Etsy charges five categories of fees on every sale. Some are flat, some are percentage-based, some vary by country, and one — Offsite Ads — can take 12–15% of a sale you did not even know Etsy was advertising. Understanding the full fee stack is the difference between pricing for profit and pricing for activity.
Fee 1: Listing Fee — $0.20 Per Unit Sold
Etsy charges $0.20 every time a listing sells or renews. This is a per-unit fee, not per listing. If a buyer purchases three units of the same listing, you pay $0.60 in listing fees — three separate $0.20 charges. For digital downloads, where you sell the same listing repeatedly with no inventory, the listing fee is charged on every single sale. On a $5 digital product, the $0.20 listing fee alone is 4% of revenue.
Fee 2: Transaction Fee — 6.5%
Etsy takes 6.5% of the total sale amount. The total includes the item price plus any shipping charged to the buyer plus gift wrap. This is the detail most sellers underestimate. If you sell a $25 item with $5 shipping, Etsy’s transaction fee is 6.5% of $30 — not $25. That is $1.95, not $1.63. If you offer free shipping by building the cost into your item price, the fee calculates on the higher item price, which produces the same result. You cannot avoid the transaction fee on shipping costs.
Fee 3: Payment Processing Fee — Varies by Country
Payment processing is charged by Etsy Payments to handle the credit card transaction. Unlike the flat 6.5% transaction fee, processing rates differ by seller country:
- United States: 3% + $0.25 per transaction
- United Kingdom: 4% + £0.20 per transaction
- Australia: 3% + A$0.25 per transaction
- Canada: 3% + C$0.25 per transaction
- Germany: 4% + €0.30 per transaction
The fixed component ($0.25 for US sellers) matters most on low-priced items. On a $10 sale, the $0.25 fixed fee represents 2.5% of revenue on its own, on top of the 3% percentage fee. On a $50 sale, it drops to 0.5%. This is one reason low-priced listings have structurally thinner margins on Etsy.
Fee 4: Offsite Ads — 12% or 15%
Etsy runs advertising campaigns on Google, Facebook, Instagram, and Pinterest on behalf of sellers. If a buyer clicks one of these ads and purchases from your shop within 30 days, Etsy charges an Offsite Ads fee on that sale:
- Shops earning under $10,000/year: 15% of the sale (opt-in, but opted in by default)
- Shops earning over $10,000/year: 12% of the sale (mandatory, cannot opt out)
This fee applies on top of all other fees. It does not replace the transaction fee or processing fee — it stacks. On a $25 sale where Offsite Ads triggered, a US seller under $10K pays: $0.20 listing + $1.63 transaction (6.5%) + $1.00 processing (3% + $0.25) + $3.75 Offsite Ads (15%) = $6.58 total, or 26.3% of gross revenue. That is before cost of goods.
Go to Shop Manager → Marketing → Offsite Ads. If your annual revenue is under $10,000, you can opt out. If you are above $10,000, Etsy requires participation at the 12% rate. Sellers who have never checked this setting may be paying 15% on ad-attributed sales without realizing it.
Fee 5: Regulatory Operating Fee
Some countries charge an additional regulatory operating fee. This applies to sellers in the United Kingdom, Canada, France, India, and Turkey. The rate varies by jurisdiction and changes periodically. US, Australian, and German sellers do not currently pay this fee. Check Etsy’s legal/fees page for the current rate in your market.
Worked Example: $25 Digital Product Sold in the US
Transaction fee: $25.00 × 6.5% = $1.63
Processing fee: $25.00 × 3% + $0.25 = $1.00
Offsite Ads: Not triggered = $0.00
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Total fees: $2.83 (11.3% of sale)
Net after fees: $22.17
If Offsite Ads triggered on the same sale, add $3.75 (15%), bringing total fees to $6.58 (26.3%) and net after fees to $18.42. That is a $3.75 difference from a single ad attribution — and you have no control over which sales Etsy attributes to its ads.
Why Revenue Is Not Profit
The fee examples above do not include your cost of goods. A handmade item with $8.00 in materials, $3.00 in packaging, and $2.00 in labor costs $13.00 before Etsy takes anything. On a $25 sale with $2.83 in fees, your true profit is $25.00 − $2.83 − $13.00 = $9.17. If Offsite Ads triggered, it drops to $5.42. If your shipping materials cost $1.50, it is $3.92. This is why tracking true profit per listing — not Etsy’s gross revenue number — determines whether a listing is worth keeping.
The Etsy Profit Tracker calculates true profit after every fee category, subtracts your COGS per product, and assigns a Kill/Keep/Scale verdict to each listing in your shop. It supports all five markets listed above and auto-adjusts fee rates based on your country selection.