Etsy Offsite Ads 12% vs 15%: Threshold, $100 Cap & Profit Impact

Contents

• What Offsite Ads is, and when the fee applies
• The $10,000 threshold: 15% to 12%, and mandatory for life
• The $100 cap, and the order values where it kicks in
• Worked example: the same $50 order at 15% and 12%
• Pricing decisions: what to do with each number
• Frequently asked questions

Rates and rules below reflect Etsy's published Offsite Ads information for a US-based Etsy Payments seller. Last verified: October 14, 2026 (threshold timing verified October 15, 2026). Etsy can change these terms at any time; confirm current numbers on Etsy before relying on them.

What Offsite Ads is, and when the fee applies

Offsite Ads is Etsy's program that promotes your listings on external platforms — search engines and social media — and charges you only when that promotion produces a sale. Three conditions must all hold before any Offsite Ads fee appears on an order:

• The buyer clicked an Etsy-placed ad for your listing on an external site.
• The buyer ordered within 30 days of that click — the attribution window. A purchase after the window closes is not attributed, and no ad fee applies.
• The order is attributed to that ad. Etsy decides attribution; you do not choose per sale whether the fee applies, and you cannot see in advance which orders will be attributed.

That last point shapes how to use the numbers in this guide: Offsite Ads is a range of outcomes, not a per-order certainty. The Offsite Ads Calculator has a compare mode for exactly that reason — it runs the same sale with and without the ad fee side by side, so you can see both ends of the range instead of planning around a single assumed outcome. Offsite Ads is also a different program from Etsy Ads, the seller-funded on-site advertising where you set your own daily budget; this guide and that calculator cover Offsite Ads only.

The $10,000 threshold: 15% to 12%, and mandatory for life

The standard Offsite Ads rate is 15% of the order total (item price + shipping charged). Once a shop reaches $10,000 in sales in any consecutive 365-day period, the rate drops to 12% — and two consequences follow that sellers often miss:

• Participation becomes mandatory for the lifetime of the shop. Below the threshold, a shop can opt out of Offsite Ads. Once the threshold is crossed, opting out is no longer available, even if sales later fall back below $10,000.
• The 12% rate applies from the first day of the month following qualification. Crossing $10,000 mid-month does not reprice the rest of that month's attributed orders; the reduced rate starts with the next month.

One labeling note: the Sellarithm calculators' Offsite Ads checkbox describes the threshold as "$10,000+ in trailing-12-month sales." That is the same threshold in plainer words — Etsy's official wording is "any consecutive 365-day period" — and the calculators apply the 12% rate whenever you tick that box, regardless of the label.

The $100 cap, and the order values where it kicks in

Whatever the rate, the Offsite Ads fee on a single attributed order will not exceed $100. That cap is what makes the 15%-versus-12% distinction shrink — and eventually vanish — as order value rises:

• At the 15% rate, the fee reaches $100 at an order total of $666.67 ($100 ÷ 0.15). Above that, the fee stays flat at $100 — an effective rate that falls as the order grows (5% on a $2,000 order).
• At the 12% rate, the fee reaches $100 at $833.33 ($100 ÷ 0.12). Between $666.67 and $833.33, a 12% shop still pays a percentage while a 15% shop is already capped — but the 12% fee stays lower throughout that band (at $800: $96 versus the capped $100). The cap narrows the gap between the rates; it never reverses it.

The cap also changes reverse pricing: when you solve for the price that hits a profit target with Offsite Ads on, the solver must handle the capped branch (a flat $100) separately from the percentage branch, because the fee no longer scales with price above the threshold. The Offsite Ads Calculator does that exactly, and warns you when a solved price sits in the capped region.

Worked example: the same $50 order at 15% and 12%

An item sells for $45 with $5 shipping charged (order total $50.00). Costs: $10 product, $5 actual shipping. Every figure below was computed with Sellarithm's own calculation engine; dollar figures are rounded to the nearest cent.

Three readings fall out of that table. First, crossing the threshold is worth exactly the 3-point rate difference on an ordinary order: $1.50 more profit here, 3 margin points. Second, the ad fee itself is the dominant cost of an attributed sale — $7.50 of ad fee against $5.20 of all other fees combined at the 15% rate. Third, the no-ad column is the number to plan around for ordinary sales, and the ad column is the number to stress-test against: a price that survives at 44.6% margin survives either outcome.

The capped case: an $800 order at 15%

An item sells for $800 with no shipping, product cost $200, at the standard 15% rate. Uncapped, the ad fee would be $120.00 — but the cap holds it at $100.00. Total fees are $176.45 ($0.20 listing + $52.00 transaction + $24.25 processing + $100.00 capped ad fee), profit is $423.55, and margin is 52.9%. At the 12% rate the same order would pay $96.00 of ad fee (below the cap), $172.45 of total fees, and keep $427.55 — just $4.00 more than the capped 15% case, because the cap has already done most of the 12% rate's work.

Pricing decisions: what to do with each number

• Below the threshold, decide about opting out with real numbers, not vibes. Run your typical order through the compare mode with and without the fee: if attributed sales stay profitable, the extra volume may be worth the fee; if they go negative, opting out protects margin until you cross the threshold anyway.
• Above the threshold, price for the 12% fee as your worst case, not the 15%. Mandatory participation means every attributed sale costs 12% (or the $100 cap) — build that into prices rather than treating ad fees as a surprise deduction.
• For high-ticket items, the cap is your friend. A $2,000 attributed sale pays $100 either way — a 5% effective rate. If your catalog skews high-ticket, Offsite Ads costs proportionally less than the headline 15%/12% suggests.
• Use reverse mode to price for attributed sales explicitly. The Offsite Ads Calculator's "find price with ads enabled" mode solves for the price that hits your profit target with the ad fee already in the math, including the capped branch — use it instead of adding a rough percentage on top of an ordinary price.
• Do not stack a deep discount on an attributed sale without checking. A discount shrinks revenue while the ad fee takes its percentage of the same smaller total, and your fixed costs do not shrink at all — run the combination through the Discount Profit Calculator with the ad toggle on before launching the sale.