Selling on Etsy is pretty inexpensive compared to other platforms, but the total amount that Etsy takes in fees is going to vary depending on how much your products cost, where you’re located, and whether offsite ad fees are involved.
The answer to how much Etsy takes in fees is “it depends.” There’s no one flat number that will apply to everyone, so I put together some examples of different transactions that have different fees involved to show how it can vary from shop to shop.
Table of Contents
- Etsy transaction fees basics.
- Etsy transaction with nothing extra added in.
- Etsy transaction with free shipping.
- An Etsy transaction with offsite ads fee.
- Another Etsy transaction with offsite ads fee.
- An Etsy Canadian transaction.
- An Etsy UK transaction.
- Etsy fees in other countries.
- What’s the average fee amount that Etsy collects?
Some of the links in this article are affiliate links that will pay me a small commission if they’re used to purchase something. To see the entire affiliate policy click here.
Etsy transaction fees basics.
If you’re just looking for an article explaining the fees that Etsy takes, click here: How Much Does It Cost To Sell On Etsy. I go over what each fee is and when it’s applied in that article, but there are still questions that come up because each transaction is different.
Sometimes it’s easier to see the entire transaction, though, instead of just a chart, so that’s what I’ve done in this article.
I got some examples from shops that are owned by members of my EShop Success Program
, and some of these are from my own Etsy shops.
Etsy transaction with nothing extra added in.
For this transaction, we have a basic Etsy transaction where the customer paid for shipping, didn’t use a discount, and also paid sales tax. I whited out the transaction number for customer privacy, and I added the red numbers to show the order that I’ll be going through it.
- This is the total amount that the customer paid, which includes the item price, the shipping cost ($12) the shipping cost ($5.40) and the sales tax ($1.13.) This adds up to a total of $18.53, which is what the fees are based on.
- The auto-renew sold listing is 20 cents. That’s charged because I have this item set up with an inventory higher than 1, so when it sells it automatically relists the next one in the inventory and reduces the inventory by 1. If this had sold out with zero inventory left, the auto-renew fee wouldn’t show up, and you’d be charged a renewal fee of 20 cents when you renewed the listing manually.
- Sales tax paid by buyer is the amount that Etsy charges and remits to the state based on marketplace laws. This is done automatically and isn’t included in revenue numbers anywhere else, so it’s not considered income to us. We don’t pay the 6.5% fee on it, but we still pay a payment processing fee on it because it’s money that comes into our accounts and it has to be processed through the credit card processor. It kind of sucks, but what can you do…
- The transaction fee is the 6.5% fee that’s charged on the price of the item. In this case, the item cost $12, so the fee is 6.5% of that, or 78 cents.
- The shipping transaction fee is the 6.5% fee that’s charged on the cost of shipping that the customer paid to you. This is charged when the customer pays for shipping, it’s not a fee that you pay if you buy a shipping label. A lot of people seem to mix that up, but you pay 6.5% on the total amount that the customer pays you, whether it’s from shipping cost or the item cost.
- The processing fee is the fee that we’re charged when the credit card company processes the payment. You would pay a payment processing fee no matter where you sell online, or even if you sell in person and accept credit cards. The amount of this fee will vary depending on what country you’re in, but everyone who accepts credit cards, which we do when we sell online, pays this, it’s not just for Etsy.
So after all the fees are taken from this transaction, I took in $17.40 (not including the sales tax that isn’t deposited into my account) and I paid Etsy $2.14, meaning that I ended up with $15.26 BEFORE buying the shipping label.
That means that I paid about 12.3% in fees for this transaction. I usually estimate that I’ll be paying about 13% in fees, so that falls within that range.
Remember that the $17.40 I took in is NOT profit, I still have to pay for the shipping label, materials, and other expenses. Once all that is taken out I usually make about $9 profit on one item at this price point.
Etsy transaction with free shipping.
For this transaction, the customer spent more than $35, so she got free shipping on the order since I have the Etsy free shipping guarantee turned on. She didn’t use a coupon but she ordered more than one item and the inventory was set higher than 4, so it counted down the number of items sold and charged me the listing fee for four items.
- This is the amount that the items and the sales tax cost (four at $16 each for a total of $64, plus the sales tax.)
- This is the listing fee that was charged on the first renewed item because the inventory was set to higher than 4, and it renewed on its own as Etsy counts down the inventory.
- The multi-quantity listing is charged when each listing is counted down from the inventory. It’s basically Etsy renewing each of the four that were bought one at a time from the total inventory, so lines 2+3 equal 20 cents x 4 renewals since the customer bought four of the same thing.
- This line is Etsy pulling the sales tax that they collected out of the transaction because they send it in to the state.
- The transaction fee is the 6.5% that we pay on the total cost of the products. Total for this fee was $4.16, or 6.5% of $64.
- The payment processing fee is the fee we pay to the credit card processor, and it’s based on the total amount taken in from the customer, which was $69.36. Total for this fee was $2.33.
In this transaction there was no shipping fee collected, so there was no shipping transaction fee charged. The shipping shows up on the customer’s receipt with a deduction showing that they got free shipping, but that’s not an amount that we pay a fee on since we didn’t get any income from that.
For this transaction, I paid a total of $7.29 in fees, which ends up being about 11.4%.
This transaction has a slightly smaller percentage of fees than the first one did, because the total sale price was higher and that made the 20 cent listing fees and the 25 cent fees a smaller percentage of the total.
An Etsy transaction with offsite ads fee.
This transaction has an offsite ads fee included. This shop has mandatory offsite ads, which means that there’s an extra 12% included for that.
- The sale price with the shipping price and sales tax added in.
- The listing renewal fee. This was renewed manually so it’s noted as a renew sold listing, not auto-renew.
- The sales tax the buyer paid being pulled out of the total by Etsy.
- The transaction fee, which is 6.5% of the item price. This comes to $2.73.
- The shipping transaction fee of 6.5%, which is 90 cents.
- The payment processing fee, which is 3% + .25 for a US-based shop.
- The fee for a sale made through an offsite ad. This is an additional 12% that’s charged on the total price that the customer pays us. This fee is charged on the item and shipping price total, not on the sales tax, so Etsy takes 12% of line number 1 minus line number 3.
The total fee for this transaction comes to $12.59, which is about 22.5% of $55.86 (the sale amount after sales tax.)
Offsite ads fees increase your overall fees A LOT because it’s a flat percentage, and it’s charged on the shipping amount that’s collected, too.
Another Etsy transaction with offsite ads fee.
This one has the offsite ads included, but it wasn’t renewed, so there’s no renewal fee. The sale price is also a lot higher, so the percentages will be different at the end.
- The sale price including sales tax, no shipping included because this item shipped free.
- Sales tax being removed from the transaction by Etsy.
- The 6.5% transaction fee based on the item price of $315 ($331.7 minus the sales tax.)
- The payment processing fee of 3% plus 25 cents.
- The 12% offsite ads fee.
The total of the fees in this transaction is $68.48, which comes to 21.7% of the total. That’s comparable to the previous transaction example with an offsite add fee included.
An Etsy Canadian transaction.
- Payment for two sets of postcards including shipping and sales tax.
- The sales tax being removed from the transaction for Etsy to send into the Canadian tax authority.
- 6.5% transaction fee being charged on each individual item in the order. This is based on the sale price of each item.
- The shipping transaction fee that’s charged on the amount the customer paid for shipping.
- The processing fee charged on the total of the item price plus the shipping price.
- Additional taxes that Canadian sellers have to pay! This one is a processing fee for remitting the taxes.
- Additional taxes that Canadian sellers pay…This one looks like it’s based on the sale price.
As you can see, Canadian sellers have additional taxes that they have to pay but it might or mo=ight not affect the percentage, depending on other things..
In this case, the seller received $36 for the items plus shipping, and the fees were $4.05, which is about 11% of the total sale. That’s pretty comparable to the fees on my two listings at the top.
An Etsy UK transaction.
Etsy UK sellers have to deal with even more fees because of the VAT taxes that are imposed by the UK government. This order shows the VAT that’s charged as well as the regulatory operating fees, which are fees that the UK government charges Etsy, that Etsy then passes along to sellers.
- The sale price for the order.
- The listing fee to relist the item since the inventory was higher than one.
- Tax paid on the auto-renew fee.
- Processing fee, which in the UK was 4% plus 20p.
- The regulatory operating fee, which is a fee that’s imposed on Etsy by the UK government, and that Etsy passes along to the customer.
- The 6.5% Etsy transaction fee for the sale price.
- The fee charged to process the VAT.
- VAT charged on the regulatory operating fee. (Yes, that’s a tax on a fee…)
- VAT charged on the offsite ads fee.
- The offsite ads fee, which in this case is 12% of the sale price collected from the customer.
Now this list is a little longer than the previous one, and there’s some serious nickel-and-diming going on here.
Most of this is Etsy passing along the VAT fees and taxes on those fees to the seller, though, it’s not Etsy adding more fees, it’s government fees. Unfortunately, it’s the cost of doing business in the UK.
The seller fees add up to £7.46, and that makes up about 27.6% of the sale total. That does include the offsite ads fee, so it’s higher than it would be if there was no offsite ad involved.
Lorraine, owner of Blue Bow Designs, explained UK VAT taxes on Etsy this way: “Etsy takes VAT off of various charges, that it charges us for, it takes them directly off our UK sales total. Etsy takes VAT directly from my shop, on shipping fees, on charging shipping, regulator operating fee, processing fees, on the auto renew fee, card fee transactions vat and on off site adds fee.
“I’m not VAT registered. If you have income over £85,000 you have to be VAT registered, then you pay 20% of your turnover as well to HMRC. (Then you pay your personal taxes after that.) This VAT is paid quarterly by the seller separately. I know Etsy charges VAT on digital sales in UK and this goes directly to HMRC from Etsy, so we are charged it. If you are registered for VAT you have to include VAT of 20% into your product price, so you can pay it to the VAT HMRC.”
Etsy fees in other countries.
Another international fee that might be required is the currency conversion fee when your deposits go from Etsy to your bank if your shop currency is set in anything other than the type of currency that you have in your bank.
All sales on Etsy are registered in USD, and if your shop is set to USD it will have to be converted to your own country’s currency, and that’s an additional bank fee.
Other than that, I also had a statement from a seller in Sweden and one in Australia, but they were similar to the US and UK ones. Some countries will charge additional taxes on the fees that are paid to Etsy because they’re taxing online transactions a different way than other countries do.
Each country has its own laws about what’s taxable and what Etsy has to pay for operating in that country, and it basically gets passed along to the seller.
If you sell on Etsy, you need to make sure to take all of these additional fees into account because they can really start to eat into your bottom line if you don’t pay attention to the total amount that Etsy is collecting in fees.
To see the full Artisan Shopping Directory sections, including signups for discounts, click here.
What’s the average fee amount that Etsy collects?
There’s no good way to state an average fee amount for every shop because there’s too much variation. It will depend on where your shop is located, whether you have to pay for offsite ads or not, and how high your price point is. In general, it looks like you can plan on around 11-25% depending on different factors.
Once you figure the fees in, you also need to remember that you haven’t finished figuring out your expenses. There are many more things that you need to subtract from your incoming revenue before you can see how muh you really made.
You can get my pricing guide here if you want to go through that: Pricing Guide, or read this article that has a pricing calculator to figure out what you’ll probably make on Etsy after the fees are taken out.
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