"Sell on Etsy, keep 85%" is the number in every beginner guide. It is wrong, and the gap between 85% and what lands in your account is where most first-year sellers quietly stop making money.
The 85% counts two fees. It does not count the listing fee, the payment processing fee, the currency conversion fee, or Offsite Ads. On a $25 pair of earrings those four together take roughly a fifth of the order.
Here is the whole stack, layer by layer, with the rate and the source article for each.
Layer 1: listing fee - $0.20, charged whether or not it sells
Etsy charges a flat $0.20 USD per listing, charged whether or not the item sells.
A listing expires after 4 months. If it auto-renews - because it expired, or because it sold out and you did not restock - Etsy charges another $0.20.
Editing a live listing is free. Titles and tags can be rewritten all year at no cost; only new listings and renewals charge.
Source: 360035902374, 115014483627, 360000344908.
Where it bites. $0.20 on a $25 sale is 0.8%, which is noise. But a listing that never sells is a listing that cost you money and produced nothing. 200 listings where 60 never sell is $12 a year spent on listings nobody wanted. It is the cheapest problem to fix and the most common one.
Layer 2: transaction fee - 6.5% of the order total
6.5% of the total order amount in your designated listing currency.
The base includes the item price, the shipping you charge the buyer, and any gift wrap you charge. It does not include sales tax or VAT, which Etsy collects and remits separately.
Source: 115014483627, 360035902374.
The catch: the fee is on the order total, not on your cost. Price an item at $25 and charge $5 shipping, and the fee base is $30. "Free shipping" is not free to you - you just absorb the difference.
Layer 3: payment processing - on top, and country-specific
Charged on top of the 6.5% transaction fee. It is a percentage of (item price + shipping + any buyer-paid sales tax) plus a flat fee per order, and the rate depends on the country of your payment account.
- China account: 6.5% + $0.30 USD per order
- United States account: 3% + $0.25
- Australia, Canada, New Zealand: split into separate domestic and international tables
Etsy does not publish a single rate for every country.
Source: 115015628847, 115014483627.
This is the largest hidden layer for most sellers outside the US. A China account paying 6.5% + $0.30 on top of 6.5% means the marketplace take on a $30 order is $3.90 before anything else - 13%, before a single bead is paid for.
Layer 4: currency conversion - 2.5%, and avoidable
2.5% of the sale amount, charged when your listing currency differs from your payment account currency. It is subtracted before the money reaches you.
You can avoid it entirely: list in the same currency your payment account uses. Etsy only supports depositing USD into Payoneer, so a USD listing currency avoids the fee completely.
Source: 360000344668, 115014483627.
2.5% of every order, available to you for one setting changed once. It is the largest piece of avoidable fee on this list.
Layer 5: Offsite Ads - 15% or 12%, capped at $100
A percentage on orders that came from an ad outside Etsy.
- Under $10,000 revenue in the last 365 days: charged 15%, and you can opt out.
- At or above $10,000: charged 12%, participation mandatory.
- Capped at $100 per order.
- An order can be attributed to an Offsite Ad for 30 days after the click.
Etsy's own articles disagree on the base: one says the order total, the other says the amount before the advertising fee was applied. The Etsy fees FAQ uses the order total, the more conservative reading, and the calculator can switch between them.
Source: 360000338367, 115014483627.
Plan around the 30-day window. If you drive external traffic - Instagram, Pinterest, a newsletter - a buyer can click an ad today and buy 29 days later, and 15% comes off that order. Price your margin on the ad-attributed order, not the one you mentally file as "direct".
Layer 6: getting paid - the numbers Etsy does not publish
Etsy deposits your balance into Payoneer in USD, once a week on Monday. A withdrawal to your local bank typically takes 2-5 business days after you request it.
Payoneer then charges its own withdrawal fee and applies its own exchange rate spread. Etsy publishes neither number. Any site quoting one for you is making it up. Read your own Payoneer account and use your real rate.
Source: 16999319005207, 6742925359255.
One that is gone: handling and package fee
No longer charged - the option was removed. Etsy's article does not state the removal date clearly enough to quote one, so no date is given.
Source: 29186673172135.
If you are working from an old guide or a competitor's page, delete this fee from your model.
The worked example
A $25 order with $5 shipping, so the transaction fee base is $30.
| Layer | Rate | Amount |
|---|---|---|
| Transaction fee | 6.5% of $30 | $1.95 |
| Payment processing (China account) | 6.5% + $0.30 on $30 | $2.25 |
| Currency conversion | 2.5% (avoidable) | $0.75 |
| Listing fee, amortised over 10 sales | $0.20 / 10 | $0.02 |
| Offsite Ads | 15% of $30 | $4.50 |
| Total before materials | $9.47 | |
| You keep | $20.53 |
$20.53 of $25 is 82.1%, not 85%, and that is before the Payoneer withdrawal fee, exchange rate loss, returns, and advertising. Listing in USD keeps the $0.75 conversion fee and puts you at $21.28 - 85.1%.
Drop the Offsite Ads row, because most orders are not ad-attributed: $25.28, or 84.3%. List in USD as well: $26.03, or 84.3% + 2.7% back.
That last column is the point. One checkbox recovers 2.5% of every order you will ever take.
Five things to do with these numbers
Set your listing currency to USD. 2.5% on every order, free to fix.
Price against 82%, not 85%. If a product costs $8 in materials and 45 minutes of labour, the number you need is not $25 minus 15%. It is $25 minus 17.9% minus $8 minus your own hourly rate.
Check your Offsite Ads threshold. Under $10,000 rolling 365 days, you can opt out. Over it, you are in it - so price external traffic knowing the 12% comes off.
Look up your own country's processing rate. Do not assume the US number. China is 6.5% + $0.30; Australia, Canada and New Zealand split domestic from international.
Do not quote a Payoneer withdrawal fee you have not seen. It varies by account and method.
The fees FAQ breaks every layer out separately and links each one to the specific Etsy help-centre article it came from, which is worth more than any summary because the rates change and you will need to check them again.
The layer most guides forget
Fees are not the only cost of a sale. Returns are.
A returned order can mean you paid the listing fee, the transaction fee, the processing fee and the return shipping, and got the item back unsellable. On a handmade piece that is not a margin problem - it is a closed shop.
That is the real reason to fix listing quality rather than chase a cheaper fee. A listing that gets found converts, and a listing that converts has fewer returns, because the buyer knew the size before they bought.
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