Etsy’s fees are individually small and collectively larger than any of them looks. A seller who thinks “6.5%” is paying more like 11% to 12% before advertising, and up to 25% on an order that came through Offsite Ads. Here is where it all goes.
The four fees
Listing fee: $0.20 per listing. Charged when you create or renew a listing, whether or not it sells, and again automatically when a listing sells and renews. If you list an item with a quantity of 5 and sell one, that’s a $0.20 renewal; sell all five in one order and it’s $0.80. Listings expire after four months and renew for another $0.20 unless you turn auto-renew off.
Transaction fee: 6.5% of the order total. The order total includes the item price, the shipping the buyer paid and any gift-wrap charge. Etsy’s fee on shipping is why “free shipping” and “charge for shipping” cost the same in fees, just as on eBay.
Payment processing: 3% + $0.25 for US sellers using Etsy Payments, which is all US sellers. Also charged on the order total, including shipping and sales tax collected.
Offsite Ads: 15%, or 12% for shops over $10,000 in the last 365 days. Etsy advertises listings on Google, Facebook and elsewhere. If a buyer clicks one of those ads and buys within 30 days, you pay the percentage on that order. Shops under $10,000 can opt out. Shops over $10,000 cannot, but pay the reduced 12%, capped at $100 per order.
A worked example
A $35.00 handmade item, buyer pays $5.00 shipping, US buyer, the order was not from an Offsite Ad.
| Fee | Calculation | Amount |
|---|---|---|
| Listing fee | flat | $0.20 |
| Transaction fee | 6.5% of $40.00 | $2.60 |
| Payment processing | 3% of $40.00 + $0.25 | $1.45 |
| Total Etsy fees | $4.25 | |
| You receive | $40.00 − $4.25 | $35.75 |
That’s 10.6% of the order and 12.1% of the item price. Your materials, packaging and the shipping label still come out of the $35.75.
The same order through an Offsite Ad at 15% adds $6.00, bringing fees to $10.25 and the effective rate on the item to 29.3%. Offsite Ads sales are worth having, since they’re sales you wouldn’t otherwise have made, but they’re expensive sales and the price should have room for them.
Sales tax
Etsy collects and remits sales tax on orders to states with marketplace facilitator laws, which is all of them that have a sales tax. You don’t handle the tax, but the payment processing fee is charged on the order total including it. On a $40 order to a buyer paying 7% tax, that’s another $0.08 in processing. Small, and worth knowing.
Currency and international
If your shop’s currency differs from your bank’s, Etsy charges a 2.5% currency conversion fee. Payment processing rates vary by country for non-US sellers; the figures above are for the US.
Pricing for Etsy
Because there are two percentage fees and two fixed fees, the price you need to net a target amount is:
price = (target + fixed fees) ÷ (1 − 0.065 − 0.03)
To net $30.00 on an item with no shipping charge: ($30.00 + $0.20 + $0.25) ÷ 0.905 = $33.65. If Offsite Ads might apply, the divisor becomes 0.755 and the price jumps to $40.33, which is why many sellers price as if every order might be an ad sale, and treat the non-ad orders as the bonus.
The break-even calculator has Etsy as a platform option and does this arithmetic to the cent, including the listing fee.
Compared with the alternatives
On the same $35 item with $5 shipping:
| Platform | Fees | Effective rate on the item |
|---|---|---|
| Etsy (no ad) | $4.25 | 12.1% |
| eBay | $5.84 | 16.7% |
| Mercari | $4.00 | 11.4% |
| Depop | $1.77 | 5.1% |
Etsy sits in the middle on fees and on top for handmade, vintage and craft supplies in terms of the buyers it brings. That combination, rather than the fee alone, is the reason to be there.
Sources
Etsy’s fees and payments policy, checked 13 September 2026. The profit and break-even calculators use the same table.