The Cost To Open And Run An Etsy Shop

Cot to run an Etsy shop

This post may contain affiliate links. This means if you click a link and purchase an item that I recommend, I will receive an affiliate commission at no extra cost to you. All opinions are my own.

If you make things with your Cricut machine and want to start selling them, one of the places where you may have considered selling your Cricut projects is on Etsy. I have two Etsy shops – one where I sell digital products and one where I sell physical products. While Etsy has it’s pros and cons which ultimately led to me choosing to sell my products on a different ecommerce website, I still use Etsy to sell some items.


Etsy is a great platform that allows individuals to start and scale their business. I wholeheartedly believe that entrepreneurs that have handmade products to sell should test out Etsy first to get the hang of what running an online business is like. 

One question that gets asked a lot is how much does it cost to run an Etsy shop. In this post, I will outline the fees associated with running an Etsy shop. Many of the costs in this blog post are about Etsy itself, but depending on the products you sell, you will have to pay for inventory, shipping supplies, etc.

Cost of your supplies to run an Etsy shop

If you plan to sell digital products on Etsy, your cost will be cheaper than if you sell physical products. Some of the costs associated with selling Etsy digital products include: software such as Canva, Adobe Creative Cloud, Microsoft Office or whatever software you use to create your digital products.

If you plan to sell physical products on Etsy, you have to consider your cost to buy your supplies to run your Etsy shop. Let’s say that you sell custom personalized shirts on Etsy. You will need to buy the following items to make your shirts, 

  • Cricut machine
  • Shirts in various sizes
  • Heat transfer vinyl or paint
  • Heat press or Cricut EasyPress
  • Cricut EasyPress mat or towel
  • Teflon sheet
  • Printer and ink – if you want to do print then cut shirts

To read more about the cost of running your Cricut business, check out this post, The Startup Costs of Different Cricut Businesses.

Now let’s jump into the actual cost to run an Etsy shop by looking at the fees that Etsy charges.

Etsy Listing Fees

How much to run Etsy shop

Listing fees on Etsy are what you are charged to sell your products on their platform. For each item that you list on Etsy, you will be charged $0.20. Sticking with the shirt business, let’s say you’re going to sell a “Faith over Fear” shirt in multiple sizes. On Etsy, you can put in a quantity of shirts that you want to sell. So let’s say the quantity you use will be 100. So for the initial listing of all shirts, that will cost $0.20 and each time a shirt is sold, you will pay another $0.20 because you have shirts left.  

You will only be charged a listing fee if you create a new listing or if you renew a listing. To renew a listing, let’s say you’re just starting your Etsy shop and you have a product that doesn’t sell well, remember your listing lasts for 4 months and once that listing expires you will have to renew that listing if you choose to and that will cost $0.20. So even if your product doesn’t sell and your listing expires, you will still have to pay the listing fee. So here’s an example:

  • You list 100 Faith over Fear shirts = Listing fee $0.20
  • You sell 1 shirt = Listing fee $0.20
  • You sell another shirt = Listing fee $0.20

You will keep paying $0.20 until your listings get to a quantity of 0. Then you can reset the quantity of your listings and you will be charged $0.20 and the process will start over. 

Etsy Transaction Fees

When you make a sale on Etsy, you will be charged a 5% transaction fee for the price of your item and 5% transaction fee for the cost of shipping. 

Etsy Advertising and Promotional Fees

Cost to run an Etsy shop

One great feature of Etsy is that it allows you to use ads to promote your products to get more sales or you can promote your entire shop. With Etsy like other e-commerce platforms, you can set your daily maximum budget. This is helpful because if you’re starting out with ads, you can start out testing a low amount per day and choose to increase your budget if you want. Etsy will suggest a daily budget for you, but you don’t have to use their suggestion. Once your budget is set, Etsy will not charge you more than the budget set.

Etsy also offers offsite ads that allow them to work with offsite advertising partners such as Google, Instagram, Facebook, Pinterest, and Bing to promote your product. To turn off Etsy offsite ads, go to your settings, click Offsite Ads, and then click “Stop promoting my products”. However, if your product does get included in Etsy offsite ads and a customer clicks on your product link and purchases your product within 30 days of clicking on your product link, you will be charged an advertising fee on that product. The Etsy offsite fee will be 15% if your Etsy shop has made less than $10,000 in sales in the last 365 days. If your Etsy shop has made  more than $10,000 in sales in the last 365 days your Etsy offsite ad fee will be 12%. 

Etsy Subscription Fees

Etsy offers an Etsy Plus subscription that costs $10 per month. The biggest advantage of the Etsy Plus subscription is that you can customize your shop in ways that you can’t do on the free/standard plan. With the Etsy Plus subscription, you can also get a custom web address so instead of your web address being www.etsy.com/shop/myshopname it would www.myshopname Etsy will charge you sales tax on your monthly Etsy Plus subscription. You will have to pay your subscription fees on the same day each month and you can cancel your Etsy Plus subscription whenever you want.

For my 2 Etsy accounts, I use the free/standard plan.

Did you know that you can sell your items that are listed on Etsy in person? Let’s say that you have items listed on Etsy and you attend a craft fair and take the physical items to the craft fair with you. Using Square, you can check people out right at the craft fair. The process for listing fees will be the same. If you sell an item, you will be charged the $0.20 listing fee. You will not have to pay Etsy’s 5% transaction fee, but you will have to pay the Square fee. To read more on Square’s fees, click here.

If you’re not sure what Square is, it’s basically a square card reader that you stick in your phone or laptop to swipe customer’s cards for payment. 

Etsy Payment Processing Fees

Cost to run an Etsy shop

When customers checkout on Etsy, they do it through Etsy Payments which means the customer can either use their credit or debit card including MasterCard, Visa, American Express or Discover or they can also use PayPal, ApplePay, or Google Pay. When a customer checks out, Etsy will charge you a payment processing fee. This fee is based on the location of your bank and is also based upon the total sale amount including shipping and taxes. 

I recommend that you sign up for Etsy Payments because this lets you keep track of all of your expenses and income in one place. 

Etsy Shipping Fees

Etsy charges shipping fees on items that need to be shipped and also allows you to print your shipping labels right from the platform. The cost of your shipping label will be dependent on what company you choose to ship your item with (USPS, FedEx, UPS, etc.), the weight of the package, the dimensions of the package and the destination the package is going to. For an extra fee in Etsy, you can also add additional insurance to a package and require signatures. 

One of the good things I like about Etsy is that you can set your own shipping costs although if an order costs more than $35 you’re recommended to offer free shipping. 

For tips on what you need to package your items, check out this blog post

Etsy Pattern Fees

Pattern is an Etsy platform that lets you build your own standalone website. This means that you will have a custom website address and can have additional ability to customize the look of your website. 

You can test out Pattern for 30 days for free and then the monthly cost is $15 per month. If you get started with Pattern and don’t like it, you can cancel your subscription whenever you want. 

The one drawback of Pattern, just like any other e-commerce platform that you build your store on, is that you have to send traffic or customers to your website through ads on social media or search engines, word of mouth, etc. 

Overall, I recommend all Cricut crafters who want to venture into selling their crafts online to take a shot at Etsy. The overall cost to run an Etsy shop can be cheap and the profits can be great if you price your products decently. Don’t be intimidated by selling on Etsy. It may take a while for your products to start gaining traction on Etsy, months even close to a year, but spend time getting to learn Etsy and to learn how to get your products in front of customers. Remember, there are millions of sellers on Etsy and there may be thousands of people selling the same items as you. So figure out how to make your items stand out and don’t be afraid to experiment with Etsy ads and social media.

To read more on the cost to run an Etsy shop, check out this detailed article

I hope this blog post was helpful in outlining how much it costs to run an Etsy shop. Obviously some of your expenses may be different due to what you are selling in your Etsy shop, so I encourage you to do some additional research to help you figure out your exact costs to run your Etsy shop.

Blog The cost to start and run an Etsy shop - Easy, hard profitable

2 thoughts on “The Cost To Open And Run An Etsy Shop

  1. I was lucky to find your blog. It’s really useful with all information I need. Thank you so much.

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