For the longest time, I never actually added up what Etsy was taking from my sales.
Like most small sellers, I just assumed:
“Well… that’s the cost of being on Etsy. What choice do you have?”
So I kept working.
Kept selling.
Kept growing.
And the more I grew — the more they took.
One month tells the whole story
Let’s look at October 2025.
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Total sales: $2,583.05
(110 orders — a solid month) -
Etsy fees: $300.88
Manageable, right?
Then came the sledgehammer.
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Marketing fees: $747.40
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Etsy Ads: $672.55
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Offsite Ads: $59.36
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Etsy Plus: $15.49
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The real number
All up, Etsy took:
👉 $1,048.28
from $2,583.05 in sales.
That’s over 40% gone before I even blinked.
And remember — that’s before:
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Product costs
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Packaging
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Engraving
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Fuel
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And everything else required to keep a small business running
The part most people don’t realise
⭐ I kept going like this for almost two years.
Every time sales increased, Etsy took more.
The bigger I became, the more they pocketed.
It wasn’t scaling a business —
It was scaling Etsy’s income.
By the end, I was paying roughly:
👉 $12,000 per year
Just for the privilege of selling on their platform.
And then…
After all that?
They shut the shop down.
No human review.
No explanation.
Just a fully automated “nope.”
That was the final shove.
Why leaving Etsy saved our business
Moving to our own website wasn’t a choice — it was survival.
Since switching:
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No more 40% disappearing into fees
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No unpredictable bills
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No ads chewing the month’s profit
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No fear of being randomly shut down
Your money now goes toward:
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The cutlery
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The engraving
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The packaging
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And keeping a small family business going
Not into an endless loop of platform fees.
If you’re reading this here — thank you ❤️
You’re supporting us directly.
And trust me… my sanity (and bank account) are grateful.