Price and instalments — three numbers that change everything

Continuing the conversation about listings. Today, money and the three numbers that move sales.

15,000 pesos

Some buyers pay for the Mercado Libre Meli+ subscription, about 3,500 pesos a month. Its main perk is free shipping. Since 14 September 2026 it applies to items from 15,000 pesos; the threshold used to be 33,000.

Hence the non-obvious bit. An item at 14,500 sells worse than an item at 15,000.

A subscriber sees your price of 14,500 and thinks: shipping costs money, I will look for something from 15,000 with free shipping. And off they go to a competitor. Even if your final price including shipping is lower, the buyer does not do that maths. They see the free-shipping badge and click it.

You do not pay for the subscriber's shipping. The seller pays their own rate only from 33,000. But the 15,000 threshold has a price. At that point the per-unit fee moves to the second step. For an item up to 0.3 kg that is 2,740 pesos instead of 1,330.

If your product costs between 13,000 and 14,999 pesos, run the numbers both ways. Sometimes moving up to 15,000 pays for itself in extra sales, sometimes it eats the margin.

33,000 pesos

From that amount every buyer sees the free-shipping badge. And the per-unit fee of 1,330 to 4,550 pesos on every sale disappears. It is calculated by price and weight, per the grid in force since 1 September 2026.

And here it is important not to fool yourself. Free shipping for the buyer is not free for you. The shipping cost lands on the seller. Rates went up on 1 September 2026. For an item up to 0.3 kg the green table gives 6,190 pesos at prices from 33,000 to 49,999 and 6,790 pesos from 50,000.

Mercado Libre helps by discounting the rate according to your reputation:

• green reputation or no reputation yet, a 50% discount, you pay half;
• yellow, a 40% discount, you pay 60%;
• red or orange, the whole rate is yours.

The discount is taken off the full rate. A newcomer with no reputation pays by the same green table. If you offer free shipping yourself on an item under 33,000, the discount is smaller: 30% for green, 20% for yellow.

The fixed fee disappears, but a shipping cost appears. Whether that pays off is decided by the weight of the product and your reputation. A light product and green reputation, most likely worth it. A heavy product needs its own maths.

So always put shipping into your unit economics as a separate line. Before you set the price.

Instalments

When you create a listing you choose how a person can pay. That is not just convenience. The choice affects sales and your position in search.

There are three options.

No instalments. The person pays the whole sum at once or takes bank instalments at a high rate. It costs you nothing, but you sell worse and rank lower in search.

Instalments at a small rate. The person pays in parts and overpays a little, but noticeably less than at a bank. It costs you about 5%. Sales rise and your search position improves.

Interest-free instalments. The person pays the same sum split into parts. It costs you 8.9% for 3 instalments, 13.4% for 6, 17.8% for 9 and 21.6% for 12. Conversion rises even more, but the margin sags.

The logic is simple. Without instalments it is cheaper for you but you sell less. With instalments it costs more but you sell more.

I use instalments at a small rate. It suits the buyer, it does not cost me much, and I rank higher in search. I switch on interest-free instalments only when the margin is large.

How I do it

• a price from 33,000 pesos;
• instalments at a low rate;
• a video in the listing through Clips;
• main photo, the bare product with no captions;
• extra photos, infographics and details;
• a title with the words people search by;
• every spec filled in.

Want your listing pulled apart? Come to the chat.