Etsy fees explained for handmade sellers

Etsy takes several separate fees from a sale, charged on different amounts. Knowing which is which is the difference between a profit figure you can trust and one that is quietly a few percent too high. Etsy updates its fees from time to time, so check the current rates in your Etsy account as well.

Transaction fee: 6.5% of the price and shipping

Etsy charges a transaction fee of 6.5% on the total the buyer pays for the item, including the shipping and gift wrap you charge. Sales tax collected from the buyer is not part of it. On a 18.00 item with 3.50 shipping, the transaction fee is 6.5% of 21.50, or about 1.40.

Listing fee: 0.20 USD, charged again when an item sells

Publishing a listing costs 0.20 USD. When an item sells and the listing renews for the next buyer, the fee is charged again. If a buyer orders three of the same item, that is three listing fees. For profit per sale, count 0.20 USD per item sold.

Payment processing: depends on your country

Etsy Payments charges a processing fee on what the buyer paid, made up of a percentage plus a small fixed amount per order. For shops in the United States it is 3% plus 0.25 USD. Other countries have their own rates, so look up the rate for the country your shop is registered in. Because the fixed part is per order, an order with several items should split it across them.

Fees that only some sales have

- Offsite Ads: a percentage taken only on sales that came through Etsy's ads on other sites. - Etsy Ads: whatever budget you set for ads on Etsy. - Currency conversion: if you list in a currency other than your bank account's. - VAT or other tax on fees, charged to sellers in some countries. These vary too much for one fixed formula. A practical approach is one extra percentage line that covers them on average, adjusted when your statements show otherwise.

Putting the fees into your numbers

MakerLedger has a field for each of these: transaction fee %, listing fee per item, processing % and fixed per order, and one tax/other fee % line. The defaults are the standard US rates. Change them to match your shop, and every imported sale recalculates.