How Much Does Etsy Take Per Sale? Etsy Fees Explained

The four fees on an Etsy sale

When an item sells on Etsy, a few separate charges can come out of what the buyer pays. They are easy to lose track of because they arrive at different times and are worked out in different ways.

The figures in this guide are US defaults as published by Etsy in October 2026. Fees differ by country and account, and Etsy changes its rules, so use these as a worked example and confirm your own rates.

Fee by fee, with the formulas

• Listing fee. $0.20 per listing. The listing renews every four months, or when the item sells, and each renewal is charged again.
• Transaction fee. 6.5% of the item price plus shipping.
• Payment processing. 3% plus $0.25 on the order in the US, calculated on item price plus shipping, and sales tax where Etsy collects it.
• Offsite Ads fee. Only on a sale that Etsy attributes to those ads. See the next section.

Put those together and the total for an ordinary sale with no sales tax is:

total fees = listing fee + 6.5% x (item + shipping) + 3% x (item + shipping) + 0.25

Your net payout is the item price plus shipping, minus the total fees. Your profit takes off your own costs as well, such as materials and postage labels.

Offsite Ads: the fee that only sometimes applies

The Offsite Ads fee applies only to sales that Etsy attributes to those ads. If a buyer finds you in another way, you do not pay it.

When it does apply, the fee is 15% of the order, or 12% for shops with $10,000 or more in sales over the last 12 months. It is capped at $100 per order, so it stops growing on very large sales.

Offsite Ads fee = the smaller of (rate x (item + shipping)) and 100

Because it is a large percentage, this is the fee most likely to change your results. It is also why our calculator has a tick box for it, off by default, so you can compare a sale with and without it.

Four sales, line by line

All four examples assume no sales tax.

A $100 item with no shipping

Listing fee 0.20. Transaction fee 6.5% of 100 = 6.50. Payment processing 3% of 100 + 0.25 = 3.25. Total fees = 9.95, an effective rate of 9.95%. If your item cost you 30, your net payout of 90.05 leaves a profit of 60.05.

A $25 item plus $5 shipping

The base is 30. Listing fee 0.20. Transaction fee 6.5% of 30 = 1.95. Payment processing 3% of 30 + 0.25 = 1.15. Total fees = 3.30, an effective rate of 11.00%. Net payout = 30 – 3.30 = 26.70.

A $30 item sold through Offsite Ads

Listing fee 0.20, transaction fee 1.95, processing 1.15. Offsite Ads at 15% of 30 = 4.50. Total fees = 7.80, an effective rate of 26.00%.

A $700 item sold through Offsite Ads

Listing fee 0.20. Transaction fee 6.5% of 700 = 45.50. Processing 3% of 700 + 0.25 = 21.25. Offsite Ads at 15% would be 105, but the cap holds it at 100.00. Total fees = 166.95.

Reading the effective rate

The effective rate is total fees divided by the base of item price plus shipping. It is the single best number for comparing sales, because it folds the fixed amounts into one percentage.

Compare the first two examples. Both use the same percentage fees, but the $25 item with shipping has an effective rate of 11.00% against 9.95% for the $100 item. The reason is the fixed amounts, the $0.20 listing fee and the $0.25 processing fee, which weigh more on a smaller order.

The Offsite Ads examples show the other extreme. On the $30 sale, adding the ad fee takes the effective rate from 11.00% for a comparable sale to 26.00%. On the $700 sale the cap keeps the effective rate at about 23.85%, which is lower than a 15% fee would suggest.

One more detail: if you leave the listing fee out of a sale that did not carry one, the $100 example falls from 9.95 to 9.75 in fees. That is why our calculator lets you untick it.

A checklist for each listing

1. Note the item price and the shipping you charge. Both count towards the transaction and processing fees.
2. Add the listing fee, and remember that it is charged again when the listing renews.
3. Work out the transaction and processing fees from the base.
4. Decide whether to model a sale with Offsite Ads, and which rate applies to your shop.
5. Subtract your own costs: materials, packaging, the shipping label and anything else.
6. Compare the profit with the price you want to charge.

If you set your price from cost, see markup vs margin for how a target margin turns into a price. To compare with another marketplace, how eBay fees work walks through a different fee structure, and break-even ROAS covers what advertising can cost per order.

Check Etsy’s own page

Etsy publishes its fees on its own page, and that is the place to confirm the current rates for your country and account: Etsy’s Fees and Payments Policy. Compare it with the defaults in the Etsy Fee Calculator, then edit any rate that differs. Our Seller and Business Calculators page lists the rest of the tools for sellers.

Frequently asked questions

Tools used in this guide

• Etsy Fee Calculator
• Markup vs Margin Calculator

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Photo: Kadarius Seegars on Unsplash