Most sellers know Etsy takes "about 10%." The real number, on a typical print-on-demand order with Offsite Ads attributed, is closer to 30% of the sale price before you've paid for the product itself.
Here's every fee, what triggers it, and the arithmetic on real orders.
If you would rather put your own numbers in than follow the worked examples, the free Etsy profit and fee calculator applies everything below at your country's rates — and works backwards to the price you'd need to charge for a given margin.
The fees, one at a time
Listing fee — $0.20 per listing
Charged when you publish a listing, and again every four months when it auto-renews. Also charged per item when a multi-quantity listing sells: sell 3 of one listing and you pay $0.20 × 3 in renewal fees. The listing fee on its own — when it lands, and the three cases where it lands more than once — is covered in how much it costs to list on Etsy.
Charged in USD regardless of your shop currency.
Transaction fee — 6.5%
Applied to the full order total, which includes:
- Item price
- Shipping you charge
- Gift wrap
- Personalisation charges
The shipping inclusion catches people out. Charging $6 shipping means paying $0.39 in transaction fees on the shipping alone.
Payment processing fee — varies by country
Etsy Payments takes a percentage plus a flat fee, set by the seller's country:
| Country | Rate |
|---|---|
| United States | 3% + $0.25 |
| United Kingdom | 4% + £0.20 |
| Germany | 4% + €0.30 |
| Canada | 3% + C$0.25 |
| Australia | 3% + A$0.25 |
Applied to the order total including shipping and tax in most jurisdictions.
Offsite Ads fee — 12% or 15%
This is the one that reshapes your margin. Etsy advertises your listings on Google, Meta, Pinterest and elsewhere. If a buyer clicks one of those ads and purchases within 30 days, you pay:
- 15% of the order total if your shop made under $10,000 in the last 12 months
- 12% if you made over $10,000 — but participation becomes mandatory and cannot be turned off
Under $10,000, you can opt out. Above it, you can't. There's a fee cap of $100 per order.
Not every order triggers this — typically 5–20% of orders, depending on niche. But when it does, on a $25 item, that's $3.75 gone.
Regulatory operating fee — 0.29% to 2.24%
Charged in specific countries to cover digital services taxes, and applied to the order total. The rate depends entirely on where your shop is:
| Country | Rate |
|---|---|
| India | 0.29% |
| United Kingdom | 0.32% |
| Italy | 0.32% |
| France | 0.47% |
| Spain | 0.72% |
| Canada | 1.15% |
| Vietnam | 1.24% |
| Turkey | 2.24% |
Small in the UK. Not small in Turkey, where it costs more than a third of what the payment processing fee does. Easy to forget when you're pricing, and it is charged whether or not you ever see it itemised.
Currency conversion — 2.5%
If your shop currency differs from your bank's currency, Etsy takes 2.5% on conversion. A UK seller listing in USD pays this on every order.
Avoid it by listing in your own currency where the market allows.
Etsy Ads (onsite) — your chosen daily budget
Different from Offsite Ads. This is the internal search advertising you control, billed per click. Covered in the Etsy Ads guide.
Etsy Plus — $10/month (optional)
Credits for listings and ads, plus some shop customisation. Rarely worth it below significant volume; do the arithmetic on what you'd actually use.
Worked example 1: POD t-shirt, no Offsite Ads
- Sale price: $24.00
- Shipping charged: $0.00 (free shipping)
- Printify base cost: $9.50
- POD shipping: $4.75
| Line | Amount |
|---|---|
| Revenue | $24.00 |
| Listing fee | −$0.20 |
| Transaction fee (6.5%) | −$1.56 |
| Payment processing (3% + $0.25) | −$0.97 |
| Product cost | −$9.50 |
| POD shipping | −$4.75 |
| Net profit | $7.02 |
Margin: 29%. Healthy.
Worked example 2: same shirt, Offsite Ads attributed
| Line | Amount |
|---|---|
| Revenue | $24.00 |
| Listing fee | −$0.20 |
| Transaction fee (6.5%) | −$1.56 |
| Payment processing | −$0.97 |
| Offsite Ads (15%) | −$3.60 |
| Product cost | −$9.50 |
| POD shipping | −$4.75 |
| Net profit | $3.42 |
Margin: 14%. Same sale, half the profit.
Worked example 3: digital download
- Sale price: $6.00
- Product cost: $0.00
| Line | Amount |
|---|---|
| Revenue | $6.00 |
| Listing fee | −$0.20 |
| Transaction fee (6.5%) | −$0.39 |
| Payment processing | −$0.43 |
| Net profit | $4.98 |
Margin: 83% — and 71% even with Offsite Ads attributed. This is why digital products are the highest-margin thing on Etsy, and why digital downloads deserve a place in most shops.
When the fees stop being worth it
Etsy's cut is almost entirely variable, which makes it cheap at low volume and expensive at high volume. A branded store inverts that — a fixed monthly fee and roughly 2% processing, but no traffic. The crossover lands around £2,000–£3,000 monthly revenue on fees alone, later once you account for what acquiring that traffic costs. Worked through in Etsy vs Shopify for print-on-demand.
What this means for pricing
Three practical conclusions:
1. Price assuming Offsite Ads. Not on every order, but blend it in. If 15% of your orders trigger a 15% fee, add roughly 2.3% to your cost base. Better: price so a fully-attributed order still clears your minimum acceptable margin.
2. Free shipping isn't free, but it's usually correct. Etsy's search favours listings with free shipping to US buyers, and buyers filter for it. Build the shipping cost into the item price — you'll pay 6.5% + 3% on it either way, so the fee difference is negligible and the ranking benefit isn't.
3. Low-price items are structurally bad. The $0.20 listing fee and the flat payment-processing component are fixed. On a $6 item they consume 10.5% before percentages apply. On a $30 item, 1.9%. Bundle small items into packs.
Full pricing methodology in how to price Etsy listings and print-on-demand profit margins.
The fee that isn't a fee
The largest cost in most POD shops isn't Etsy's cut — it's the time spent on production work that doesn't scale. Manually rendering mockups, writing listings one at a time, re-exporting images when a supplier changes dimensions.
Etsy's 30% is fixed and non-negotiable. Your own hourly cost isn't. Automating the repetitive parts — bulk mockup rendering, templated listing copy, batched uploads — is the only line in the whole calculation you fully control.
Fee arithmetic you should run once, properly:
- Take your three bestselling listings
- Calculate net profit both with and without Offsite Ads attributed
- If the with-ads figure is under 15% margin, raise the price or cut the product cost
- Check whether you're paying 2.5% currency conversion unnecessarily
- Bundle anything under $10 into a multi-item pack
- Re-run the numbers every time your supplier changes prices — they don't email you
Frequently asked questions
How much does Etsy take per sale?
Not one number but a stack: a listing fee, a percentage transaction fee, payment processing at your country rate, and potentially Offsite Ads and currency conversion on top. The total is commonly in the high teens as a percentage of order value once processing is included, and higher again on an Offsite Ads sale.
What is the Etsy Offsite Ads fee?
A commission Etsy charges when a sale is attributed to advertising it bought on external platforms. It is charged on the full order value including shipping, and shops above a revenue threshold cannot opt out. It is the single largest surprise on most sellers fee statements.
Do I pay Etsy fees on shipping?
Yes. The transaction fee applies to the shipping you charge as well as the item price, which is why moving postage into the item price is close to neutral rather than a saving. The profit calculator works this through per listing.
What is the regulatory operating fee?
A percentage fee Etsy applies in certain countries to cover the cost of complying with local digital services regulation. It varies by country and is charged on top of the transaction fee, so two sellers with identical listings can pay different totals depending on where they are based.
How do I reduce Etsy fees?
Mostly you cannot, and pricing to absorb them is the realistic response. What you can control is average order value, since the fixed listing fee is diluted by a larger order, and your fulfilment cost, which is usually a bigger lever than the fee load.