See exactly what you net from each Etsy sale once offsite ad fees, transaction fees, and processing fees all stack together. Find out your minimum profitable price before you list.
Not sure what your COGS actually is? Craftybase calculates your true cost per item automatically — so you know if your margins can survive offsite ad fees.
Try free for 14 daysEtsy charges either 12% or 15% of the total order amount (item price + shipping charged to buyer) as an offsite ad fee. This stacks on top of the 6.5% transaction fee, 3% + $0.25 payment processing fee, and $0.20 listing fee. Sellers under $10K annual revenue can opt out; those over $10K are enrolled permanently at 12%.
Your Net After All Etsy Fees
$14.43
from a $25.00 order
Minimum Item Price to Break Even
$0.46
The lowest item price at which you net $0 or more, given your current shipping and ad enrollment inputs.
There's a specific kind of frustration that hits Etsy sellers when they look at a payout and think: "Wait, where did my money go?"
Here's what's happening. Etsy calculates offsite ad fees on the full order total — item price plus the shipping you charged the buyer. Not just the item price. This means a $8 item with $20 buyer shipping generates a $28 order total, and 15% of that is $4.20 in ad fees alone. Add in transaction fees, payment processing, and your listing fee, and the Etsy fees on that order total over $7. Then you pay the carrier $15 to actually ship it. The seller who thought they were making something on an $8 item made nothing.
This isn't a gotcha buried in fine print. It's just how the fee structure works — and most sellers don't feel it until they're staring at a payout that's less than expected.
Let's run the numbers on the exact scenario that trips people up most often. An $8 handmade item, $20 shipping charged to buyer (heavy item, needs a box), $15 actual carrier cost, seller enrolled in the Offsite Ads programme at the 15% rate:
| Item price | $8.00 |
| Shipping charged to buyer | $20.00 |
| Order total (fee base) | $28.00 |
| Transaction fee (6.5%) | −$1.82 |
| Payment processing (3% + $0.25) | −$1.09 |
| Listing fee | −$0.20 |
| Offsite ad fee (15%) | −$4.20 |
| After Etsy fees | $20.69 |
| Actual carrier cost | −$15.00 |
| Your net | $5.69 |
Before COGS (materials, packaging). If your item costs $4 in materials and you spend 30 minutes making it, you're likely losing money.
The seller netted $5.69 before touching their own costs. On an $8 item. This is the math most sellers don't run until they've done it the hard way a few times.
The real question is whether your margins can support these fees. That means knowing your actual COGS — not guessing. Craftybase automatically calculates your cost per item from your material purchases and recipes, and keeps it updated as your material costs change.
Try Craftybase free for 14 days →Enter what you charge for the item and what the buyer pays for shipping. Both figures feed into Etsy's fee calculation base. If you offer free shipping and absorb it into the item price, enter $0 for shipping and make sure your item price reflects the true total.
This is what you actually pay the carrier — USPS, UPS, FedEx, or similar. It's not included in Etsy's fee base, but it comes out of your pocket, so it directly affects your net. If you buy postage through Etsy's shipping labels, use that amount here.
New sellers start at 15% until they've hit $10,000 in Etsy sales attributed to offsite ads. Sellers over $10,000 in total annual Etsy revenue are permanently enrolled at 12%. Sellers under $10,000 can opt out in Shop Manager under Marketing > Offsite Ads > Edit Settings. The fee only applies when a sale comes through an offsite ad — not every sale.
If you enter your cost of goods sold — materials, packaging supplies, anything that goes directly into making or shipping the item — the calculator adds a profit row showing what you actually keep. This is where most makers discover their real margin for the first time.
The calculator solves for the minimum item price that gives you a net of $0, given your specific shipping and ad enrollment inputs. Here's the math:
Net = (item + shipping_charged) − fees − actual_shipping
fees = (T + P + R) × (item + shipping_charged) + $0.25 + $0.20
Where T = 6.5%, P = 3%, R = offsite ad rate (0%, 12%, or 15%)
Set net = 0, solve for item price:
item = ($0.25 + $0.20 + actual_shipping − shipping_charged × (1 − T − P − R)) ÷ (1 − T − P − R)
At 15% offsite ads with $0 shipping, your combined fee rate is 24.5% (6.5% + 3% + 15%). That means for every dollar in item price, you keep $0.755 after percentage fees, then pay the flat $0.45. This is why cheap items net so little — the flat processing and listing fees are a significant fraction of a small sale.
There are three options depending on your revenue level.
Under $10K annual Etsy revenue: opt out. Go to Shop Manager > Marketing > Offsite Ads and turn it off. You won't have to pay the fee on any sale, regardless of where the buyer came from. The tradeoff is you won't appear in Etsy's offsite advertising on Google, Facebook, Bing, and similar platforms.
Over $10K annual revenue: you can't opt out. Etsy's policy is that once you pass $10,000 in a rolling 12-month period, you're permanently enrolled. The rate drops from 15% to 12% at this point, but there's no exit. Your options are to reprice to account for the fee, focus on products with higher margins, or invest in diversifying off Etsy.
Regardless of enrollment status: know your true costs. The offsite ads fee is visible and predictable. The bigger risk for most makers is not knowing whether their item price covered their COGS in the first place. If your margin is thin before fees, no fee structure works in your favour.
For a deeper look at Etsy's full fee structure beyond offsite ads, the Etsy fee calculator covers all fees by country including payment processing rates that vary internationally. The Etsy pricing calculator works in the other direction — enter your desired profit margin and it tells you what to list at.
The most common misunderstanding. Etsy's fee is on the full order total including shipping charged to the buyer. A $5 item with $18 shipping is a $23 order — and 15% of $23 is $3.45, not $0.75. If you set prices based on the item price only, you're leaving the shipping portion of the fee unaccounted for.
When you cross $10,000 in annual Etsy revenue, your offsite ad rate drops from 15% to 12% — but you also can no longer opt out. Some sellers don't notice this transition happened, or don't revisit their pricing to confirm margins still hold at forced enrollment.
Rolling your shipping cost into the item price is a valid strategy for improving conversion. But it doesn't change the fee math — Etsy still charges percentage fees on whatever dollar amount the buyer pays. If you previously had a $10 item with $8 shipping, repricing to a $18 item with free shipping produces the same $18 order total and the same fee base. The appearance of free shipping helps conversion; it doesn't reduce fees.
Offsite ad fees are a symptom, not the disease. The underlying problem is not knowing what your item actually costs to make. If you don't have a clear COGS figure per item, you can't know whether your current price covers fees, materials, and your time — on any channel, ad or otherwise.
This calculator shows you the fee math for a single sale. If you're regularly selling on Etsy and want to understand your profitability across your full range of products, you need a way to track what each item actually costs you to make — and keep that cost updated as your materials prices change.
That's what Craftybase does. It tracks your material purchases, calculates cost per recipe automatically, and shows you real profit per product as you fulfil orders. So instead of running a calculator on each item, you have a live view of which products make money and which don't — including after Etsy fees.
See how Craftybase works for Etsy sellers →This tool is for any Etsy seller who wants to understand the real impact of fees before pricing a listing. Specifically: