Etsy vs Shopify Fees: How Much Is Etsy Really Costing Your Business?

The fee conversation every Etsy seller eventually has

You love what you make. You've put real care into your products, your photography, your packaging. But every time a sale comes in, a slice quietly disappears before it ever reaches you.

Etsy's fees are easy to overlook when you're starting out – a few pence here, a small percentage there. But once you start selling consistently, those small amounts add up to something that's genuinely worth sitting down and calculating.

In this post, we've done that maths for you. We'll walk through every fee on both platforms with current UK figures, and then run three real-world seller scenarios to show exactly what the difference looks like in pounds.

Etsy's fees in 2026: the full picture

Etsy uses what's called a layered fee structure. That means there's no single percentage – instead, several charges stack on top of each other with every sale you make.

1. Listing fee: £0.16 per item

Every time you list a product, Etsy charges £0.16. Listings stay active for four months, or until the item sells. When a multi-quantity item sells, the listing auto-renews and you're charged again. So if you sell five of the same candle in a week, that's £0.80 in listing fees alone for that one product.

2. Transaction fee: 6.5% of the total sale

This is Etsy's main commission, and it's applied to the entire amount your customer pays – including the price of the item, shipping, and gift wrapping. Etsy raised this from 5% to 6.5% in April 2022. On a £40 item with £4.50 postage, that's £2.90 straight off the top.

3. Payment processing fee: 4% + £0.20 per transaction

UK sellers using Etsy Payments (which is mandatory for most UK shops) are charged 4% of the order value plus a flat 20p per transaction. This is on top of the transaction fee above.

4. Regulatory operating fee: 0.32% of the total sale

A smaller charge Etsy introduced for UK sellers to comply with local financial regulations. It's easy to miss, but it's there on every transaction.

5. Offsite Ads fee: 12–15% (potentially mandatory)

If Etsy advertises your products on Google, Facebook, or other external platforms and a sale results from that ad, they charge an additional 12–15% on top of everything else. If your shop earns over £10,000 a year, you cannot opt out of this programme. That means a single sale through an Offsite Ad could cost you close to 30% of its value in combined fees.

On a £45 sale (including £5 postage) with an Offsite Ad, an Etsy seller could be paying £10–£13 in fees – that's over 25% of the total sale price.

Shopify's fees in 2026: what you actually pay

Shopify works differently. Rather than taking a cut of every sale through a marketplace commission, you pay a flat monthly subscription and a payment processing fee per transaction. That's largely it.

Monthly plan cost: £25/month (Basic)

Shopify's Basic plan costs £25 per month (excluding VAT). This covers your entire store – unlimited products, secure checkout, hosting, a free SSL certificate, and access to Shopify's full sales and analytics dashboard. Annual billing brings this down to around £19/month.

Payment processing: 2% + £0.25 per transaction (Basic, using Shopify Payments)

If you use Shopify Payments – Shopify's built-in payment system – you pay 2% of the transaction value plus a flat 25p. There are no extra transaction fees on top of this. No listing fees. No commission. No Offsite Ads.

As your revenue grows and you upgrade plans, that rate drops further: 1.7% + 25p on the Grow plan, and 1.5% + 25p on Advanced.

Domain name: approx. £10–£15/year

You'll need to register a domain name for your website. This is a one-off annual cost of roughly £10–£15, depending on the extension you choose (e.g. .co.uk or .com).

On that same £45 sale, a Shopify seller on the Basic plan pays roughly £1.15 in payment processing fees – compared to £10–£13 on Etsy. The platform subscription is a fixed cost, not a per-sale tax.

Side-by-side fee comparison

Here's how the two platforms stack up on their core charges:

Note: Etsy wins on one metric – there's no monthly subscription. But as the scenarios below show, that saving is quickly wiped out by per-sale fees once you're selling consistently.

Real-world scenarios: the numbers that matter

Percentage comparisons only go so far. Let's look at what these fees actually mean for three different types of seller over the course of a year.

Assumptions: All scenarios use Shopify Basic (£25/month) with Shopify Payments, and standard Etsy fees (no Offsite Ads triggered, to keep the comparison conservative). Prices include a typical postage charge.

Scenario 1: The part-time maker – £800/month revenue

Sarah makes handmade jewellery and sells around 20 items a month at an average of £40 each, including postage. She's been on Etsy for two years and wonders if a website makes financial sense yet.

Sarah saves around £573 a year by switching to Shopify – money she could put straight back into materials, marketing, or simply taking home more from the work she's already doing.

At £800/month revenue, Shopify pays for itself within the first month. Every month after that is pure saving.

Scenario 2: The growing independent seller – £2,500/month revenue

James runs a small candle business and is turning over around £2,500 a month – roughly 60 orders at an average of £42 each. He's started to notice his Etsy views fluctuating, and he's considering making the move.

James saves over £2,400 a year. That's a holiday. A new piece of equipment. Six months of materials. Or simply a business that's significantly more profitable doing exactly what it already does.

Scenario 3: The established seller with Offsite Ads – £5,000/month revenue

Emma runs a successful print and stationery shop. At over £10,000 a year in Etsy revenue, she can no longer opt out of Offsite Ads. Around a third of her sales come through those ads, triggering the 15% fee.

Emma saves over £8,000 a year. At that level, the question isn't really whether she can afford to move to her own website – it's whether she can afford not to.

At £5,000/month revenue, Emma is effectively paying Etsy the equivalent of a part-time member of staff. Every year.

What the switch actually involves

The fee savings are compelling, but we know that 'just move to Shopify' sounds simpler than it feels. Here are the real things to think about.

You need to bring your own traffic

This is the honest trade-off. Etsy comes with a built-in audience. On your own website, you're responsible for getting people there – through SEO, social media, email marketing, or paid ads. It takes time to build, but it's also something you own, rather than borrowing from Etsy's platform.

You can keep both going at once

Most sellers don't switch overnight. A common approach is to launch a Shopify store alongside your Etsy shop, use Etsy to reach new customers, and gradually move your repeat buyers – who already know and trust you – to your own site.

The setup investment pays back quickly

A properly built Shopify store costs money upfront. But as the scenarios above show, for anyone doing consistent sales, that investment is typically recovered within a few months through lower ongoing fees.

At Cobblestone Digital, we build custom Shopify stores for small businesses and independent sellers at a fixed price of £800. Based on Scenario 1 above, that upfront cost pays for itself in under 17 months – and in Scenario 2, in under 4 months. After that, every month is pure saving.

Frequently asked questions

Is Shopify definitely cheaper than Etsy?

For anyone selling consistently, yes – typically by a significant margin. The only scenario where Etsy works out cheaper is if you're making very occasional sales, where Shopify's £25/month subscription outweighs what you'd pay in Etsy fees. But for any seller doing more than around 4–5 sales a month, Shopify starts to win.

Do I still pay Etsy fees if I keep my shop open?

Yes. If you continue selling on Etsy alongside your website, you'll still pay all Etsy's fees on those sales. The financial benefit comes from shifting your loyal customers – who'd find you through your website or email list – to your own site, where you keep far more of each sale.

What happens to my Etsy reviews if I move?

Your Etsy reviews stay on Etsy. They're not transferable. However, you can encourage existing customers to leave reviews on Google, which builds credibility for your website independently.

Can I import my Etsy products to Shopify?

Yes. Shopify has tools that allow you to import your existing product listings, which makes the transition considerably less time-consuming than starting from scratch.

How long does it take to build a Shopify website?

At Cobblestone Digital, most projects complete within two to three weeks. We handle everything from design and branding to product setup and SEO, so you're not doing it alone.

Is Shopify Payments available in the UK?

Yes – Shopify Payments is fully available to UK sellers and is the most cost-effective way to take payments on Shopify, as it avoids the additional third-party transaction fees that apply if you use an external payment gateway.

The bottom line

Etsy is an extraordinary platform for getting started. But the fee structure is designed to serve a marketplace, not to maximise your income. The more you sell, the more you pay – and unlike Shopify's fixed monthly cost, Etsy's fees scale upward with every sale, with no ceiling.

For a part-time maker, the savings from switching could mean hundreds of pounds a year. For a growing business, it could mean thousands. What those numbers look like for you depends on your revenue – but there's a good chance they're larger than you'd expect.

If you're curious about whether the time is right to launch your own site – or just want to understand what it involves – we're always happy to have an honest, no-pressure conversation.

Speak to the Cobblestone Digital team to find out more about our fixed-price Shopify websites for small businesses and independent sellers.