Etsy Fees and Prices Increase - Website Prices Remain the Same

UPDATE 10/6/25. Etsy fees and business risks continue to remain high. To try to effect change, we participated in the #EtsyStrike in 2022 and helped found a cooperative alternative to Etsy in 2023, Artisans Cooperative. Nonetheless, there is a schism in Walnut Studiolo product prices between our Etsy shop and website: our website prices are lower and offers free shipping. 

UPDATED 3/16/22. A second round of Etsy fee increases (up to 25% per sale) forced us to raise product prices on our Etsy store -- but we're keeping prices the same on our website. 

We launched our business on Etsy way back in 2009, and it was a terrific place for a small handcrafter like us to get started selling their wares. The fact that we are in business to this day is a credit to Etsy. It is with deep regret that we need to write this post.

In this post, we'll discuss: exactly what is happening with Etsy fees, the complications of increasing material costs, and the moral quandaries in Etsy's rapidly changing marketing policies.

We first wrote this post in August 2021 because of a major fee increase, but in less than 6 months Etsy announced yet another fee increase. Effective April 2022, the Transaction Fee increased by another 30%, in addition to the 4-5 other fees listed below. With this new, second transaction fee increase in four years, Etsy now takes up to 25% of each sale. 

• Mandatory Offsite Ads Fee: 12%-15% commission on certain sales (including shipping charges)
• Transaction Fee: 5% 6.5% commission on all sales (including shipping charges)
• Payment Processing Fee: 3% + $0.25 on all sales
• Listing Fee: $0.20 with every new product listing
• Renewal Fee: $0.20 per listing renewal (happens with each sale and/or every 4 months, whichever is first)
• In Total: All the fees above add up to a total 24.5% commission + minimum $0.45 in fees

Risky Business: More Hidden Fees

In addition to these fees, if we want to offer free shipping, it has to be at Etsy's mandated $35 minimum order. That $35 order threshold, like minimum wage, has remained stubbornly unchanged for years despite skyrocketing shipping costs. 

There are other seller-assigned risks such as fraud (Etsy only guarantees orders against fraud up to $250), tariffs, and Regulatory Operating Fees, in addition to optional costs like the Etsy Plus Program, Currency Conversion Fees, and Etsy Ads. 

• Payment Processing Fee: 2.4% + $0.30 USD on each sale

By increasing the prices on our Etsy store, we are not earning more money. Increasing the product prices on our Etsy site covers the cost of those fees, plain and simple.

We wish we could warn our customers on Etsy that prices and shipping rates are lower on our website, but that is against Etsy's rules and would get us kicked off the platform. Plus, we get that some customers prefer the Etsy marketplace experience and may prefer Etsy. We're not trying to steal customers from Etsy, we're just trying to cover our costs without charging excessive prices on our website.

Etsy maintains that their fees are competitive with similar sites, but to be frank, there are no similar sites. Etsy is special, as an approachable marketplace for small crafters. 

Over the years, we have tried Etsy alternatives, including founding our own as a cooperative. Valerie wrote about our journey on Medium: 

• Our Experience Trying Etsy Alternatives
• How We Built Our Own Website on Shopify as an Etsy Alternative
• How It Went Trying to Sell Handmade on Amazon as an Etsy Alternative
• What Happened When We Tried Dropshipping Our Handmade Products as an Alternative to Etsy
• Lessons Learned After Listing Handmade Products on Other Marketplaces as an Etsy Alternative
• After the #EtsyStrike, a Cooperative Alternative
• The Etsy Payment Reserves Scandal Shows Why We Need a Better Alternative

In addition to paying more fees, we're paying more to make our goods. All of our costs have gone up, yet we've managed to maintain some of our original product prices since we launched them ten years ago. We have always tried to absorb increased costs if we can.

The timing of the new Etsy fees could not have been worse: inflation, geopolitics, increased shipping costs, supply chain issues, and COVID complications have all increased our material costs, particularly hardware, particularly in the last year.

For now, we can absorb some of the increased material costs on our website where commissions are low, but we can't absorb both increased material costs and increased sales fees together. And that is why we are only raising our prices on our Etsy store, and not on our website.

The impacts from the changes at Etsy are not just financial: they also cause additional headaches, risk, and even ethical quandaries that make it hard to keep doing business on the platform:

• The influx of millions of new stores that don't meet Etsy's handmade policies has resulted in punitive measures for all sellers, increased scams and knock-offs, more time spent enforcing our intellectual property, and generally reduced the quality of shopping on the platform, damaging the Etsy brand and ours too by extension. Whether they are unable to or don't consider it a priority, Etsy has not kept on top of the non-compliant stores enforcement.
• "Hiding" the product description on the product page so that is hard for buyers to read our written information about the product.
• Rapidly changing and opaque search algorithms manipulate results and incentivizing ad purchases. At the time of this writing, Etsy is prioritizing discounted products with free shipping in its search results. 
• The Mandatory Offsite Ads program requires us to pay to advertise Etsy listings against ourselves on Google, Facebook, etc. Worse, what they advertise and where they advertise it is totally out of our control. The company advertises our products on platforms or websites we disagree with and choose not to advertise on, and we feel it limits our free speech.
• Increased pressure to hold sales and offer discounts during their global sales events for products to be visible. Etsy has been increasingly setting the terms of the sale, such as requiring a minimum 25% discount to qualify for participation in seasonal promotions. 

Additional policies are changing all the time, and we realize that we have to spend a significant and growing amount of time just staying on top of Etsy's changing policies rather than designing, making, and shipping products to you.

Although we have expressed a lot of frustrations here, we're not quitting Etsy -- yet. 

We got started on Etsy in 2009 and it's hard to let that go. But more importantly, they do still bring in enough sales that we need them in our sales channel portfolio, for diversity and survival. 

That's why we're increasing our prices on Etsy but not our website: if that's how customers find us or that's where they prefer to shop, we're here for them. 

But we can provide better information, free shipping, and lower prices on handcrafted leather goods on our website.