What should I charge on Etsy? Price backwards from the margin you want
Add your fixed costs, divide by what the percentage fees and your margin leave, then take off the shipping you charge. For an item that costs $6, with $4.20 postage and $5 shipping charged, a 30% margin means $12.60, or $18.40 if the sale is an Offsite Ads sale.
US rates, checked against Etsy's help pages on 2026-11-03. Etsy can change them without notice.
Pricing one item for a 30% margin
A US shop. The item costs $6 to make and $4.20 to post, the buyer pays $5 shipping, and margin means net profit divided by the order total. Each price is the lowest one, to the cent, at which the margin reaches 30%.
| No ads | Ad sale, 15% | |
|---|---|---|
| Item price | $12.60 | $18.40 |
| Shipping you charge | $5.00 | $5.00 |
| Order total | $17.60 | $23.40 |
| Less Etsy fees | ||
| Listing fee | $0.20 | $0.20 |
| Transaction fee (6.5%) | $1.14 | $1.52 |
| Payment processing (3% + $0.25) | $0.78 | $0.95 |
| Offsite Ads fee (15%) | $0.00 | $3.51 |
| Total Etsy fees | $2.12 | $6.18 |
| Less your costs | ||
| Total costs (item $6.00 + postage $4.20) | $10.20 | $10.20 |
| Net profit | $5.28 | $7.02 |
| Margin | 30.0% | 30.0% |
The calculator's "What should I charge?" mode takes the profit you want in money, not a margin. Take your margin of the order total (30% of $17.60 is $5.28) and enter that.
It answers $12.60. For the ad sale, $7.02 with the Offsite Ads box ticked answers $18.40.
The formula
Order total = (listing fee + fixed processing fee + your item cost + the postage you pay) ÷ (1 − transaction % − processing % − Offsite Ads % if it applies − the margin you want). The item price is the order total minus the shipping you charge.
With US rates the top is 0.20 + 0.25 + 6 + 4.20 = 10.65, and the bottom is 1 − 0.065 − 0.03 − 0.30 = 0.605. That gives an order total of $17.60 and an item price of $12.60. The fees are on Etsy's fees page, fee basics and payment processing page.
The shipping you charge is inside the order total, so the percentages apply to it too. Work the fees on the item price alone and you underprice.
For an ad sale the bottom drops to 0.455, which gives $23.41, a cent above the table. The table says $23.40 because the calculator rounds each fee to the cent on its own, and at $23.40 the margin is exactly 30%. Etsy doesn't say how it rounds, so treat the last cent as an estimate.
The ad fee never exceeds $100 USD per order, which starts to matter above an order total of $666.67 at 15%. Below that the formula holds. Above it, use the calculator's mode, which knows about the cap.
Item price by margin
The same item as above ($6 cost, $4.20 postage, $5 shipping charged), at the lowest cent that reaches each margin.
| Margin | No ads | Ad sale, 15% |
|---|---|---|
| 20% | $10.10 | $14.20 |
| 30% | $12.60 | $18.40 |
| 40% | $16.09 | $25.00 |
| 50% | $21.30 | $36.74 |
The ad column climbs faster because 15 points of every order total go to the fee before you earn anything. At a 40% margin, $16.09 becomes $25.00.
Which column to use
- If you can opt out of Offsite Ads, price from the no-ads column. Etsy's page says a shop that has never made $10,000 USD or more in any consecutive 365-day period can opt out. Source: how Etsy's Offsite Ads work.
- If you can't, or you stay in, remember that the fee applies only to orders Etsy attributes to an ad. Put 15% times the share of your orders that are ad orders into the formula, in place of the full 15%. Use 12% instead of 15% if your shop has made $10,000 USD or more in any consecutive 365 days. Etsy's pages don't say what share to expect, so that number has to come from your own order history.
- If you'd rather be safe, price every order as an ad order. An item priced at $18.40 for a 30% margin makes $10.53 when no ad was involved, a margin of 45.0%.
What Etsy's pages don't settle
- Discounts. We couldn't confirm whether Etsy works out its fees before or after a seller discount. The calculator assumes after. If you run sales, check an order against your Etsy statement.
- The listing fee on each sale. Etsy bills $0.20 when you list, and $0.20 for each extra item in an order of more than one. The formula puts $0.20 on every order as a stand-in.
- Sales tax. Etsy charges processing on it. The formula leaves it out, so real processing runs a little higher.
- What the Offsite Ads fee is taken from. Etsy's page says "the order total" without defining it. The formula counts shipping in it and leaves tax out.
These are US rates. For another country, use your own processing percentage and fixed fee, add the regulatory operating fee to the bottom of the formula where your country has one, and pick your country in the calculator. The UK, Germany, Australia and India pages have the rates.
Keptsheet is a small, new brand. This page was built with AI tools, then checked against Etsy's pages and the calculator's arithmetic. We are not affiliated with Etsy. Nothing here is tax or accounting advice. More on who we are.
Keptsheet also sells a $9 spreadsheet with one row per order, these same fees worked out for you, and your net profit by month: Keptsheet's tracker. It's our product, and you don't need it to use the calculator.
Assumptions and sources
- Rates were checked on 2026-11-03 from Etsy's help pages and may change without notice. None of those pages shows an effective date. We read the help pages, not Etsy's formal Fees & Payments Policy, which would not load.
- Sales tax and refunds are excluded.
- Results are estimates. Compare them with your Etsy payment statements.
- Fees are worked out on the order total after your discount. The listing fee is counted once per item sold.
- Not included: the 2.5% currency conversion fee, the shop set-up fee, Etsy Ads, and taxes Etsy withholds from some sellers, such as India's TCS and TDS.
- Etsy states the listing fee and the Offsite Ads cap in USD. The calculator treats them as plain numbers in your shop currency and does no currency conversion, so enter your own amounts.