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Etsy vs Your Own Website: What Each Sale Really Costs You

In October 2026, a UK Etsy seller pays about £4.74 in standard fees on a £40 order (roughly 12%), or about £5.69 with VAT on those fees, and more if the sale came from an Etsy off-site advert. A Shopify Basic site charges about £1.05 in card fees, plus about £19 a month for the plan (billed annually, excluding VAT).

Your own site costs less per order, but you find the buyers yourself. We sell on both, and we started on Etsy. This post sets out the real fee stack on each, what you do and don't own on Etsy, and how to build customers of your own without breaking Etsy's rules. Fees change, so the figures below are dated: check Etsy's and Shopify's own pages before you rely on them.

What Etsy charges a UK seller (October 2026)

These are the fees for a UK seller with a UK bank account, from Etsy's Fees & Payments Policy (updated 5 October 2026), its Payments Policy and its Help Centre:

  • Listing fee: US$0.20 per listing (about £0.15), renewed every four months or each time the item sells.
  • Transaction fee: 6.5% of the item price plus postage and gift wrap.
  • Payment processing: 4% + £0.20 per order, on the full order including postage.
  • Regulatory Operating Fee: 0.48% for UK sellers since 22 June 2026 (it was 0.32%).
  • VAT on Etsy's fees: if you're not VAT-registered, Etsy adds VAT (20%) to its fees. It stops when you give Etsy a VAT ID.
  • Offsite Ads: charged only on orders that come within 30 days of a click on one of Etsy's off-site adverts: 15% of the order, capped at US$100. Shops that have never reached US$10,000 in sales in a 12-month period can opt out. Once a shop reaches US$10,000, the rate drops to 12% and taking part becomes compulsory for the life of the shop.
  • Currency conversion: 2.5% if you list in a different currency from your bank account.
  • Set-up fee: a one-time fee when you open a shop, shown at sign-up.

Etsy's fees do buy you something: traffic. Buyers are already on Etsy looking for personalised gifts, which is why we started there and why it's still one of our channels.

What your own website costs (October 2026)

Your own site isn't fee-free. On Shopify, which we use, UK sources put the costs in October 2026 at:

  • Basic plan: about £19 a month billed annually, or about £25 billed monthly, excluding VAT.
  • Shopify Payments: 2% + 25p per UK online card payment on the Basic plan.
  • Other payment providers: using a third-party gateway instead of Shopify Payments adds a further 2% on Basic.

We couldn't load Shopify's UK pricing page when we checked, so these figures come from UK sources that agree with each other and with Shopify's US pricing structure. Check shopify.com/uk/pricing for the current rates. Apps, a domain and any advertising come on top, and they vary from shop to shop.

A £40 order, worked through

This is a hypothetical example: a single £40 order (item plus postage) from a UK buyer, paid into a UK bank account, using the October 2026 rates above.

Fee Working Cost
Etsy listing fee US$0.20 about £0.15
Etsy transaction fee 6.5% × £40 £2.60
Etsy payment processing 4% × £40 + £0.20 £1.80
Etsy Regulatory Operating Fee 0.48% × £40 about £0.19
Etsy total £0.15 + £2.60 + £1.80 + £0.19 about £4.74 (about 12%)
Etsy total with VAT on fees (not VAT-registered) £4.74 × 1.2 about £5.69 (about 14%)
If the order came from an Etsy off-site advert 12% or 15% × £40 another £4.80–£6.00, before VAT
Own Shopify site, Shopify Payments (Basic) 2% × £40 + £0.25 £1.05 (about 2.6%), plus the monthly plan

Scale that up, hypothetically, and the difference is real. At £40 an order, £40,000 of Etsy sales is 1,000 orders: the 6.5% transaction fee alone is £2,600, and the full stack above is about £4,740 before VAT. The same 1,000 orders on Shopify Basic would cost about £1,050 in card fees plus about £228 a year for the plan (both hypothetical, October 2026 rates).

That gap isn't free money, though. On Etsy, the fee pays for buyers who are already looking. On your own site you pay for traffic another way: with your time (writing product pages and guides that rank in Google) or your money (advertising).

What you do and don't own on Etsy

When someone buys from your Etsy shop, the customer relationship runs through Etsy. Etsy's Seller Policy says you can use a buyer's details only for Etsy-related communication and the Etsy transaction, and you can't add an Etsy buyer to your mailing list without their consent. Etsy also decides what that buyer sees next. Algorithm changes and account reviews can happen, and if they do, you have no customer list of your own to fall back on.

On your own website, the customers who find you there are yours to look after: you can build an email list with their consent, follow up after an order and tell them about new products. In our experience, Shopify also gives you far more data about customer behaviour than Etsy does: how people move around the site, what they look at before they buy, and where they leave. A returning customer base on your own site is an asset you keep.

Building direct customers without breaking Etsy's rules

Don't put a discount card for your own website in your Etsy orders, or a note telling buyers to "buy direct next time". Etsy's Off-Platform Transactions Policy (updated 5 October 2026) bans telling Etsy buyers to buy through your own website, offering them discounts or other incentives to buy off Etsy, and using QR codes to send them off Etsy. Breaking it puts your Etsy shop at risk.

Treat Etsy and your own website as separate channels, and grow your direct customers from sources that never came through Etsy:

  • Google and organic search. Product pages, collection pages and practical guides written around what your buyers actually search for. This blog is our version of that.
  • Business buyers. Hotels, schools, estate agents and corporate clients who order in volume and reorder. Our post on how we turned an Etsy shop into a B2B business covers how that side grew.
  • Local and trade customers. Businesses near you, trade fairs, and suppliers who refer work.
  • People who find you independently. Customers who come across your business through search, a recommendation or seeing your work somewhere else, rather than through an Etsy order.

If you also send your own audience to your Etsy shop, check whether Etsy's Share & Save programme is available to you: Etsy refunds 4% of the order value on sales that come through your Share & Save links. It rewards selling on Etsy rather than leaving it, but it cuts the fees on traffic you bring yourself.

Your own site and AI search

Tools such as ChatGPT, Perplexity and Google's AI Overviews now answer buying questions like "where can I buy a personalised oak house sign in the UK". In our view, a single Etsy shop is less likely to be named in those answers than a website with its own expert content, because that content is what shows you know your subject.

Every guide and product page on your own site adds to that. We've built this site's content without an agency or a big budget: a cluster of guides for each subject our buyers ask about, linked to each other and to the products they relate to. If you're working out what you sell and how to price it, our guides to pricing what you make and starting a laser engraving business in the UK show the same approach.

Want help with your own site?

If you'd like help setting up your own website alongside Etsy, or with SEO and AI search for it, our e-commerce and marketing consultancy covers exactly that, at £80 an hour plus VAT.

Frequently asked questions

How much does Etsy take from a sale in the UK?
In October 2026, a UK seller pays a 6.5% transaction fee, 4% + £0.20 payment processing, a 0.48% Regulatory Operating Fee and a US$0.20 listing fee. On a £40 order that's about £4.74, or about £5.69 with VAT on the fees if you're not VAT-registered.

Is it cheaper to sell on your own website than on Etsy?
Per order, yes: on Shopify's Basic plan with Shopify Payments, a £40 order costs about £1.05 in card fees (October 2026), against about £4.74 on Etsy. But you also pay a monthly plan, and you have to bring your own traffic.

Can I ask Etsy customers to buy from my website instead?
No. Etsy's Off-Platform Transactions Policy bans telling Etsy buyers to buy through your own website, offering off-Etsy discounts or incentives, and using QR codes to send them off Etsy.

Can I opt out of Etsy Offsite Ads?
Only if your shop has never reached US$10,000 in sales in a 12-month period. Once it has, Offsite Ads are compulsory for the life of the shop, at 12% of any order that comes from one of Etsy's off-site adverts, capped at US$100 per order.

Do I have to pay VAT on Etsy fees?
If you're a UK seller who isn't VAT-registered, Etsy adds 20% VAT to its seller and payment processing fees. VAT-registered sellers can give Etsy their VAT ID to stop it being charged.

Disclosure: some links on this page are affiliate links. If you buy through them we may earn a commission, at no extra cost to you.

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