Etsy Fees Explained: What Independent Sellers Are Actually Paying

Most sellers who join Etsy have a rough idea of the fees. Very few understand the full picture until they sit down and work out exactly what they are paying on each sale. The number is usually higher than expected.

The Fee Breakdown

Etsy charges fees across several categories, and understanding each one separately is the only way to get an accurate picture.

Listing Fees

Every item listed on Etsy costs £0.16 (approximately, converted from USD). This fee is charged regardless of whether the item sells, and listings expire after four months, at which point you pay again to renew. If you have a large inventory with slow-moving items, listing fees accumulate.

Transaction Fees

This is the headline fee: 6.5% of the total sale price including any shipping charges you collect. This was raised from 5% in 2022 and before that from 3.5%. The direction of travel is clear.

Payment Processing Fees

If you use Etsy Payments, which is mandatory in the UK, you pay an additional 4% plus £0.20 per transaction. This is not optional. Every sale processed through Etsy in the UK incurs this fee.

Offsite Ads

If your shop has made over approximately £7,800 in the past 365 days, Etsy can enrol you in Offsite Ads and the fee becomes mandatory at 12% of the sale price for any sale that came through an offsite ad. Below that threshold it is optional at 15%.

The Real Number

Add it all up on a typical sale and here is what you are actually paying.

On a £60 item with £4.50 shipping collected:

Transaction fee at 6.5% of £64.50 total: £4.19
Payment processing at 4% plus £0.20: £2.78
Listing fee (amortised): approximately £0.04
If sold via offsite ad at 15%: £9.68 additional

Without offsite ads you are paying around £7 on a £60 sale, roughly 11.7%. With offsite ads you are paying nearly £17, roughly 28%.

The seller who joined Etsy at 3.5% transaction fees is now operating on a fundamentally different platform economically.

What This Means for Margins

For independent fashion brands, margins are already under pressure from production costs, materials, and packaging. Paying 12 to 28% to a platform before any of those costs means the economics only work if you are either pricing high enough to absorb it or operating at a volume that makes the discovery value worth the cost.

For many independent UK fashion brands at accessible price points, Etsy's fee structure no longer makes commercial sense.

The Alternative Calculation

Dripscan's commission structure starts at 12% for free tier sellers and reduces to 8% for Growth and 4% for Pro. There are no listing fees, no mandatory ad programmes, and no payment processing fees charged separately. The comparison is not abstract: on a £60 sale, the difference between Etsy with offsite ads and Dripscan Pro is over £10 per transaction.

For a brand doing 50 sales a month, that difference is over £500 a month, or £6,000 a year.