The four core Etsy fees
Listing fee: $0.20 per item. Charged when you publish a listing, again when it auto-renews after four months, and again for each extra unit that sells on a multi-quantity listing. A shop with 100 active listings pays $20 every four months, which is $60 a year, before selling a single item.
Transaction fee: 6.5% of the sale total. This is Etsy's main cut. It applies to the item price plus the shipping you charge the buyer, plus any gift wrap. A $25 item with $5 shipping carries a 6.5% fee on $30, not $25.
Payment processing: 3% plus $0.25 per order (US). This is charged on the order total through Etsy Payments. Rates are higher in some countries: the UK is 4% plus 0.20 pounds, most of the EU is 4% plus 0.30 euros, Canada is 3% plus 0.25 Canadian dollars, and Australia is 3.5% plus 0.25 Australian dollars.
Offsite Ads fee: 12% or 15%, only when ads drive the sale. If a buyer clicks an Etsy offsite ad and purchases within 30 days, Etsy takes 12% of the order total from shops that earned $10,000 or more in the past year, or 15% from shops under that threshold. Shops over the threshold cannot opt out. There is a $100 cap on the Offsite Ads fee per attributed order.
What fees cost at real price points
The table below assumes a US seller, no Offsite Ads, and the shipping shown charged to the buyer. Effective rate is total fees divided by the sale total.
| Sale total | Listing | Transaction | Processing | Total fees | You keep | Effective rate |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| $5.00 | $0.20 | $0.33 | $0.40 | $0.93 | $4.07 | 18.5% |
| $10.00 | $0.20 | $0.65 | $0.55 | $1.40 | $8.60 | 14.0% |
| $30.00 | $0.20 | $1.95 | $1.15 | $3.30 | $26.70 | 11.0% |
| $55.00 | $0.20 | $3.58 | $1.90 | $5.68 | $49.32 | 10.3% |
| $105.00 | $0.20 | $6.83 | $3.40 | $10.43 | $94.57 | 9.9% |
Notice the pattern: the effective rate falls as the sale grows, because the $0.20 listing fee and $0.25 fixed processing charge do not shrink. Cheap items are the worst place to absorb fees.
The shipping trap most new sellers miss
Etsy's 6.5% transaction fee applies to the shipping amount you charge the buyer, and payment processing applies to the order total too. Shipping you charge is not pass-through money. A $25 item with $5 shipping carries $3.30 in fees on a $30 sale total.
Free shipping does not remove the fee. It moves the shipping money into the item price, and Etsy charges the same percentage on the higher price. Price accordingly: build your label cost into the item price before you compute fees, not after.
Offsite Ads: the fee that doubles your cost
Take a $100 sale with free shipping. Without ads, fees are $9.95 and you keep $90.05. If the same sale comes through an offsite ad, a shop over $10,000 a year pays 12% more ($12.00), for $21.95 in total fees and $78.05 kept. A shop under $10,000 pays 15% ($15.00), for $24.95 in fees and $75.05 kept.
Two things cushion this. The attribution window is 30 days from the ad click, so a buyer who returns weeks later still counts. And the Offsite Ads fee is capped at $100 per attributed order, which matters on high-ticket sales: on a $1,000 order, the 15% fee would be $150, but the cap holds it to $100.
Optional and situational fees
Shop setup fee: $15 to $29 one-time. New shops pay a one-time setup fee when opening, varying by country. It is not refundable and existing shops do not pay it.
Etsy Plus: $10 per month. An optional subscription with listing credits and ad credits. Most small sellers do not need it.
Pattern: $15 per month after a free trial. Etsy's standalone website builder for sellers who want their own storefront.
Currency conversion: 2.5%. Charged when your payout currency differs from the sale currency, for example a US seller receiving a UK buyer's pounds.
Regulatory operating fee: 0.05% to about 2%. Added in certain seller countries on the total order amount. US sellers pay none; the UK rate runs around 0.32 to 0.48%.
Etsy Ads (on-site): pay per click. A separate, opt-in program where you set a daily budget and pay only when buyers click your promoted listings, averaging roughly $0.20 to $0.50 per click.