Short answer: at a £40 item with £8 postage, Etsy costs about £5.67 per order in the UK, while a Shopify store costs about £1.21 per order plus £25/month. Above 6 orders a month, the Shopify store is cheaper on fees alone.
| Platform | Fee per order | Fees at 50 orders/month |
|---|---|---|
| Etsy | £5.67 | £283.52 |
| Shopify (Basic, monthly) | £1.21 + £25/mo | £85.50 |
Monthly figures use unrounded per-order fees, as in the calculator. Monthly Shopify figure = 50 × £1.21 + £25 subscription.
Transaction fee 6.5% of £48 = £3.12, listing fee $0.20, payment processing 4% of £48 + £0.20 = £2.12, regulatory operating fee 0.48% of £48 = £0.23. Total £5.67 per order. Note: Etsy's $0.20 listing fee is billed in USD and shown at face value, as in the calculator.
Online card rate 2% of £48 + 25p = £1.21 per order, plus the Basic plan at £25/month on monthly billing. At 50 orders that is £85.50 a month, or £1.71 per order including the subscription.
Below 6 orders a month, Etsy is cheaper on fees alone because there is no subscription to spread. Above 6 orders, the Shopify store wins on fees alone — but Etsy brings its own buyers, while a Shopify store needs its own marketing. Run your own prices in the Breakeven Planner.
Fee-only comparison: it does not include discovery, traffic, refunds, apps, fulfilment, packaging, or taxes. Subscription is spread over the month's orders in the monthly figure. Confirm with your seller dashboard before pricing decisions.
Sources (official pages): Etsy fees, Etsy Payments, Etsy regulatory fee, eBay UK fees for business sellers (last updated 30 September 2026), Shopify UK pricing. Etsy/Shopify figures checked 4 Nov 2026; eBay UK figures checked 5 Nov 2026.
No. Only above the fee-only crossover — 6 orders a month at a £48 order total. At lower volumes Etsy can be cheaper on fees alone, and it brings marketplace traffic a new store does not have.
No. Etsy charges per-order fees only: transaction, listing, payment processing, and (in the UK) a regulatory operating fee.
Discovery and traffic, refunds, apps, fulfilment, packaging, and taxes. This is a fee-only comparison, not a profit forecast.
Amazon referral fees vary by category and its Seller Central schedule is login-gated, so no Amazon figure could be verified from an official page. No Amazon numbers are shown rather than guessed ones.
These pages use one fixed scenario so the comparison is fair. Your prices and order volume change the answer — run them through the free tools: Breakeven Planner, Platform Crossover, Product Pricing & Profit. Every figure and its official source is on the Fee Index, and the method is on the Methodology page.