"How much does Etsy take?" sounds like it should have one answer. People will give you one — 10%, 15%, "about a fifth." Every one of those answers is a half-truth, and this guide shows you why, with the real numbers.
The honest answer is: it depends on the price, on whether you charge for shipping, on your country, and on whether an ad brought the buyer. Here is the part that does not change, worked out properly.
The baseline: US, free shipping, no ads
Start with the simplest case. You are in the US. You charge no separate shipping — the price is the whole amount. No ad brought the buyer. The fees are the transaction fee (6.5%), payment processing (3% + $0.25), and the listing fee ($0.20). The US regulatory fee is 0%.
| Item price | Transaction fee | Processing | Listing | Total Etsy takes | As a share |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| $20 | $1.30 | $0.85 | $0.20 | $2.35 | 11.75% |
| $50 | $3.25 | $1.75 | $0.20 | $5.20 | 10.4% |
| $100 | $6.50 | $3.25 | $0.20 | $9.95 | 9.95% |
Look at the last column. The share Etsy takes falls as the price rises: 11.75% at $20, 10.4% at $50, 9.95% at $100.
Why the percentage falls as the price rises
Some fees are percentages. Percentages grow and shrink with the price, so they always take the same share.
But two pieces are fixed: the 25-cent fixed part of payment processing, and the 20-cent listing fee. Together that is 45 cents, the same on every order. On a $20 item, 45 cents is a big slice — over 2% of the price all by itself. On a $100 item, the same 45 cents is less than half of 1%.
That is the whole story. Cheap items are, in fee terms, the most expensive things to sell on Etsy. Expensive items carry the lightest load. If you sell small, low-priced items, your true fee percentage is worse than the headline numbers suggest, and your prices have to know it.
What changes the percentage
Shipping you charge. The table above assumes no separate shipping. If you charge shipping, the fees are charged on a bigger total. Say you sell a $30 item and charge $5 shipping. Etsy takes $3.78 of the $35 the buyer paid — the transaction fee is $2.28, processing is $1.30, and the listing fee is $0.20. The percentage of the item price alone would look worse than it is; the fair way is to measure fees against everything the buyer paid.
Offsite Ads. This is the big one. If the buyer clicked an Offsite Ad in the 30 days before buying, add 15% of the order total if your shop took under $10,000 in the last 365 days, or 12% if it took $10,000 or more, capped at $100 per order. That single fee can more than double what Etsy takes on that sale. A shop-wide average hides this completely: a few ad sales at a heavy percentage sit mixed in with ordinary sales at a lighter one.
Your country. Payment processing is higher in the UK (4% + £0.20) than in the US. Many countries add a regulatory operating fee on top — since 22 June 2026, for example, 0.48% in the UK and 1.14% in France, while the US rate is 0%. And if you are not VAT-registered in the UK or EU, you also pay VAT on Etsy's fees themselves. Say you are a UK seller who is not VAT-registered, selling a £40 item with £4 shipping: the fees and the VAT on them come to £5.88 in all.
Currency conversion. If your listing currency is different from the currency you are paid in, add a 2.5% conversion fee on the money converted.
And fees are not the whole cost
Everything above is only what Etsy takes. It says nothing about what the item cost you to make. On that $30 sale where Etsy took $3.78, say the materials cost $2.50. The maker kept $28.72 of the $35 the buyer paid. A shop can have a perfectly normal fee percentage and still keep very little, because its materials are costly or its prices are low. Fees are one slice of the kept number, not the kept number itself.
So what is the right answer?
For a US seller with no ad sale and no separate shipping: around 10% to 12%, less on expensive items, more on cheap ones. Add shipping charges, an ad sale, or a higher-fee country, and the true figure for that sale climbs — an ad sale can push it past 25% of what the buyer paid.
Anyone who gives you one flat percentage for every sale is rounding away the exact details that decide whether you make money. Work out the fees on your own prices, your own shipping, and your own country. That number is the only one that spends like real money.
If you want that worked out on a price you have in mind, the free pricing calculator on mykeptmoney.com shows the fees and what you would keep, for an ordinary sale and for an ad sale.