How Much Does It Cost To Start an Etsy Shop

How much does it cost to start an Etsy shop? Well, It depends.

Maybe you want to know how much it will cost to start a sticker shop on Etsy, or you are wondering about how much it will cost to start selling printables on Etsy. Possibly you have a handmade business already and would like to expand to selling online with Etsy.

For our purposes today, it doesn't matter what you are trying to sell on Etsy. We are going to run through the different types of fees that are charged to all Etsy sellers both when starting and while running an Etsy shop.

This post contains affiliate links to products that I want you to see. If you click on one of these links and make a purchase, I may be compensated. Thank you! Full policy Here.

The good news is, that starting an Etsy shop is entirely free! BUT, as soon as you list your first item you'll start being hit with fees.

This post will outline all of the fees and costs associated with starting an Etsy Shop and will discuss what you get for the amount of money you’ll end up paying them. Is paying Etsy to help you sell your crafts and art worth it? You can decide.

Should You Start an Etsy Shop?

Well, you may be wondering if you can be successful on Etsy. To that I say, You cannot be successful on Etsy if you never start the account in the first place!

Opening up an Etsy shop doesn’t cost anything, and it’s not difficult. The hard parts, like designing products and figuring out shipping costs can be sorted out later.

If you open an Etsy shop and it isn’t working out for you, there is no penalty for closing that shop or emptying it and keeping it on long-term Vacation mode.

Why Does Selling on Etsy Cost Money?

The monetary risk that you’ll take by opening an Etsy store is zero. And while technically, starting an account on Etsy is free, there are fees associated with many of the services that Etsy provides to its sellers. These are things you want to be aware of up front.

The fees that Etsy charges are part of the way that Etsy as a company makes money. They also need to pay to keep your shop running. This is important to understand, so think about this:

If you were going to open up your own business selling things online, you’d need to pay for the following things, at a minimum, just to get that online site open. (these numbers are estimates)

A Domain Name…. $12. That's on the high end, I pay about $9 a year for mine.
Web Hosting… I pay approximately $300 a year for shared hosting through Siteground and I'm happy with that since I host three websites on that. You can do it for a bit less if you need to. Honestly, if you're heading this direction, choose the Starter plan to start with. You can upgrade later.
Subscription to a sales platform… Your top options are WooCommerce (free when added to your website that you pay for) and Shopify which has a variety of configurations but starts at $29 per month.

So you’re looking at a few hundred dollars a year just to have access to a website and a shopping cart. Don’t forget about marketing, advertising, and customer service.

You might also need to hire a web designer, and someone to maintain your website if that’s not something you know how to do. Those folks are not cheap.

It costs money to sell on Etsy because Etsy is responsible for all of the above things, and you barely need to think about them.

Ok, But What Fees Does Etsy Charge?

Etsy does not charge any annual or monthly recurring fees, which is fantastic. Instead they charge money every time you list an item and everytime you sell an item.

Etsy Listing Fees: $0.20 cents for each listing. This is a pretty small fee. Twenty cents gets your listing up on the platform for 4 months. This fee will recur at the end of four months if your item doesn’t sell – unless you set the item to not auto-renew.

While $0.20 doesn’t seem like a lot, it can add up, particularly when your shop is new and you haven’t sold anything yet.

New sellers can get 40 free listings though! Just click here.

Etsy Transaction Fees: Whenever you make a sale through Etsy, you’ll be charged a 5% transaction fee. That is 5% of the listed price for the item and 5% of the amount you charged the customer for shipping.

Payment Processing Fees: These vary by country and are a set rate plus a percentage of the total item sale price. You can see the full breakdown of payment processing fees by country here. In the United States and Canda the fee is $0.25 plus 3%.

Ok, so let’s add that up. For each item you sell, you’ll first pay $0.20, and then later you’ll pay $0.25. The transaction fee is 5% and the processing fee is 3%.

$0.20

$0.25

3% of sale price

+5% of sale price

________________

=Total Etsy Fees per Sale

Other Etsy Fees

Multi-quantity fee

So you might not realize this, but if you have your listings set to auto renew, it will allow a customer to purchase more than one of them. So if a person buys 10 of something, you’ll also be hit with $2 in listing fees, as if that item renewed 10 times. It’s not an extra fee, but it can sometimes be unexpected and confusing to new sellers.

Shipping fees

You’ll pay Etsy for any shipping labels that they create for you. It is sometimes less expensive to pay Etsy for shipping than if you were to buy it elsewhere.

Advertising Fees

If you get a sale from Offsite Ads, you’ll be charged 15% on that sale. You can choose to not participate in offsite adds if you prefer.

Etsy Ads Fees are fees that you pay to etsy for them to promote your listing on the platform. You can choose to do this if you like and will know how much you’re paying ahead of time.

Currency Conversion Fees

If you have items for sale at a different currency than your payment bank account, there is a 2.5% fee for currency conversion.

Most of the information in this post comes from the official Etsy Seller Handbook and the Etsy help center. If you need more information, start there, or leave a message below and I will try to help!

Etsy Fees Seem Complicated?

They are and they aren’t I guess. While you can get very technical calculating Etsy fees, I like to think of them as a cost of doing business. There are Etsy fee calculators available that can help you to determine how much you’ll pay in fees for your items, and I suggest using one when you are setting your prices so you can be sure that you are making enough profit to make things worth it.

More to Learn About Starting an Etsy Shop:

Let's Hang Out!

There are lots of ways for you to stay in touch with Bingecrafter! Share our posts on Pinterest, Follow on Facebook, or come say Hi on Instagram.

Have questions? Leave a comment below and I will get back to you!

How Much Does It Cost To Start an Etsy Shop