Etsy and Shopify fee calculator for UK sellers: what one order actually costs on each

"Etsy fees calculator UK" is one of the most-searched phrases in this sector, and the reason is that Etsy's fees are five separate lines on different bases, with VAT on top for most small sellers. Shopify's are two lines, but one of them is a flat monthly fee that only makes sense per order. The calculator puts one order through both.

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Etsy and Shopify fee calculator (UK): what one order costs you on each

Item price (£) Postage charged to the buyer (£) ChannelEtsy (Etsy Payments)Shopify Basic with Shopify PaymentsShopify Grow with Shopify PaymentsShopify Advanced with Shopify Payments Orders a monthSpreads the Shopify plan fee across orders Etsy Offsite Ads brought this saleNoYes, 15% (under US$10,000 sales a year)Yes, 12% (over US$10,000) VAT registeredYesNoEtsy adds 20% VAT to its fees for sellers who are not

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Etsy's five lines

On a UK sale through Etsy Payments the fees are: a listing fee of US$0.20 per listing (about 15p at current rates, charged when the item is listed and again when it sells and renews); a transaction fee of 6.5% on the item price plus postage and any gift wrap; payment processing at 4% plus 20p on the total; and the regulatory operating fee, 0.48% of the total since 22 June 2026, up from 0.32%. If the sale came through Offsite Ads, add 15%, or 12% once the shop has passed US$10,000 of sales in a year, at which point the ads can no longer be switched off.

Then VAT. Etsy charges 20% VAT on its fees to UK sellers who are not VAT registered, which is most of them. A VAT-registered seller gives Etsy their number and accounts for the VAT themselves. The calculator applies the 20% unless you say you are registered.

On our example order, £42 plus £3.95 postage, that is £6.47 with the VAT, or 14.1% of what the buyer paid. With a 15% Offsite Ads sale it is £14.75, 32.1%. That single toggle is why Etsy sellers talk about Offsite Ads the way they talk about the weather.

Shopify's two lines

Shopify's UK prices on annual billing are £19 a month for Basic, £49 for Grow and £259 for Advanced (£25, £65 and £344 monthly). With Shopify Payments the online card rate is 2% plus 25p on Basic, 1.7% plus 25p on Grow and 1.5% plus 25p on Advanced. There is no listing fee and no transaction fee when Shopify Payments is used; a third-party gateway adds 2%, 1% or 0.6% by plan on top of the gateway's own charge.

Per order, the plan fee depends on volume. At 120 orders a month the Basic plan is 16p an order; at 20 orders it is 95p. The calculator divides the plan by the number of orders you enter, so the comparison is honest for a shop of your size rather than for an imaginary one.

What the comparison does not say

It does not say Shopify is cheaper. It says Shopify's fees are lower on an order that has already happened. Etsy's higher fees buy the marketplace's traffic; Shopify's lower fees come with the job of finding every customer yourself, which is paid for in ads, email and time. A shop that sells £3,000 a month on Etsy and would sell £900 on its own site is not saving money by moving.

The numbers do settle one question: for a shop that already has its own customers, every repeat order routed through the marketplace is paying 11 to 14 points for traffic it did not need.

The fees that are not here

The cost of the goods, the packaging, and the postage you actually pay, which after the Royal Mail rise on 5 October 2026 is a bigger line than any fee above. Shopify apps and themes. Etsy Plus. Currency conversion at 2.5% on Etsy orders paid in another currency. Card disputes, which cost £20 each on Stripe whatever the outcome; our chargebacks guide covers that.

Read both suppliers' live pages before changing anything. Etsy changed one of these figures in June 2026; the next change is not announced in advance to the people who write calculators.