Buyee vs ZenMarket vs Neokyo vs JapanRabbit: How Japan's Proxy Services Actually Compare

The short version

Our proxy-shopping primer covers what a proxy does; this page compares how four established ones actually charge for it, verified against each service's own fee pages as of 2026-07-16. A fifth, Doorzo, is included with a lighter touch since its current promotional terms are harder to pin down independently — check its own fee page before relying on the numbers below.

Four different fee models

The structural point that gets lost in "which is cheapest" debates: Buyee charges per order (buy five items in one order, pay the fee once), while ZenMarket, Neokyo and Doorzo charge per item (five items, five fees). If you're placing a single order with several items from the same shop, that alone can flip which service is actually cheaper — run your own basket through each service's live calculator rather than trusting a single-item example.

Free storage: how long, and what happens after

Every service lets you park purchases at its Japanese warehouse for free while you wait to consolidate more items into one shipment — but the clock and the penalty differ. ZenMarket and Doorzo currently offer the longest free window (60 days) before fees start; Neokyo and JapanRabbit give 45; Buyee gives 30. All four cap total storage around 90 days before the warehouse disposes of unshipped items, so "free storage" is a buffer for consolidating a season's worth of pre-orders, not a place to forget about a parcel.

Consolidation: who actually gives it away

Buyee made its consolidation service free in December 2022; ZenMarket's initial consolidation is free too. JapanRabbit consolidates packages from the same order for free but charges $2.50 for each additional package beyond that (capped at $12.50). Neokyo's flat per-item fee doesn't shrink when you consolidate — the saving only shows up in the shared international shipping weight, not the service fee itself. If you're the type of collector who lets a single shipment absorb a month of pre-orders, that structural difference matters more than the headline fee.

The 2026 wrinkle: US-bound shipments

Since the US ended duty-free de minimis treatment for low-value parcels in 2025, every proxy shipping to US addresses has had to build some form of duty collection into checkout. Buyee's own blog states it currently applies a flat 15.5% charge on the invoice value of US-bound shipments to cover this — treat that as one service's own stated practice, not a universal customs rate, and see our collectibles tariff explainer for the full, fast-changing picture and why we won't bake a single duty percentage into this page as evergreen fact.

What about Surugaya?

You'll often see "Buyee vs ZenMarket vs Surugaya" as a search phrase, but Surugaya (駿河屋) isn't a proxy at all — it's one of Japan's largest second-hand retailers for manga, figures and games, and it does not ship overseas itself. Every proxy on this page, including Buyee and ZenMarket, can buy from Surugaya on your behalf the same way they buy from any other Japanese shop; Surugaya is a source, not a competing service.

Which service fits you

Buying several cheap items in one order from one shop? Buyee's per-order flat fee usually wins. Buying a handful of separate, pricier items across different shops over a season? ZenMarket or Neokyo's per-item flat fee is easier to reason about, and ZenMarket's longer free-storage window suits slow consolidation. Buying one expensive item, like a high-end scale figure or a Yahoo! Auctions win? JapanRabbit's percentage fee can undercut a flat fee at the low end of its scale. Whichever you pick, once an item is sold directly by AmiAmi or HLJ rather than a JP-only shop, ordering direct skips the proxy fee entirely.