Etsy takes roughly 11 to 15 percent of a typical order before advertising costs. That comes from three separate charges stacked together: a listing fee, a transaction fee, and payment processing.
The three fees on every sale
Etsy charges a $0.20 listing fee when you publish an item, and again each time a listing renews after a sale or after four months.
Then comes the 6.5 percent transaction fee. The detail most sellers miss is what it applies to: the item price plus the shipping the buyer pays plus gift wrapping. Shipping is not a pass-through cost. If you charge $5 for postage, Etsy takes about 33 cents of it before your carrier takes anything.
Finally there is payment processing, which for US sellers runs around 3 percent plus $0.25. Rates vary by country, so check your own region rather than assuming the US figure.
What that looks like on a real order
Take a $30 item with $6 shipping. The transaction fee applies to the full $36, so that is $2.34. Payment processing on $36 is roughly $1.33. Add the $0.20 listing fee and Etsy has taken about $3.87 before you have paid for materials, packaging or your own time.
Rather than working that out by hand each time, put your numbers into the Etsy Fee Calculator. It shows the fee breakdown and your profit in one go.
Offsite Ads: the fee that catches people out
When a sale comes through Etsy's Offsite Ads programme, Etsy charges an additional 12 or 15 percent of the order total. Smaller shops can opt out. Once your shop passes Etsy's revenue threshold, you cannot.
Stacked on top of everything else, an Offsite Ads sale can take somewhere around 22 to 25 percent of the order. That is not a reason to panic, but it is a reason to know which share of your sales arrive that way, and to price with the possibility in mind.
The fees people forget
- Currency conversion if you list in a currency other than your payment account currency.
- The Regulatory Operating Fee, charged in a number of countries to cover local digital taxes. Etsy raised it in June 2026, and the amount differs by country.
- Etsy Plus at $10 a month, if you subscribe.
- Renewal listing fees, which quietly add up on a large catalogue of slow sellers.
What to do about it
Two things move the number. The first is pricing with the full fee stack included from the start, instead of adding a margin to your material cost and hoping. The second is understanding the difference between markup and margin, which is where a surprising number of shops lose money without noticing. We covered that in markup versus margin.
If you make your products by hand, the bigger risk is usually not the Etsy fee at all. It is forgetting to pay yourself for your time. The Handmade Pricing Calculator builds labour into the price properly.
Frequently asked
Does Etsy charge a monthly fee? Not for a standard shop. You pay to list and you pay when you sell. Etsy Plus is optional.
Is the transaction fee charged on shipping? Yes, on the shipping the buyer pays, and payment processing applies to it too.
Do fees change? Regularly. Etsy updated its Fees and Payments Policy in February 2026 and raised the Regulatory Operating Fee in June 2026. The rates in our calculator are editable fields for exactly that reason, so you can set them to whatever Etsy currently charges you.