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What Etsy takes from a sale

Etsy charges five different fees, not one. They come off at different times and are worked out on different amounts, so "Etsy takes about a fifth" is a guess rather than a number you can price against.

• A listing fee, charged per item when you list it and again each time the listing renews. It is small, and it is charged on items that never sell as well as items that do.
• A transaction fee, a percentage of the order total.
• Payment processing, a percentage plus a fixed amount per order. The rate depends on the country your shop is registered in.
• Offsite Ads, a percentage of any order that came through an advert Etsy placed. See below — this is the one that is not entirely up to you.
• Currency conversion, if your shop currency and your bank are not the same.

We haven't listed the rates here, because they differ by country and Etsy changes them. Any guide that prints a percentage goes out of date the week it moves, usually in the direction that costs you money. Etsy publishes the current figures on its fees and payments policy page. Use those.

The one that surprises people

The transaction fee is charged on the postage as well as the item. If you list a £12 print with £3.50 postage, the percentage is taken from £15.50, not £12.

The postage is not yours to keep. It goes to the courier. So you are paying a fee on money that passed straight through your account, and it comes out of what you make on the item.

Offering free postage does not get round this. If you fold the postage into the item price, the fee is worked out on the same total. All you have changed is the number the buyer sees.

Offsite Ads, and why it is not optional

Etsy advertises listings on other sites and charges a percentage when a sale comes through one. Below a turnover threshold you can switch it off. Above that threshold you cannot. You are in it whether you want to be, and the fee applies to any order that came through one of those adverts.

So the more you sell, the bigger Etsy's share, and that is easy to miss if you set your prices a while ago. A margin that was fine at fifty sales a year can be thin at five hundred, with nothing about the print having changed.

What Etsy does not check

Etsy does not ask whether you hold a commercial licence for the design you are selling. There is no field for it, nothing to upload, and no check when you list. That doesn't mean you have permission.

Most 3D models are downloaded under a licence that allows personal printing and not commercial sale. Selling the print usually needs a second, paid permission from the designer — often a monthly tier on Patreon, MakerWorld, Cults3D or Thangs. That permission is between you and the designer, and Etsy is not a party to it.

What Etsy does have is a takedown process. If a designer reports a listing, you have to show what you were granted and when. That is hard if you are digging out a two-year-old receipt and trying to remember what the terms said. It is easy if you kept the licence, the terms as they were worded that day, and the proof of purchase.

A licence can lapse while the listing carries on selling: the subscription stops renewing and nothing on Etsy changes. Designers also change their terms, so the version you agreed to is the one that counts, not the one on their page today.

Do I need a commercial licence to sell 3D prints? covers what those licences usually permit, and what to do when one lapses covers the awkward case.

Setting a price that survives the fees

Work the fees out on the price, not by adding them to the cost. They are a percentage of what the buyer pays, so they go up with the price. Adding "about 20% for fees" to your cost and marking up from there gets it the wrong way round, and leaves you under-priced.

The order that works:

1. Start with what the print actually cost you — filament including the waste and the failures, not just the grams in the finished object, plus machine time. What does a 3D print actually cost to make?
2. Add the margin you want to keep. Decide this before the fees come off it, not after.
3. Then work out the listed price that leaves that margin after Etsy's cut and the postage. Not the other way round.

How to price a 3D print works through the arithmetic, and what selling 3D prints actually pays you covers the same deductions without the Etsy-specific parts.

Work out what a sale pays you — enter your own fee rates, since they differ by country and Etsy changes them.

Where MakerProof fits

MakerProof answers two questions about an Etsy shop: what a print cost you to make, and whether you were licensed to sell it.

It keeps each commercial licence with its receipt and a copy of the terms as they were worded on the day you agreed them, and warns you before one runs out. For cost, it works out what a print actually cost from the prints you log, including waste, failed prints and machine time.

It is not an order book, and that is on purpose. It does not track customers, orders or revenue by channel. Etsy's own reporting does that, and does it better. What Etsy cannot tell you is whether you were licensed to sell the design.