Amazon vs Etsy fees
A real decision for anyone selling handmade or home goods. Etsy charges the same on everything; Amazon charges by category, so which one wins depends less on your price than on which shelf Amazon decides your product belongs on.
On a $50.00 sale, Etsy leaves you $2.30 more — 4.6% of what the buyer paid. Over 100 sales like this one that is $230.00.
| Buyer pays | item + shipping | $50.00 |
Referral fee Charged on the total price, shipping included. | 15% of $50.00 | −$7.50 |
| Total fees | −$7.50 | |
| Reaches your account | $42.50 | |
Plus $39.99 per month, which is not a per-sale cost and is left out of the figures above.
| Buyer pays | item + shipping | $50.00 |
Listing fee Charged when you list, and again every four months on renewal. | $0.20 per listing | −$0.20 |
Transaction fee Charged on the order total, shipping included. | 6.5% of $50.00 | −$3.25 |
Payment processing | 3% of $50.00 + $0.25 | −$1.75 |
| Total fees | −$5.20 | |
| Reaches your account | $44.80 | |
Which is actually cheaper?
At default settings, there is no crossover price. Etsy keeps you more at every price from $1 to $20,000, so unlike most comparisons this one is not a question of order size. Articles that answer it with a single worked example happen to be right here — but only for the setup they assumed, which is the part they do not say.
What does change the answer
7 settings reverse it completely. On a $50.00 sale Etsy normally keeps more, but not in these cases:
- Amazon: Appliances — Full-sizeFlips itAmazon+$1.20
- Amazon: ComputersFlips itAmazon+$1.20
- Amazon: Consumer ElectronicsFlips itAmazon+$1.20
- Amazon: TiresFlips itAmazon+$0.20
- Amazon: Video Game ConsolesFlips itAmazon+$1.20
- Amazon: Individual ($0.99/item)Etsy+$3.29
- Etsy: Offsite Ads sale — under $10k/yrFlips itAmazon+$5.20
- Etsy: Offsite Ads sale — $10k+/yrFlips itAmazon+$3.70
Cheaper is not the same as better
This page prices a transaction. It cannot price the thing that usually matters more: a marketplace brings you a buyer who was never going to find your own site, and that traffic is worth a percentage that no fee table can put a number on. A platform that takes more and sells more of your stock is the better platform, and no arithmetic here can tell you whether that is the case for you.
So treat the figures as one input. Saufee states what each one charges; where to sell is your call.
What this calculator does not cover
- FBA fulfilment and storage fees are NOT included. Amazon publishes those only inside its logged-in Revenue Calculator, not as a schedule that can be sourced and dated, and they depend on the size tier and weight of the individual product. Estimating them here would be inventing numbers. If you use FBA, add your per-unit fulfilment cost separately — this page prices selling on Amazon, not shipping through it.
- Pet Supplies is 15% here; veterinary diets are charged at 22%.
- Fine Art carries a $1.00 minimum referral fee on its first band, which is modelled as the overall minimum for the category.
- A product’s fee category is assigned by Amazon and is not always the category shoppers see in the store.
- Advertising, long-term storage, removal and refund administration fees are all separate and not modelled.
What this calculator does not cover
- Payment processing rates are set per country. The 3% + $0.25 used here is the United States rate.
- Shops that pass $10,000 in a 365-day window are enrolled in Offsite Ads permanently and cannot opt out.
- Etsy Plus, Pattern and in-person Square sales carry separate charges not modelled here.
Other comparisons
These calculators are free, and they stay free
There is no account, no email wall and nothing for sale here, which is deliberate — it is what lets the site publish what platforms actually charge and link to where each rate came from. Re-reading ten fee schedules every week is the unglamorous part, and it is what keeps the numbers worth trusting. If that saved you a bad listing decision, you are welcome to put a little toward the domain and the hosting. If it did not, please do not.
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