Etsy Fees Explained: How Much Does Etsy Take Per

The Short Answer

On a standard US sale with no ads, Etsy takes roughly 10–11% of the order through three stacked fees: a $0.20 listing fee, a 6.5% transaction fee on the item price plus shipping, and payment processing of 3% + $0.25. On a $100 order, that works out to about $9.95 in fees. If the buyer arrived through one of Etsy's offsite ads, add another 12–15% on top — which is where sellers get an unpleasant surprise.

Do not price from memory. Use our free Etsy Profit Calculator — enter your sale price, shipping, and costs to see every fee and your exact profit per order in seconds.

The rest of this guide breaks down each fee, walks through real order examples at three price points, and shows a simple pricing formula that protects your margin from day one. Fees are the number-one reason new Etsy sellers feel busy but broke, and it is almost always because they priced for the item cost and forgot the fee stack.

Fee #1: Listing Fee — $0.20

Every listing costs $0.20 to publish, whether or not it sells. The fee hits again each time the listing auto-renews (every 4 months) and each time a unit sells from a multi-quantity listing. List 50 items and you have spent $10 before a single sale. This fee barely matters on a $100 item, but on a $10 item it is a full 2% of revenue before anything else is charged — one reason cheap items are brutally hard to make profitable on Etsy.

Fee #2: Transaction Fee — 6.5%

Etsy charges 6.5% on the item price plus the shipping amount you charge the buyer and any gift wrap. This is the fee sellers most often underestimate, because the shipping they charge is not pass-through money — it is fee-bearing revenue. Sell a $50 item with $6 shipping and the transaction fee is 6.5% of $56, or $3.64, not 6.5% of $50.

Free shipping does not dodge this fee either. It just moves the shipping cost into the item price, and Etsy charges the percentage on that higher price. The takeaway: build shipping into your price deliberately instead of pretending it is separate.

Fee #3: Payment Processing — 3% + $0.25 (US)

Etsy Payments processing is 3% of the total order plus a flat $0.25 per transaction for US sellers (rates vary by country, and a 2.5% currency conversion fee applies when currencies differ). Like the transaction fee, it applies to the whole order including shipping. The flat $0.25 is another reason small orders carry a higher effective fee rate than large ones.

Real Order Examples: What Etsy Takes at Three Price Points

Here is the full stack on typical US orders with no ads, based on Etsy's published 2026 fee policy:

Fee	$25 item + $5 ship	$50 item + $6 ship	$100 item, free ship
Listing fee	$0.20	$0.20	$0.20
Transaction (6.5%)	$1.95	$3.64	$6.50
Processing (3% + $0.25)	$1.15	$1.93	$3.25
Total Etsy fees	$3.30	$5.77	$9.95
Effective fee rate	11.0%	10.3%	10.0%

Notice the pattern: the cheaper the order, the higher the effective rate, because the $0.20 and $0.25 flat charges do not shrink. Run your own numbers with our Etsy Profit Calculator before you list anything under $20 — the margin math is unforgiving down there.

The Fee That Doubles Your Costs: Offsite Ads

Etsy runs ads for your products on Google and social media through Offsite Ads, and if a buyer clicks one and purchases within 30 days, Etsy takes 15% of the order total (12% if your shop made over $10,000 in the past year). Shops under $10,000 cannot opt out. A $56 order that cost $5.77 in standard fees suddenly costs $5.77 + $8.40 = $14.17 — a 25% effective rate. Many sellers first learn about this fee when their payout looks wrong, so check your Payment account page for an \"Offsite Ads fee\" line before assuming a calculation error.

A Simple Pricing Formula That Protects Your Margin

Price backwards from the profit you want, not forwards from your costs:

Use 0.11 as your fee rate for standard US sales (0.25 if you expect offsite ad traffic), and never accept a profit margin below 20–30% after all costs — Etsy shops die from thin margins, not from high prices. Test three price points in our Etsy Profit Calculator and pick the one that survives the fee stack with your margin intact.

Conclusion

Etsy's headline fee is 6.5%, but the fee you actually pay is 10–11% on a normal sale and 20–25% when offsite ads are involved. Sellers who build the full stack — listing, transaction, processing, and the possible ad cut — into their prices from day one keep their margins; sellers who price on item cost alone wonder where the money went. Calculate your true Etsy profit per sale now and price like someone who has seen the payout screen.