Etsy vs Shopify: which one costs you more per sale?
On paper Shopify is dramatically cheaper: no commission at all, against Etsy's listing fee, transaction fee and payment processing. On a $40 order the gap is about $2.40. Whether that gap matters depends entirely on how you get customers.
The fees side by side on a $40 order
| Cost | Etsy | Shopify |
|---|---|---|
| Listing | $0.20 | — |
| Commission | 6.5% = $2.60 | 0% |
| Payment processing | 3% + $0.25 = $1.45 | 2.9% + $0.30 = $1.46 |
| Subscription, per order | — | $39 ÷ 100 orders = $0.39 |
| Total | $4.25 (10.6%) | $1.85 (4.6%) |
Note what the subscription line does: the $39 plan is a fixed cost, so its per-order weight falls as you sell more. At 30 orders a month it is $1.30 per order and the gap narrows; at 500 orders a month it is under eight cents and Shopify is untouchable on fees alone.
The number that is missing from the table
Etsy's fees buy something. The marketplace brings buyers who are already searching, and that traffic is included in the 6.5%. Shopify brings nobody: you pay for every visitor through ads, content or email, and that cost does not appear anywhere on your Shopify invoice.
So the real comparison is Etsy's fee against Shopify's fee plus your customer acquisition cost. In the example above, Etsy costs $2.40 more per order. If you can reliably acquire a Shopify order for less than $2.40 in ad spend, Shopify wins. If a click costs $1 and one in thirty converts, your acquisition cost is $30 and Etsy is not expensive at all.
For most small sellers the honest answer is that Shopify is cheaper once you already have an audience, and more expensive while you are trying to find one. That is why the common pattern is to start on a marketplace and move repeat customers to your own store, rather than choosing one and abandoning the other.
The fees nobody puts in the comparison
- Etsy offsite ads. Orders attributed to an offsite ad carry an extra 12% or 15% on the whole order. The higher rate applies to shops under $10,000 in trailing sales, and you can only opt out below that threshold.
- Shopify apps. Reviews, subscriptions, email, upsells — a typical stack is $30–$80 a month, which is another $0.30–$0.80 per order at 100 orders.
- Third-party payment fees. If you use a gateway other than Shopify Payments, Shopify adds up to 2% on top.
- Currency conversion. Etsy charges 2.5% when your listing currency differs from your payout currency.
How to decide with real numbers
Settings differ enough between shops that averages are close to useless. Put your own price, cost and shipping into the Etsy fee calculator and the Shopify profit calculator, then compare the net profit per order. If you want them next to each other with your own inputs, the comparison tool does that in one screen.
Then add your acquisition cost to the Shopify side as an "other per-order cost". That is the only version of this comparison that reflects what actually lands in your account.