Etsy's fees look small one at a time. Twenty cents here, a few percent there, a line on a statement nobody reads to the end. Stacked on one order they take about a tenth of it, and multiplied by a hundred orders they become a number worth an afternoon of your attention.
This article runs that sum with your numbers, using the fees Etsy and Shopify publish today. By the end you'll know what 100 sales leave you in each place, where your own break-even sits, and why the cheaper option isn't automatically the right one.
In short
- Every Etsy sale carries three fees: a listing fee, a 6.5% transaction fee and payment processing. The transaction fee is charged on what you charge for shipping, not just on the item.
- Your own store swaps all of that for one monthly plan and a card rate. No listing fee, no commission on the sale.
- The break-even is a number, not an opinion. On the figures below it lands near $550 a month in sales, almost regardless of your order value.
- Etsy sells you buyers. Your own store sells you margin and brings nobody. That's the trade, and it's why most sellers should run both before they choose.
How to run this sum
You need three numbers and about ten minutes in Shop Manager.
1. Your average order total. Not the item price, but the whole order, including what you charge for shipping, because that's what Etsy's fees are calculated on. Your monthly statement, in your Etsy payment account, lists every sale and fee from the previous month; divide the sales total by the orders.
2. Your orders a month. Take a normal month, not December.
3. What you charge for shipping. On free shipping it's already inside the item price, and your average order total is the number you want.
The worked example below uses a $30 item with $5 shipping ($35 in total), sold by a seller with a US bank account. Swap in your own numbers as you read.
What Etsy takes
Every figure here comes from Etsy's Fees & Payments Policy and the Etsy Payments Policy, read on 24 September 2026. Each fee gets the same four questions.
1. The listing fee
What it is. $0.20 to publish a listing on Etsy, and $0.20 again each time it renews.
When it applies. Listings expire after four months, and with automatic renewals on (the default), Etsy renews them at $0.20 each time. One detail most fee comparisons miss: on a listing with multiple quantities, it renews at $0.20 after each item sells. So on a stocked product the listing fee behaves like a fee per sale; on a one-of-a-kind piece it behaves like rent, $0.20 every four months whether it sells or not. Editing is free.
What it costs on our order. $0.20.
Can you avoid it? Only by not listing. Switching to manual renewal stops the automatic charge, but the listing comes down at the end of its four months.
2. The transaction fee
What it is. 6.5% of the price you display for the listing, plus the amount you charge for shipping and for gift wrapping.
When it applies. On every sale through Etsy.com. If you sell from the US, it isn't charged on sales tax. If you sell from anywhere else, it applies to the listing price including any tax you're responsible for.
What it costs on our order. 6.5% of $35 is $2.28: $1.95 on the item, $0.33 on the shipping. Raise your shipping charge to cover a courier increase and this fee rises with it.
Can you avoid it? No.
3. Payment processing
What it is. A separate fee for taking the money. The rate depends on where your bank account is; for a US bank account it is 3% + $0.25 per order, assessed on the gross order including shipping and tax.
When it applies. Every order. Where Etsy Payments is available sellers must use it, so this is not a fee you shop around for.
What it costs on our order. 3% of $35 is $1.05, plus $0.25, so $1.30.
Can you avoid it? No.
4. Offsite Ads
What it is. Etsy buys advertising for your listings on search engines and social networks. If a buyer clicks one and orders from your shop within 30 days, that order carries a fee of 15% of the order total, or 12% once your shop has made $10,000 or more in sales over the previous 365 days. Capped at $100 on a single order.
When it applies. Only on orders Etsy attributes to one of its ads. Most orders don't carry it; the ones that do carry it on top of everything else.
What it costs on our order. At 15%, $5.25. At 12%, $4.20.
Can you avoid it? Below $10,000 in sales over 365 days, yes, you can opt out. At or above it you can't, and once a shop has crossed the threshold the 12% fee applies for the lifetime of the shop, even if sales later fall back. It arrives exactly when the shop starts working.
5. Currency conversion, and the smaller lines
List in a currency other than your payment account's and Etsy charges a 2.5% currency conversion fee on the sale amount. For a seller outside the US pricing in dollars that is a real cost, and an avoidable one: list in your payment account's currency.
Three smaller lines. Etsy may charge a one-time set-up fee to open a shop. The policy names no amount; it's shown during onboarding. Etsy Plus is $10 a month and Pattern is $15 a month after a 30-day trial. Sellers in certain countries also pay a Regulatory Operating fee on top.
So, our $35 order. $0.20 + $2.28 + $1.30 = $3.78, or 10.8% of the order, before the cost of the product, the packaging and the shipping label. If that order came through Offsite Ads at 15%, it's $9.03, or 25.8% of the order.
What your own store takes
The comparison below uses Shopify's Basic plan, on Shopify's pricing page, read the same day. Same four questions.
1. The monthly plan
What it is. A subscription. Basic is $39 a month paid monthly, or $29 a month paid yearly. The page currently shows an introductory offer: 3 days free, then $1 a month for 3 months.
When it applies. Every month, at the same price, whether you take 4 orders or 400. It's the one genuinely fixed cost here, and the reason a break-even point exists.
What it costs on our order. Nothing directly. It's spread across every order you take that month. At 16 orders it's $2.44 an order. At 100 it's $0.39.
Can you avoid it? No, but paying yearly takes it to $29, and you choose the plan.
2. Card processing
What it is. The rate for taking a card payment. On Basic with Shopify Payments it is 2.9% + 30¢ for online standard cards. There is no listing fee and no commission on the sale itself.
When it applies. Every order. Use a provider other than Shopify Payments and Basic adds a 2% third-party transaction fee on top of that provider's own charge, which usually makes switching a false economy on a small store.
What it costs on our order. 2.9% of $35 is $1.02, plus $0.30, so $1.32.
Can you avoid it? No. Every way of taking money online has a rate; this is a normal one.
3. Apps
What it is. Reviews, email, a shipping app: whatever your shop actually needs. Most charge monthly and most have a free tier.
When it applies. Monthly, and it creeps. Apps are the line most likely to wreck a tidy sum, because each one looks small.
What it costs on our order. Unknown until you pick them, and prices change too often to print here. Total your own shortlist and add it to the fixed cost in the break-even sum below.
Can you avoid it? Partly. A small store can launch with very few. Add one when something is missing, not in advance.
4. The domain
What it is. Your address. Charged yearly, and the price depends on the name, so check it at the point of purchase. Shopify's pricing page carries no single figure for it.
When it applies. Once a year, forever. It's the one cost that stays yours if you change platform.
What it costs on our order. Little enough to ignore in the monthly sum, once you've budgeted it.
Can you avoid it? No, and you shouldn't want to. A shop on someone else's address is the problem you're leaving.
5. The one-off: getting the store built
What it is. Theme, design, products imported, pages written, payments and shipping configured, the checkout tested. It happens once.
When it applies. Before you sell anything, which is why the first month of a store is expensive and the twelfth is cheap.
What it costs on our order. Nothing per order, but it belongs in the decision. Divide it across the year you plan to run the store and see whether the monthly saving covers it.
Can you avoid it? You can spend time instead of money. See the last section.
100 sales, side by side
The same 100 orders in both columns: a $30 item plus $5 shipping, $35 each, $3,500 in total. Etsy on Standard with no Offsite Ads, Shopify on Basic paid monthly. Neither column counts the product, the packaging or the shipping label. Those are the same wherever you sell.
| Etsy | Your own store | |
|---|---|---|
| Monthly plan | $0.00 | $39.00 |
| Listing fees | $20.00 | $0.00 |
| Transaction fee / commission | $227.50 | $0.00 |
| Payment processing | $130.00 | $131.50 |
| Total fees on 100 sales | $377.50 | $170.50 |
| Left from $3,500 | $3,122.50 | $3,329.50 |
$207.00 a month, on these numbers. Note where it does not come from: payment processing is almost identical, $130.00 against $131.50. The whole gap is the transaction fee and the listing fees, set against one $39 subscription.
Now the fee that only fires sometimes. If 10 of those 100 orders came through Offsite Ads at 15%, Etsy's column gains $52.50 and the gap widens to $259.50 a month, about $3,100 a year on a shop turning over $42,000.
Find your break-even
Your own store wins when the per-order saving covers the monthly plan. That's the whole decision.
Per order, Etsy takes 9.5% of the order total plus $0.45. (6.5% transaction fee, 3% processing, $0.25 processing fee, $0.20 listing renewal.) Per order, your store takes 2.9% plus $0.30. So you save 6.6% of the order total plus $0.15, every order.
Break-even orders per month = your fixed monthly cost ÷ (6.6% × your average order total + $0.15)
With Basic at $39 and nothing else:
| Your average order total | You save per order | Break-even | In monthly sales |
|---|---|---|---|
| $15 | $1.14 | 35 orders | $525 |
| $25 | $1.80 | 22 orders | $550 |
| $35 | $2.46 | 16 orders | $560 |
| $50 | $3.45 | 12 orders | $600 |
| $100 | $6.75 | 6 orders | $600 |
The useful part is the last column. Whatever you sell and at whatever price, the break-even sits in a narrow band a little over $500 a month in sales. Add your apps to the fixed cost and the band moves up with it: every extra $10 a month of apps pushes it up by roughly $130 in sales.
The rule.
- Well below it. Fees alone won't pay for a store yet. The reason to build one now is everything after the fees: an address of your own, a list, and repeat customers who don't cost you 10.8% each time.
- Around it. The fees are a wash. Decide on something else: whether you want an address of your own, and whether you have anywhere to send traffic from.
- Well above it. The store pays for itself on fees alone. From here the question stops being fees and becomes traffic.
One caveat before you act on any of it: this sum counts fees, not sales. It assumes the same 100 orders arrive in both columns. It's the most expensive assumption in the article, and the subject of the next section.
When Etsy is still the better deal
Etsy is not a shop. It's a marketplace with shoppers already in it, and what you buy with 10.8% of each order is access to them. A new store on your own domain starts with none, and no amount of theme work changes that in the first months.
So the fee is an advertising cost, and a cheap one by the standards of paid advertising, because it only charges you when you sell. While your audience is small, that is hard to beat.
The test that settles it. Look at where your orders actually come from. Etsy's own stats show you how buyers reached a listing.
- If most orders come from Etsy search, Etsy is earning its cut. Leaving doesn't move those orders to your store; it ends them. Keep Etsy for those buyers, and build the store for the ones you bring yourself.
- If most orders come from your own Instagram, your newsletter or repeat customers, you're paying 10.8% of every order for traffic you brought yourself. That's where a store of your own pays twice over.
- Most shops are a mix, which is the real argument for running both rather than choosing.
Bringing your own audience to the store is work of its own, and it's ours too, in our SEO and paid media work.
One constraint before you plan anything clever. Etsy's policy on off-platform transactions is blunt: moving a transaction off Etsy is, in its words, "strictly prohibited", and that includes pointing buyers to another venue. You can build an audience through your own channels. You cannot build it out of Etsy's order flow.
Moving without losing the shop
Six steps, in this order. None of them starts with closing the Etsy shop.
- Measure first. The three numbers from the top of this article, plus where your orders come from. A month of that beats a year of arguing with yourself.
- Build while Etsy keeps selling. A store takes days or weeks to set up properly. There's no reason to close the shop during it, and none to announce anything.
- Move the catalogue, not the listings. Photos, variants and prices carry over. The text usually shouldn't, word for word: Etsy titles are written for Etsy's search and read badly on a site of your own. Rewrite the titles and the first paragraph.
- Keep both open and change nothing about your Etsy prices. If you sync marketplace orders into Shopify, note that the first 50 synced orders a month are free and it's 1% after that, up to $99 a month.
- Start building the audience the store will need. Your own social accounts, your own email list, your own search traffic. This is the step that decides whether the store works, and it is slower than building the store.
- Give it 60 to 90 days, then read the numbers again. Orders and fees in both places. Decide then whether Etsy is a channel you keep, shrink, or close. Most sellers keep it.
Do it yourself, or hand it to us?
What the store takes on your own. Choosing a theme and learning its editor. Importing the catalogue and rewriting every Etsy title and first paragraph for a site of your own. Photos that work outside Etsy's grid, payments, shipping, taxes and policies set up, and a test order through checkout. It's weekends of work, and every one of them is a weekend you're not making what you sell.
What we do. We build your store from your Etsy catalogue: a current theme set up with your products, photos and brand, payments, shipping and policies ready, and the checkout tested, while your Etsy shop keeps selling. A store built once costs less than a store built twice, and the work takes us days. That's our Store Design & Theme Development work.
Questions sellers ask
Can I sell on Etsy and on my own store at the same time?
Yes, and for most sellers it's the right first move. The two don't compete for the same buyer: Etsy brings marketplace shoppers, your store serves people who already know you. Running both for a season gives you the only comparison that matters: your own orders in both places.
Do my Etsy reviews move to my own store?
No. Reviews belong to the Etsy listing and stay there. A new store starts at zero. That's a real cost worth planning for: install a reviews app before launch and ask from the first order onwards.
Do my Etsy customers move with me?
Not automatically, and not by any shortcut. Etsy gives you what's needed to fulfil the order, not a marketing list, and its policy prohibits directing buyers to another venue. The audience you can move is the one you built yourself.
What does a small store cost to run each month?
Two lines are published and fixed: the plan and the card rate. On Shopify Basic that's $39 a month ($29 paid yearly) and 2.9% + 30¢ per order. The rest (apps and the domain) depends on choices you haven't made yet, so total your shortlist before you commit rather than after.
How long until my own store gets traffic?
Longer than building it. A new domain starts with no search history and no marketplace shoppers, so the first orders come from people you already reach. Plan in months, keep Etsy running meanwhile, and judge the store on orders from your own audience rather than on total orders.
Is Etsy Plus worth it?
Do the arithmetic before the feature list. It costs $10 a month and includes 15 listing credits (worth $3 at $0.20 each) and $5 in Etsy Ads credits. That's $8 of credits for $10, so it pays for itself only if you'd have spent that $5 on Etsy Ads anyway and you use the extra tools. Credits don't roll over.
Not sure where your break-even sits?
Send us your Etsy shop link and your monthly orders. We reply within one business day with your break-even and what your own store would take, built while your Etsy shop keeps selling.
