A US Etsy seller pays a 6.5% transaction fee on the item, shipping and gift wrap, plus 3% + $0.25 in payment processing on a total that includes sales tax. If the order came from an Offsite Ad, another 12% or 15% comes off the top.
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Table of Contents
- Introduction
- Why “Etsy Takes About 10%” Breaks Down in Q4
- The Fees That Hit a Single Order
- Step-by-Step: Building a Per-Order Fee Sheet
- Common Mistakes and Edge Cases
- Tools and Resources
- Worked Example: A $40 Ornament Order
- Frequently Asked Questions
- Key Takeaways
- The Bottom Line
Introduction
Late October is when most Etsy sellers lock in holiday prices, and most of them do it with a rough rule in their head: Etsy takes about a tenth.
That rule holds for a plain domestic order. It stops holding the moment an order arrives through an Offsite Ad, gets paid in another currency, or carries a gift-wrap charge you forgot was taxable by Etsy’s fee rules.
This guide shows you how to calculate the fees on one order, line by line, so you can price from actual numbers before Black Friday. It is based on Etsy’s Help Center pages on selling fees and Etsy Payments processing fees, and Etsy’s Fees & Payments Policy, checked in October 2026. Here’s exactly how the math works.
Why “Etsy Takes About 10%” Breaks Down in Q4
The 10% figure comes from adding the 6.5% transaction fee to the 3% processing rate and rounding. Third-party fee guides repeat it, and for a single $50 domestic order with no ads, it’s close.
The problem is that Q4 orders are rarely that clean.
Holiday buyers click more ads, buy more gift wrap, and pay more shipping upgrades. Every one of those changes the fee base. The Offsite Ads fee alone can more than double what Etsy takes from an order, and you don’t choose which orders it lands on.
The fixed parts matter too. The $0.25 processing charge and the $0.20 listing fee are small on a $60 order. On a $6 sticker, those 45 cents are 7.5% of the sale before any percentage fee is applied.
So a single blended percentage hides the two things that hurt most in December: low-priced items and ad-attributed orders. A per-order sheet shows both.
The Fees That Hit a Single Order
Etsy’s Help Center lists its seller fees in one article (Etsy Help: What are the Fees and Taxes for Selling on Etsy?). For a US shop, these are the ones that touch an individual order:
| Fee | Rate (US shop) | Charged on |
|---|---|---|
| Listing fee | $0.20 | Each listing, renewal, and each additional quantity sold |
| Transaction fee | 6.5% | Item price + shipping + gift wrap |
| Payment processing | 3% + $0.25 | Total sale, including shipping and sales tax |
| Offsite Ads fee | 15% or 12% | Order total, only on attributed orders, capped at $100 |
| Currency conversion | 2.5% | Only when your listing currency differs from your bank account currency |
| Etsy Ads | Varies | Cost per click, set by your daily budget |
The key detail is that each percentage fee uses a different base. The transaction fee is charged on the order total of item, shipping and gift wrap. Etsy’s Help Center says the transaction fee excludes the sales tax Etsy collects. The processing fee does not exclude it.
Etsy’s Payments help page states that processing fees are taken from the total sale price, including shipping fees and any applicable sales tax (Etsy Help: Etsy Payments fees). In the US, that rate is 3% plus $0.25 per order.
The Offsite Ads tiers
Etsy advertises some listings on outside sites such as Google and social platforms. If a buyer clicks one of those ads and buys from your shop within 30 days, you pay the Offsite Ads fee on that order.
Etsy’s fee page sets the rate by your sales history. If you made less than $10,000 on Etsy in the past 365 days, the fee is 15% of the order total. If you made $10,000 or more, the rate drops to 12%. Etsy also says the Offsite Ad fee will never exceed $100 for an order.
Shops under $10,000 can opt out of Offsite Ads in their settings. Shops over the threshold cannot. We covered how that window has moved for smaller shops in Etsy Adjusts the Offsite Ads Opt-Out Window for Smaller Shops.
Fees for sellers outside the US
Sellers based in some countries pay a regulatory operating fee on top of the transaction fee. Etsy’s Help Center lists the UK, France, Italy, India, Spain, Türkiye, Vietnam and Canada. Etsy charges it as a percentage of the order total, including item price, shipping and gift wrap.
Third-party guides list the UK rate at 0.32% and France at 0.47%. Check Etsy’s Fees & Payments Policy for your country’s current figure before you build it into a spreadsheet (Etsy Fees & Payments Policy).
Processing rates also vary by country. UK sellers, for example, pay 4% + £0.20 per order according to Etsy’s Payments fee table, and sellers registered for VAT in some countries see VAT added to their seller fees. Our EU VAT guide covers what still falls on the seller there.
Fees that sit outside the order
Some costs still count, just not in the per-order sheet:
- Shipping labels bought through Etsy cost whatever the postage is. Treat that as shipping cost, not a fee.
- Etsy Plus is a $10 monthly subscription. Spread it over your monthly orders if you keep it.
- The shop setup fee is a one-time charge for new shops, and Etsy says the cost varies by location.
Keep these in your monthly overhead. Adding them to each order line only blurs the per-order picture.
Step-by-Step: Building a Per-Order Fee Sheet
This is how to set up a simple sheet that gives you the fee cost and profit for any order in under a minute.
Step 1: List the order components separately
What: Give each order its own row with columns for item price, shipping charged, gift wrap charged and sales tax collected.
Why: Each fee uses a different combination of these, so a single “order total” column will give you the wrong number.
How: Pull the figures from the order receipt in Shop Manager. If you’re pricing ahead of time, use your planned price, your shipping profile rate and a typical sales tax rate for your buyers.
Example: A $40 ornament, $6 shipping, no gift wrap and 8% sales tax collected by Etsy becomes four columns: 40, 6, 0, 3.68.
Step 2: Calculate the transaction fee
What: Multiply item + shipping + gift wrap by 6.5%.
Why: Shipping is in the fee base. Sellers who move cost from the item price into shipping don’t save anything on this fee.
How: In a spreadsheet, use =(item+shipping+giftwrap)*0.065.
Example: ($40 + $6) × 6.5% = $2.99.
Step 3: Calculate the processing fee
What: Multiply the full amount the buyer paid, including sales tax, by 3%, then add $0.25.
Why: The processing fee follows the money that moved through Etsy Payments, and that includes tax.
How: =(item+shipping+giftwrap+tax)*0.03+0.25.
Example: ($46 + $3.68) × 3% + $0.25 = $1.74.
Step 4: Add the listing fee
What: Add $0.20 for the listing, plus $0.20 for each additional unit if the buyer bought more than one from a multi-quantity listing.
Why: Etsy charges a listing fee when a listing auto-renews after a sale and for each additional quantity sold. Sellers often leave it out because it’s charged at a different time than the sale.
How: =0.20*quantity is close enough for planning. If you have many unsold listings renewing every four months, our guide to cutting Etsy renewal fees covers how to keep that cost down.
Example: One ornament, one $0.20 listing fee.
Step 5: Add an Offsite Ads column
What: Add a second fee total that assumes the order came from an Offsite Ad.
Why: You don’t know in advance which orders will be attributed. Pricing has to survive the worst case.
How: =MIN((item+shipping+giftwrap)*0.15,100) for shops under $10,000 in the past 365 days. Use 0.12 if your shop is over that line.
Example: $46 × 15% = $6.90 on top of the standard fees.
Step 6: Subtract your own costs
What: Subtract materials, packaging and the postage you actually pay.
Why: Shipping charged to the buyer and postage paid to the carrier are rarely the same number in Q4, especially after carrier peak-season surcharges.
How: Keep a cost-per-item figure for each product. Craftybase and similar tools do this automatically, and our Craftybase review shows how.
Example: $9 materials, $1.50 packaging, $5.20 postage = $15.70.
Step 7: Read both profit numbers
What: Compare profit per order with and without the Offsite Ads fee.
Why: If the ad-attributed version goes close to zero or negative, that product is underpriced for Q4.
How: Add a conditional format that turns the cell red below your minimum profit per order.
Example: In our ornament case, standard profit is $25.37 and ad-attributed profit is $18.47. Both clear the bar.
Common Mistakes and Edge Cases
Most fee mistakes come from applying the right rate to the wrong base. These are the ones that show up most often in seller forums.
Treating free shipping as fee-free
Free shipping moves the cost into your item price. The transaction fee then applies to the higher item price, so the fee doesn’t disappear.
The fee base stays the same either way: item plus shipping. What changes is how the buyer sees the price. If you’re weighing a switch, our guide to pricing into Etsy’s $35 free shipping guarantee walks through the math.
Forgetting gift wrap
Gift wrap is part of the transaction fee base and the Offsite Ads base. A $5 gift wrap option adds $0.33 in transaction fees, and $0.75 more if the order is ad-attributed.
That’s still worth offering. Just price the wrap so it covers the paper, the time and the fees. Our gift notes and gift wrap guide has the setup.
Leaving shipping upgrades out of the math
When a buyer picks a faster shipping upgrade at checkout, the extra shipping charge joins the fee base too. If your upgrade price only covers the extra postage, you lose the fees on it.
Price upgrades with the fees included. We covered the add-on math in How to Set Up Etsy Shipping Upgrades for Holiday Orders.
Discounting without re-running the numbers
A 25% sale cuts your item price, but the $0.25 processing charge and the $0.20 listing fee stay put. On low-priced items, a sale can push fees above 15% of the order even with no ads.
Run any planned sale through the sheet first. Our guide to setting up Etsy sales and coupons without losing margin goes deeper on break-even discounts.
Assuming refunds return every fee
When you refund an order, Etsy credits back the transaction fee for the refunded amount. Not every fee comes back the same way, and the rules differ between full and partial refunds.
Read How to Cancel or Refund an Etsy Order During the Q4 Rush before you refund your first holiday order.
Missing the currency conversion fee
If your listings are in US dollars but your bank account is in Canadian dollars, Etsy’s fee page says a 2.5% fee is assessed when currency conversion is required. That applies to your sales, so set your listing currency to match your bank account where you can.
Tools and Resources
You don’t need paid software to run this math. These are the options most sellers use:
- A spreadsheet (free): Google Sheets or Excel with the formulas above. Best for sellers with fewer than 50 products.
- Etsy’s Payment account (free): Shop Manager > Finances > Payment account shows every fee charged, line by line. Use it to check your sheet against actual charges each month.
- Etsy’s Fees help page (free): The fees and taxes article is the first place to check if a rate changes.
- Third-party fee calculators (free): Craftybase, Alura and others publish online Etsy fee calculators. They’re handy for a quick check, but confirm they include sales tax in the processing base.
- Craftybase (paid): Tracks cost of goods and pulls in Etsy fees, useful once you have dozens of products with different material costs.
- Share & Save (free): Etsy refunds 4 percentage points of the 6.5% transaction fee on qualifying sales that come from links you share. Our Share & Save guide explains which links count.
Whichever tool you pick, reconcile it against your Etsy Payment account at month-end. A calculator is only as good as the rates you typed into it.
Worked Example: A $40 Ornament Order
Here’s a full order run through the sheet. The numbers are illustrative, not a specific shop’s data.
The order: One personalized ceramic ornament at $40, $6 shipping, no gift wrap, shipped to a buyer whose state sales tax is 8%. Etsy collects the $3.68 in tax. The buyer pays $49.68.
The seller’s costs: $9 in clay and glaze, $1.50 in box and tissue, $5.20 in postage bought through Etsy Shipping Labels. Total: $15.70.
| Line | Standard order | Offsite Ads order (15%) |
|---|---|---|
| Item + shipping | $46.00 | $46.00 |
| Transaction fee (6.5%) | $2.99 | $2.99 |
| Processing (3% of $49.68 + $0.25) | $1.74 | $1.74 |
| Listing fee | $0.20 | $0.20 |
| Offsite Ads fee | $0.00 | $6.90 |
| Total Etsy fees | $4.93 | $11.83 |
| Fees as % of $46 | 10.7% | 25.7% |
| Seller costs | $15.70 | $15.70 |
| Profit | $25.37 | $18.47 |
The standard order lands close to the “about 10%” rule. The ad-attributed order costs the seller $6.90 more, cutting profit by 27%.
Now:
Run the same sheet on a $12 sticker set with $4 shipping and 8% tax. The transaction fee is $1.04, processing is $0.77 and the listing fee is $0.20, for $2.01 in total. That’s 12.6% of the order. Add a 15% Offsite Ads fee and it jumps to $4.41, or 27.6%.
Low-priced items carry a higher fee share because the fixed $0.45 doesn’t shrink with price. If your holiday line includes stocking stuffers, bundle them or set a higher minimum price so the fixed fees spread over more revenue.
If you also run Etsy Ads, add your cost per order on top. A shop spending $30 on ads to get 10 orders adds $3 per order, which our ad spend planning guide covers in more detail.
Frequently Asked Questions
How much does Etsy take from a sale in 2026?
For a US shop, Etsy charges a 6.5% transaction fee on item price, shipping and gift wrap, 3% + $0.25 in payment processing, and a $0.20 listing fee. That usually comes to around 10% to 11% of a typical order. Offsite Ads, when they apply, add 12% or 15%.
Does Etsy charge fees on shipping?
Yes. Etsy’s Help Center says the 6.5% transaction fee applies to shipping and gift wrap as well as the item price. The processing fee and the Offsite Ads fee also include shipping.
Does Etsy charge fees on sales tax?
The transaction fee excludes the sales tax Etsy collects. The payment processing fee does not; Etsy says processing fees are taken from the total sale price including any applicable sales tax.
What is the Etsy Offsite Ads fee?
It’s a fee on orders that come from an Etsy-placed ad on another site within 30 days of the click. It is 15% of the order total for shops under $10,000 in sales over the past 365 days and 12% for shops at or above that, capped at $100 per order.
Can I opt out of Etsy Offsite Ads?
Shops that made less than $10,000 on Etsy in the past 365 days can opt out in their Offsite Ads settings. Shops at or over $10,000 are required to stay in the program.
How do I calculate Etsy fees on an order?
Multiply item + shipping + gift wrap by 6.5%. Then multiply the full amount the buyer paid, including tax, by 3% and add $0.25. Add $0.20 for the listing, and add 12% or 15% of the order total if the sale came from an Offsite Ad.
Are Etsy fees different outside the US?
Yes. Processing rates vary by country, for example 4% + £0.20 in the UK. Sellers in several countries, including the UK, France, Spain and Canada, also pay a regulatory operating fee, and some sellers pay VAT on their Etsy fees.
Does Etsy refund fees when I refund an order?
Etsy credits back the transaction fee on the refunded amount. Other fees follow different rules, so check Etsy’s Help Center and your Payment account after any refund before assuming the full fee came back.
What is the cheapest way to lower Etsy fees per order?
Raise your average order value so the fixed $0.45 in processing and listing fees spreads further, and use Share & Save links when you promote your shop. Etsy refunds 4 percentage points of the 6.5% transaction fee on qualifying Share & Save sales, so you pay 2.5% instead.
Do I need a paid tool to calculate Etsy fees?
No. A spreadsheet with the formulas in this guide covers most shops. Paid tools like Craftybase help once you’re tracking material costs across dozens of products.
Does Etsy charge a fee for currency conversion?
Yes. Etsy’s Help Center says a 2.5% fee is assessed when currency conversion is required, which happens when your listing currency differs from your payment account currency.
Key Takeaways
- Each Etsy fee uses a different base, so calculate them separately, not as one blended rate.
- The 6.5% transaction fee covers item price, shipping and gift wrap, but not sales tax Etsy collects.
- The 3% + $0.25 processing fee includes sales tax in its base.
- Offsite Ads add 15% or 12% of the order total, capped at $100, on attributed orders.
- Fixed fees of $0.45 per order hit low-priced items hardest.
- Price every holiday product so it still makes money on an ad-attributed order.
- Reconcile your fee sheet against the Etsy Payment account once a month.
The Bottom Line
Pick your five best-selling holiday items tonight and run each through the sheet twice: once as a standard order, once as an Offsite Ads order. Any product that drops below your minimum profit on the ad version needs a price change, a bundle, or a higher shipping rate before Black Friday.
Then check the sheet against your Payment account in the first week of December, while there’s still time to adjust. Get Started on your discount planning with our guide to running sales without losing margin.
Disclaimer: This article is general information, not financial or tax advice. Etsy’s fees change, vary by country and may carry VAT or other taxes. Confirm current rates in Etsy’s Help Center and Fees & Payments Policy, and speak to an accountant about your own shop’s numbers.
Related Articles
- How to Set Up Etsy Sales and Coupons Without Losing Margin: the break-even math for discounts, built on the same fee sheet.
- How to Use Etsy Share and Save to Earn Back Fees in Q4: the one Etsy program that refunds part of your transaction fee.
- Pricing Strategy Heading Into Q4, Given This Year’s Cost Pressures: the wider pricing picture behind these numbers.
About This Research
Chloe Cruz writes Crafts Daily Wire and has spent four years writing about eCommerce.
This article is based on Etsy’s Help Center articles on selling fees and Etsy Payments processing fees, and Etsy’s Fees & Payments Policy, all checked in October 2026, with country-specific rates cross-checked against published third-party fee guides. The worked examples use illustrative numbers, not a specific shop’s data. Crafts Daily Wire is not affiliated with Etsy, Inc.
Content reviewed and updated: 2026-10-28
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