much the platform keeps.

How is GMV different from revenue?

Revenue is what the platform actually retains: GMV multiplied by the take rate (commission percentage). For a marketplace charging 15% on $10M GMV, revenue is $1.5M. GMV gets reported to show scale and growth trajectory; revenue shows what is actually earned. Comparing GMV across platforms without knowing take rates can be misleading.

What is a typical take rate for a marketplace?

Take rates vary widely by category. Gig-economy platforms (Uber, Airbnb) typically charge 15-30%. B2B marketplaces often sit at 5-15%. Payment-focused platforms may take just 1-3%. Luxury goods marketplaces can reach 30-40%. Your take rate should cover payment processing (usually 1.5-2.9%), fraud, customer support and overhead, while remaining competitive enough not to push buyers and sellers off-platform.

What should I include in the refund rate?

Include chargebacks, buyer-initiated returns, cancelled orders where payment was already collected, and any platform-initiated goodwill refunds. A 2-5% refund rate is typical for physical goods marketplaces. Digital-goods platforms often see under 1%. High refund rates (above 10%) signal product-quality, fraud or expectation-mismatch problems.

How is blended AOV calculated?

Blended AOV equals total GMV divided by total order count across all periods — it is NOT a simple average of the individual period AOVs. A period with far more orders will pull the blended AOV toward its own AOV more strongly than a lower-volume period. The calculator performs the correct revenue-weighted calculation automatically.

Can I use this calculator for a single product or channel instead of time periods?

Yes. Label the rows by channel (Organic, Paid, Referral, Direct) or by product category instead of by quarter. The total GMV and blended AOV will then show cross-channel or cross-category aggregates, which is equally useful for understanding where volume concentrates.

Gross Merchandise Value (GMV) Calculator

Gross Merchandise Value (GMV) is the headline metric used by every marketplace — from Amazon and Airbnb to the smallest SaaS-enabled platform — to express total transaction volume. Understanding GMV, and how it translates into platform revenue through a take rate, is essential for any founder, analyst or investor evaluating a marketplace business.

How it works

The core formula is deliberately simple:

GMV = Number of Orders × Average Order Value (AOV)

This gives the total value of all goods or services transacted on the platform during a period, before any deductions. The calculator lets you enter multiple periods or channels and aggregates them into a single total.

From total GMV, two further metrics matter:

Take-Rate Revenue = GMV × take rate (%)

Net Revenue = GMV × (1 − refund rate) × take rate (%)

The take rate is the commission or fee percentage kept by the platform on each transaction. The refund rate accounts for returns, chargebacks and cancellations — money that leaves the platform before the take rate is ever earned.

The calculator also derives the blended AOV (total GMV divided by total order count, not a simple average of the individual period AOVs), period-over-period GMV growth (comparing the first and last valid rows), and a per-row growth badge showing how each period compares with the previous one.

Worked example

A four-quarter marketplace year might look like this:

Period	Orders	AOV	GMV
Q1	12,500	£85	£1.06M
Q2	14,200	£88	£1.25M
Q3	16,800	£91	£1.53M
Q4	21,000	£97	£2.04M
Total	64,500	£90.64 blended	£5.85M

At a 15% take rate and 2% refund rate:

Take-rate revenue: £5.85M × 15% = £877K
Net revenue: £5.85M × (1 − 2%) × 15% = £859K
Full-year GMV growth (Q1 → Q4): +93%

The bar and line chart overlays GMV (bars) against AOV (line) so you can see whether growth is coming from more orders, higher values, or both.

Formula note

GMV is a top-line volume metric, not a profitability metric. To reach actual profit you need to subtract payment processing fees (typically 1.5–2.9%), trust and fraud infrastructure, customer support, fulfilment costs (for physical goods), and all operating expenses. Many high-GMV marketplaces are cash-flow negative because their take rate does not cover unit economics. This calculator focuses on the GMV-to-net-revenue chain; pair it with a gross-profit or burn-rate calculator to close the full picture.

The blended AOV uses the correct revenue-weighted formula (total GMV ÷ total orders), not a naive average of period AOVs. This matters when period volumes differ — a holiday quarter with three times normal order volume would dominate the average if you naively averaged AOV figures.