Understanding Etsy Fees: A Practical Seller Guide

New sellers are often surprised that Etsy takes a cut from several places on a single sale, not just one "selling fee." Understanding each piece separately makes it much easier to see where your margin is actually going — and to model it accurately instead of guessing.

Rates below reflect Etsy's published fee information for a US-based Etsy Payments seller as of the date shown, based on Etsy's own fee overview and help documentation. Etsy can change these rates at any time — always confirm current numbers directly on Etsy before relying on them. Last verified: September 6, 2026.

Listing fee

Etsy charges a flat $0.20 fee each time a listing is published or renewed, and again each time a unit of that listing sells. It's small per unit, but it's not zero, and the Sellarithm calculators include it in every result rather than rounding it away.

Transaction fee

Etsy charges a 6.5% transaction fee on the total the buyer pays for the order — that's your item price plus whatever shipping you charge them. This is the fee most sellers underestimate, because it's easy to forget that it applies to shipping too, not just the item price.

Payment processing fee

On top of the transaction fee, a US-based Etsy Payments account is charged 3% + $0.25 per order for payment processing — again calculated on the full order total. This fee structure can differ for sellers outside the US or using a different payment setup, so it's worth confirming your own account's rate on Etsy directly.

Offsite Ads fee (conditional)

Offsite Ads is Etsy's own advertising program that promotes listings off-platform (on sites like Google or social media). If a sale is attributed to one of these ads, Etsy charges an additional fee on that order — 15% for most shops, or 12% once a shop passes $10,000 in trailing-12-month sales, at which point participation also becomes mandatory rather than optional. This fee is capped at $100 per order, so it matters less on very high-value sales. It only applies to ad-attributed sales, not every order.

Why model the total, not just one fee

Each of these fees looks small in isolation, but they compound: transaction and processing fees are both calculated on the buyer's full payment (including shipping), so a listing with generous shipping pricing pays proportionally more in fees on that portion too. The only reliable way to know your real margin is to add all of it up for a specific price — which is exactly what the Fee Calculator does, showing a full breakdown and your effective fee rate as a percentage of revenue.

What this doesn't cover

This fee profile assumes a standard, US-based Etsy Payments transaction. It doesn't include Etsy Ads (the seller-funded on-site ad budget, which is different from Offsite Ads), Etsy Plus subscription fees, currency conversion fees, sales tax, VAT, country-specific regulatory operating fees, or refund adjustments. If any of those apply to your shop, your actual numbers will differ from a calculator estimate — check Etsy's official seller fee overview ↗ for the complete picture.