Listing fee: $0.20 per listing
Every time you publish a listing on Etsy, you're charged $0.20. This fee also applies when a listing auto-renews after a sale, when a listing expires and you renew it, and when you manually renew a listing. Listings are active for 4 months before they expire.
For sellers who make frequent sales, this cost is negligible on a per-sale basis. For sellers with slow-moving inventory, listing fees accumulate — a listing that sits for 12 months without selling costs $0.60 in listing fees alone before any sale occurs. This is worth factoring in when deciding how many listings to maintain.
Transaction fee: 6.5% of total transaction
This is Etsy's primary revenue source and the most significant fee for most sellers. At 6.5%, it applies to the total buyer payment — item price plus the shipping amount the buyer pays. This catches many sellers off guard: if you charge $5 shipping, Etsy's transaction fee applies to that $5 too.
On a $40 item with $6 buyer-paid shipping ($46 total), the transaction fee is $46 × 6.5% = $2.99. On a $40 item with free shipping included in the price, the transaction fee is $40 × 6.5% = $2.60. The difference is small per sale, but it illustrates why some sellers build shipping into their item price rather than charging it separately.
Payment processing fee: ~3% + $0.25
Etsy Payments (which processes Visa, Mastercard, Apple Pay, Google Pay, and other payment methods) charges a payment processing fee on every transaction. In the US, this is 3% of the transaction total plus $0.25 per transaction. Rates vary by country.
This fee, combined with the transaction fee, means you're paying roughly 9.5–10% in platform fees before Offsite Ads. On a $40 sale, that's approximately $3.80–4.00 going to Etsy. This is why pricing discipline matters — thin margins don't survive 10% platform fees on top of material costs.
Offsite Ads fee: 12–15% when it applies
Etsy automatically advertises your listings on external platforms — Google Shopping, Instagram, Pinterest, and others. When a buyer clicks one of these ads and purchases your item within 30 days, Etsy charges an additional Offsite Ads fee.
The rate is 15% for shops that earned less than $10,000 in the prior 12 months, and 12% for shops that earned $10,000 or more. Shops below the $10,000 threshold can opt out of Offsite Ads. Shops above $10,000 must participate — it's mandatory.
When an Offsite Ad fee applies, your total Etsy fees for that transaction jump to 18–25% of the sale. This is not a problem if Offsite Ads are driving incremental sales you wouldn't have gotten otherwise. It becomes a margin problem if Offsite Ads are primarily capturing sales from buyers who would have found you through organic Etsy search anyway.
Etsy Plus and Pattern: optional paid features
Etsy Plus ($10/month) provides listing credits, a modest Etsy Ads credit, customization features for your shop, and the ability to offer restock notifications to buyers. It's optional and many sellers find the base Etsy plan sufficient.
Etsy Pattern ($15/month) is a separate website builder that integrates with your Etsy shop. If you want a standalone website presence, this is one option — though platforms like Shopify offer more control and flexibility at a similar price point.
Total fee impact: a worked example
Item price: $35.00 (with free shipping built in)
Transaction fee (6.5%): -$2.28
Payment processing (3% + $0.25): -$1.30
Listing fee (per sale): -$0.20
Total Etsy fees: -$3.78
Net received: $31.22
If this sale came through an Offsite Ad at the 15% rate:
Offsite Ads fee (15%): -$5.25
Net received: $25.97 — 26% less than the sticker price.
This is why pricing at your cost structure rather than a competitor's price is so important. You have to account for the full fee load in every scenario, including the Offsite Ads scenario if you're above the opt-out threshold.