Etsy Fees for Digital Products: What You Actually Pay Per Sale

Etsy doesn't make it easy to know what you keep

Ask ten Etsy sellers what percentage Etsy takes and you'll get ten different answers. That's because the fees are layered, and the total depends on your price, whether offsite ads are involved, and whether your listing renewed or was a first-time listing.

I'm going to give you the exact math. No vague percentages. Actual dollar amounts at common price points for digital products.

The three fees every sale gets hit with

Every single digital product sale on Etsy incurs these three fees. No exceptions.

1. Listing fee: $0.20 Charged when you first publish a listing and again every time that listing sells. If your product sells 100 times, that's $20 in listing fees for that one product. It also renews every 4 months if it hasn't sold, costing another $0.20.2. Transaction fee: 6.5% of the sale price This is Etsy's main revenue. Calculated on the item price (not including tax collected from the buyer).3. Payment processing fee: 3% + $0.25 This covers credit card processing through Etsy Payments. The $0.25 flat fee matters more on cheap products.

The math at every common price point

Here's what you actually keep after all three standard fees:

$5 product: - Listing fee: $0.20 - Transaction fee (6.5%): $0.33 - Processing fee (3% + $0.25): $0.40 - Total fees: $0.93 - You keep: $4.07 (81.4%)$10 product: - Listing fee: $0.20 - Transaction fee: $0.65 - Processing fee: $0.55 - Total fees: $1.40 - You keep: $8.60 (86.0%)$15 product: - Listing fee: $0.20 - Transaction fee: $0.98 - Processing fee: $0.70 - Total fees: $1.88 - You keep: $13.12 (87.5%)$20 product: - Listing fee: $0.20 - Transaction fee: $1.30 - Processing fee: $0.85 - Total fees: $2.35 - You keep: $17.65 (88.3%)$25 product: - Listing fee: $0.20 - Transaction fee: $1.63 - Processing fee: $1.00 - Total fees: $2.83 - You keep: $22.17 (88.7%)

Notice the pattern: the more you charge, the higher your take-home percentage. That $0.20 listing fee and $0.25 processing flat fee hit harder on a $5 product (9.0% of the price) than on a $25 product (1.8% of the price). This is one reason I always recommend pricing higher rather than lower.

Use our [Etsy fee calculator](/tools/etsy-fee-calculator) to run the math at any price point you're considering.

The fourth fee: offsite ads (15%)

If Etsy advertises your product through Google or social media ads and a buyer clicks that ad and purchases within 30 days, Etsy charges an additional 15% fee on that sale.

For shops making under $10,000/year: you can opt out. Do it. Unless you have data showing the ads bring genuinely new customers, the 15% destroys your margins on lower-priced products.

For shops making over $10,000/year: it's mandatory. You cannot opt out. This is the fee that upsets sellers the most, and honestly, it's hard to argue it's fair. We wrote a full analysis of [whether Etsy offsite ads are worth the fee](/blog/are-etsy-offsite-ads-worth-it).

Here's what the math looks like with offsite ads on a $20 product: - Standard fees: $2.35 - Offsite ads fee (15%): $3.00 - Total fees: $5.35 - You keep: $14.65 (73.3%)

That's a 15 percentage point drop in your take-home. On a $10 product, the offsite ads fee alone is $1.50, making your total fees $2.90 and your take-home just $7.10 (71.0%).

Fees that don't apply to digital products

Some fees you'll see mentioned online don't apply if you only sell digital downloads:

• Shipping fees and labels: Not applicable. Digital products have no shipping.
• Etsy Plus ($10/month): Optional subscription for shop customization. Not worth it for most digital sellers.
• Pattern ($15/month): Etsy's standalone website builder. Only relevant if you want your own URL outside of Etsy.
• Sales tax: Etsy collects and remits sales tax automatically in states that require it. This comes out of the buyer's payment, not your revenue. You don't pay it from your earnings.

How fees compound with volume

At low volume, fees feel manageable. At high volume, the dollar amounts add up fast.

If you sell 200 units per month at an average price of $18: - Gross revenue: $3,600 - Listing fees: $40 (200 x $0.20) - Transaction fees: $234 (6.5%) - Processing fees: $158 (3% + $0.25 x 200) - Total fees: $432 - Net revenue: $3,168 - Effective fee rate: 12.0%

If 15% of those sales come through offsite ads, add about $81 more in fees. Your effective rate climbs to 14.3%.

This is why tracking your actual net revenue (not just gross) matters so much. A $3,600 month sounds great until you realize $432-500 went to Etsy. We wrote about [how to track Etsy revenue properly](/blog/how-to-track-etsy-revenue-properly) if you want to set up a system for this.

Etsy fees compared to other platforms

Quick comparison for context:

• Etsy: 12-13% effective rate (or 25-27% on offsite ad sales)
• Gumroad: 10% flat
• Shopify: ~$39/month + 2.9% + $0.30 per sale (roughly 4-8% depending on volume)

Etsy's fees are the highest per-transaction, but Etsy gives you marketplace traffic that the others don't. You're paying for access to 96 million active buyers. Whether that tradeoff is worth it depends on your volume and whether you can drive your own traffic.

For a side-by-side fee comparison at your price point, our [platform comparison calculator](/tools/platform-comparison-calculator) runs the math across all three platforms.

For the deeper breakdown of each fee type with examples and edge cases, read our [full Etsy fees explained post](/blog/etsy-fees-explained-what-you-actually-keep). And if you're curious whether adding Gumroad as a second channel would save you money, we compared [Etsy vs Gumroad fees for printable sellers](/blog/etsy-vs-gumroad-for-printables-fee-comparison).

The fees aren't going away. Know exactly what you're paying, price accordingly, and make sure every sale is profitable after Etsy takes its cut.