Both are shopping agents. Both buy from the same Chinese sellers, hold your items in a warehouse, photograph them and consolidate them into one parcel. Both have a link converter and English support. On paper they are close to indistinguishable, which is why most comparisons of them are padding.
The five things that actually differ
| What to compare | Why it decides anything | How to check it today |
|---|---|---|
| The freight quote into your country | This is the comparison, and nothing else comes close. Service fees differ by a rounding error; freight differs by real money, and the ranking changes by destination and by month. | Free accounts on both, the same realistic haul in each, submit a parcel, read the quotes. Pay neither. |
| Which lines exist for you at all | A cheap line you cannot use is not cheap. Line availability varies by country and some agents simply have more partners into some regions. | Count the lines on each quote list, not just the lowest price on it. |
| Clicks from a link to a cart | On one order it is a convenience. Across a year of ordering it is the thing you actually notice about an agent. | Convert the same item on both and count. That number is the whole argument. |
| How fast QC photos appear | The gap between 'arrived at warehouse' and 'here are the photos' is dead time in which you can do nothing, and it varies. | Search each agent's name on the community subreddits and Discords, sorted by newest. Old threads describe an agent that no longer exists. |
| Support when something is wrong | You will care about this once, and when you do it is the only thing that matters. | Ask both the same specific pre-sales question in live chat before spending anything. The answer, and the wait, tell you more than any review. |
The method, in about twenty minutes
- Register on both. Free, no card.
- Build the same realistic haul in each — three or four items, one of them bulky, not a single t-shirt.
- Submit each as a parcel and read the full quote list. Do not pay.
- Ask each support the same real question and time the reply.
- Pick one. Register the other later if you ever need it.
One caveat on the last step: signup coupons attach to a new account and cannot be added afterwards, so whichever you register with first is the one that gets its offer. If they differ meaningfully on the day, let that break a tie.
What does not separate them
The item, the seller, the quality, or whether anything is authentic — none of which any agent has a hand in. If you are hoping one sources better goods than the other, they do not: both buy the exact listing you point them at. Reading the QC photos properly is what protects you, on either.
And where you live affects the answer more than the agent does. The destination pages cover that half.
Questions
Which is better, Litbuy or Kakobuy?
Neither, in general — only one of them for your country and your parcel. Both buy from the same Chinese sellers, both run a warehouse with QC photography, both convert links. The honest method is a free account on each and the same parcel quoted on both.
Why is there no fee comparison table here?
Because it would be wrong within a season and would carry on ranking anyway. Agents adjust service fees and renegotiate shipping lines several times a year. A page that teaches you how to check stays useful; a page with this year's numbers on it becomes a trap for somebody budgeting against it.
Can I use both?
Yes, and plenty of people do — one for heavy hauls, one for small parcels, depending on which quotes better into their country. The only thing you cannot do is split a single parcel across two warehouses, so compare before you order rather than after.
Do they have access to different items?
No. Both buy from the same Taobao, Weidian and 1688 sellers and neither has an exclusive on anything. The item is identical; the whole difference is the service around it.
Does it matter which agent a spreadsheet links to?
Only for convenience. A link saves you pasting a URL into a converter; it does not change what the item is. The catalogue these finds come from carries links for several agents against each one.
Are you neutral?
No, and you should assume so. This site earns a commission on Litbuy signups and nothing on Kakobuy. That is why every row in the table above has a 'how to check it yourself' column — the method works whichever way the answer comes out.