Etsy Pricing Calculator

Most new Etsy sellers price the same way. They add up what the item cost to make, tack on a bit of profit, and list it. Then the first payout arrives and it’s smaller than expected, because Etsy took several fees out of every order before the money reached the bank.

This Etsy pricing calculator works the other way round. You tell it what the item costs you, what shipping costs, how much profit you want and whether ads are on. It gives you back the price to charge, with every fee listed underneath so you can see where each cent goes.

Use it for every new listing. A price you worked out once for a $12 bookmark won’t hold for a $45 print, because some Etsy fees are fixed amounts and some are percentages, and the mix changes as the price goes up.

The fees Etsy takes from each sale

A typical US sale carries three fees you can’t avoid, and a fourth if the order came through one of Etsy’s ads.

Fee	US rate	Applies to
Listing	$0.20	Each listing
Transaction	6.5%	Item + shipping
Processing	3% + $0.25	Order total
Offsite Ads	15% or 12%	Ad orders, max $100

The listing fee comes back every four months and each time an item sells. The 12% Offsite Ads rate is for shops with $10,000 or more in sales over the past year.

Shipping catches a lot of sellers out. The 6.5% transaction fee is charged on what the buyer pays for shipping too, so $5 of shipping costs you about 33 cents in fees even though none of it is profit.

Offsite Ads are the big one. Etsy places these ads on Google, Facebook, Pinterest and similar sites, and charges you only when one of them leads to a sale. Shops under $10,000 a year can switch them off in their settings.

Once a shop passes $10,000, Etsy keeps it enrolled at the lower 12% rate, and the seller can no longer opt out. On a sale that came through one of those ads, total fees can reach a quarter of the order.

Sellers outside the US pay different processing rates. In the UK it’s 4% + £0.20, for example, and shops in some countries also pay a regulatory operating fee.

If your listing currency differs from your bank currency, Etsy adds a 2.5% conversion fee as well. Check Etsy’s fees page for your country before you trust any number, including the ones in this calculator.

How to use the calculator

You fill in four things.

1. Cost of the item. Count everything that goes into one unit: materials, packaging, the label, the tissue paper. If you sell digital downloads, this can be zero.
2. Shipping cost. This is what you pay the carrier, and the calculator assumes you charge the buyer the same amount. If you offer free shipping, enter 0 here and add the postage to the item cost instead, so it gets built into the price.
3. Target profit. Enter it in dollars (“I want $10 on every sale”) or as a margin (“I want 40% of the item price to be profit”). Dollars work well for one-off pieces. A margin is easier when you’re pricing a whole range of sizes and want them to stay consistent.
4. Ads on or off. Switch this on if your shop is enrolled in Offsite Ads. The calculator then prices as if the sale came through an ad, at 15%, so you’re covered on the orders that cost you the most.

The result is the item price to enter in your listing, followed by a breakdown: listing fee, transaction fee, processing fee, ad fee if it applies, your costs and the profit left at the end. Every figure in the breakdown adds back up to what the buyer pays.

The math behind it is a single formula. With r as the combined percentage fees (9.5% with ads off, 24.5% with ads on), C as item cost, S as shipping and T as your target profit, the price is:

\text{Price} = \frac{T + C + 0.45 + r \cdot S}{1 - r}

The 0.45 is the two fixed fees together: the $0.20 listing fee and the $0.25 processing fee. For a margin target m, the bottom of the fraction becomes 1 − r − m and T drops out.

A worked example

Take a hand-stamped keychain. Materials and packaging come to $8, shipping is $5 and you want $10 profit from each one. A US shop, no currency conversion.

Line	Ads off	Ads on (15%)
Item price to charge	$20.91	$26.06
Shipping charged to buyer	$5.00	$5.00
Buyer pays	$25.91	$31.06
Listing fee	−$0.20	−$0.20
Transaction fee (6.5%)	−$1.68	−$2.02
Payment processing (3% + $0.25)	−$1.03	−$1.18
Offsite Ads fee	$0.00	−$4.66
Item cost	−$8.00	−$8.00
Shipping cost	−$5.00	−$5.00
Profit	$10.00	$10.00

With ads off, Etsy keeps $2.91 of the order. With ads on, it keeps $8.06, and the price has to rise by just over $5 to protect the same $10. If you priced at $20.91 and the order came through an Offsite Ad anyway, you’d keep about $6.10 instead of $10.

The same keychain with a 40% margin target and ads off comes out at $17.67, leaving $7.07 of profit, which is 40% of the item price.

You’ll probably round these to something like $20.95 or $26. The calculator gives you the floor, and anything above it is extra profit.

How to price on Etsy beyond the math

The calculator gives you the lowest price that hits your profit target. Whether you should charge more depends on things a formula can’t see.

Start by paying yourself. If a candle takes 40 minutes to pour and finish, put a value on that time and include it in the item cost or the profit target. Plenty of shops make a profit on paper and still earn less per hour than a part-time job.

Check similar listings for context before you settle on a number. A shop selling the same mug for $14 might be using cheaper blanks, or it might be losing money on every order without knowing it. Run your own numbers first, then decide if your price needs explaining in the photos and description.

Price with sales in mind. If you plan to run 20% off during holiday sales, your normal price needs enough room that the discounted one still clears your costs. Plug the discounted price back into the fees calculator to check.

Decide what to do about free shipping. Many sellers fold postage into the item price and list shipping as free. The fees don’t change much either way, because the 6.5% is charged on the total the buyer pays. What changes is how the price looks next to competitors.

Run your listings through the calculator again whenever postage or supplies go up. Do it once more if your shop crosses $10,000 in yearly sales, since that locks you into Offsite Ads.

Pricing calculator and fees calculator

The two tools do opposite jobs. This one starts from the profit you want and works out the price. The Etsy fees calculator starts from a price you already have and shows what Etsy takes and what you keep.

Use this one when you create a listing, and the fees calculator when you’re checking an existing price, a sale price or a competitor’s listing. Each page links to the other.

Common questions

How much does Etsy take per sale?

On a US order with no ads, about 9.5% of the order total plus 45 cents. On an order from an Offsite Ad, add 15% (or 12% for larger shops), up to $100.

Does the calculator include Etsy Ads?

It includes Offsite Ads, which are charged per sale. Etsy Ads, the ones shown inside Etsy search, run on a daily budget you set, so they aren’t a fixed fee per order. If you spend on them, divide your monthly ad spend by your monthly orders and add that amount to the item cost.

Are the results exact?

They’re close for a US shop selling in US dollars. Sales tax, other countries’ processing rates, regulatory fees and currency conversion can shift the numbers a little, so treat the result as a starting price and check your first few payouts against it.

Should I use a dollar profit or a margin?

Use dollars when you know what one sale needs to earn you. Use a margin when you sell the same design in several sizes and want the profit to grow with the price.