This is not an attempt at Etsy bashing – there is plenty of that going on around the web already. I do really like the site, and have sold most of my pottery through them. Total Etsy fees may have changed since the time of writing.
I have just been looking into exactly the total fees I am paying on my sales. All this info is available on the Etsy site, though a little bit of digging is needed.
Doing a quick Google search for ‘what are Etsy fees’ will probably return a page like this . A quick scan may leave you thinking the total fees are a 20 cent listing fee, plus a 3.5% transaction fee, which is calculated excluding any shipping or tax you may charge.
This seems fair enough, but just below is a column for ‘direct checkout’ with no numbers, but a link saying ‘varies by country’. This page contains the processing fee – an additional fee to the transaction fee!
For the UK the processing fee is 4% plus 20 pence per order. Note that the 4% processing fee is calculated on the sale price including postage and tax!
Total Etsy fees calculation :
Pottery price £10
Postage price £3
Total sale price = 10 + 3 = £13
Listing fee = 20 cent = £ 0.17
Transaction fee = 10 /100 x 3.5 = £0.35
Processing fee = (13/100 x 4) + 0.20 = £0.72
Total fees for this sale = 0.17 + 0.35 + 0.72 = £1.24
In this example the total fee costs compared with cost of the pottery is (1.24/10) x 100 = 12.4%
This percent with change depending on the ticket price of items, due to the set listing fee and 20p processing fee, but no sales will manage a total fee of less than 7. 5% for the UK sellers.
It seems sellers in the US, Canada, Australia and New Zealand get the sweetest processing fees deal.
Like I said at the start this is not an attempt at Etsy bashing, I will still use the site – if they don’t delete my account after this post. I think I may look at other options to sell my pottery though, and try and compare all the fees. I will keep you posted!
I currently sell most of my pottery here on my own website. Please take a look at my range of handcrafted mugs.