Trade Me users who sell things cheaply will soon find they are charged less by the auction website.

It has announced it will change its pricing structure for general items from February 1. It will become cheaper to sell things up to $5 and more expensive to sell things worth more than $200.

There will be no minimum success fee charged on auctions. At present, the minimum fee is 50c. Auctions for items that sell for up to $1 will be free.

Sellers will be able to add multiple photos without charge.

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Trade Me's head of marketplace Stuart McLean said: "We're simplifying the success fees for sellers, and making sure we still deliver excellent value for our members."

He said the key changes included free photos on each listing. "We're removing the fee we've been charging sellers keen to have more than one photo on their listings. We want to encourage our members to include lots of images as we know this improves the buying experience and makes it more likely that an item will sell. This change is good news for everyone who uses Trade Me."

McLean said the move to remove minimum success fees and charges for items up to $1 was designed to encourage more activity at that end of the market.

"We think that if sellers are prepared to take a risk on a $1 sale, then we should come to the party too," McLean said. "In 2015, around 439,000 items sold on Trade Me for $1 or less – about 4 per cent of all items sold – so it is a meaningful change... If you sell your second-hand couch for $1 and someone comes to pick it up, nine times out of 10 you don't even claim the $1, why should we take 50c of that?"

But the site will also drop tiered success fee pricing for items over $200, which means pricier items become more expensive to sell.

McLean said research had shown fewer than 30 per cent of Trade Me members understood the current tiered pricing structure. "We're making things simpler by keeping the success fee unchanged at 7.9 per cent, but getting rid of the tiers. We're also keeping the maximum success fee of $149 in place."

McLean said 20 per cent of items would be cheaper to sell under the new structure, 74 per cent would be unchanged and 6 per cent would be more expensive.

A $500 auction will now cost $39.50 instead of $30.50, a $1000 auction will cost $79 instead of $55 and a $2000 auction $119 instead of $89.

He said the average sale price of an item on Trade Me was about $60 and, under the new pricing structure, this item would incur an unchanged success fee but the seller would no longer pay a fee for including multiple photos on the listing.

People were more willing to buy more expensive things online than they were five years ago, he said.

Prices for property, vehicle and job listings will not change.