Etsy vs Shopify: Which Should You Use?

Choose Etsy if you want access to an existing marketplace of buyers already searching for handmade or vintage goods, and you're willing to pay Etsy a cut of every sale for that traffic. Choose Shopify if you want your own branded store and are willing to bring your own customers, in exchange for keeping more of each sale. The fee structures aren't comparable line-by-line — Etsy charges per listing and per sale, Shopify charges a flat monthly plan plus a smaller per-sale rate — so this guide checks both directly against their own pages, checked September 2026.

What does Etsy actually charge?

Etsy's fees stack up per listing and per sale, not as a single number. Per Etsy's own Help Center:

• Listing fee: "$0.20 per listing," charged "regardless of resulting sales," and "a listing expires after 4 months" — after which it renews (and is charged again) unless you turn that off (Etsy Help, "What are the Fees and Taxes for Selling on Etsy?", checked September 2026).
• Transaction fee: "6.5% of the total order amount in your designated listing currency. This fee applies to shipping and gift wrapping (if you charge your customers for those)" (same source).
• Payment processing fee: charged on top of the transaction fee, described by Etsy as "a set rate plus a percent of the total sale price of the item," which "vary by country." For a U.S.-based seller, Etsy's own fee table lists the rate as "3% + 0.25 USD" (Etsy Help, "What are Payment Processing Fees for Selling on Etsy?", checked September 2026).
• Offsite Ads fee: applies only when a sale is actually attributed to one of Etsy's off-platform ads (Google, social platforms, and partner sites). Etsy's own help article sets the rate by trailing 365-day revenue: shops that have "always made less than $10,000 USD in any consecutive 365 day period" are "Charged a 15% fee for orders attributed to an Offsite Ad" and "Automatically enrolled in Offsite Ads but eligible to opt out." Shops at or above that threshold are "Charged a discounted 12% fee for orders attributed to an Offsite Ad" and "Automatically enrolled in Offsite Ads and required to participate for the lifetime of your shop" (Etsy Help, "How Etsy's Offsite Ads Work", checked September 2026). The fee is also capped: "The Offsite Ads fee for any individual order will never exceed $100 USD, regardless of the order total" (same source).

There's no monthly subscription required to open a basic Etsy shop — the cost is entirely transactional, scaling with what you actually list and sell.

What does Shopify actually charge?

Shopify's published plans, on the pricing page's default yearly-billing view, are Basic at $29/mo, Grow at $79/mo, and Advanced at $299/mo, with a Plus tier "from $2,300/mo" for larger businesses (Shopify Pricing, checked September 2026). Shopify also advertises a "3 days free" trial followed by an introductory "$1/month for 3 months" rate — a limited-time offer, not the standing plan price.

On top of the plan, Shopify's own payment system charges per-transaction card rates that improve at higher plans: "2.9% + 30¢" on Basic, "2.7% + 30¢" on Grow, and "2.5% + 30¢" on Advanced, plus "1%" for international cards (same page). There's no per-listing fee at all — a product stays listed as long as your subscription is active, regardless of how many you have.

How do the fee structures actually compare?

They don't reduce to one number, because they're built differently:

• Etsy has no monthly plan but charges per listing, per sale, and per payment, plus a conditional advertising fee once a sale is ad-attributed.
• Shopify has a monthly plan with no per-listing fee, and a lower per-sale card rate that improves the more you pay monthly.

A shop with few, slow-selling, high-price listings pays Etsy relatively little in listing fees but the full percentage stack on each sale. A shop with many listings and low-margin items pays Etsy's $0.20 renewal fee repeatedly, which adds up faster than it does on Shopify, where listing count doesn't change the bill at all. Neither vendor publishes a break-even calculator, so run your own numbers against your actual listing count and price points rather than trusting a general rule.

What about traffic and discovery?

This is the structural trade the fees are paying for, and it's worth naming directly even without vendor-published conversion numbers: Etsy is a marketplace, so a new shop can appear in front of buyers already searching Etsy for similar items. Shopify is your own store on your own domain, with no built-in marketplace audience — driving traffic (ads, SEO, social, email) is entirely on you. Etsy's Offsite Ads program is part of that trade: Etsy pays to advertise your listings elsewhere and takes a cut only when it results in a sale, which is a different bet than paying for your own ads on a standalone Shopify store.

Capability matrix

Who is each one not for?

Etsy is not a fit if you want full control over branding, checkout design, or customer data — you're a shop inside Etsy's marketplace, not an independent storefront, and Etsy's fee stack applies to every sale regardless of where the buyer came from.

Shopify is not a fit if you have no existing audience and no plan to drive your own traffic — the monthly plan is a fixed cost whether or not you make a sale, unlike Etsy's mostly transactional model, and there's no built-in marketplace to fall back on for discovery.

Where does Figment fit in?

Neither directly — Figment publishes a Figma design as a live website through its Figma plugin; it has no store, listings, or checkout of its own. Some sellers use a Figment site as a portfolio or brand homepage that links out to their actual Etsy shop or Shopify store, but it isn't a substitute for either platform's commerce tooling. For a closer look at Shopify's plans specifically, see our Shopify pricing guide.

Which should I actually pick?

• Pick Etsy if you're starting out, have a small catalog, and want to test demand without committing to a monthly bill or building your own audience first.
• Pick Shopify if you already have (or are actively building) your own traffic sources and want to keep more of each sale and full control over the storefront.
• Consider running both — many sellers use Etsy for discovery and Shopify for their own branded store, since nothing prevents listing the same products on each.

Bottom line: Etsy trades a share of every sale for existing buyer traffic and no monthly bill; Shopify trades a fixed monthly plan and your own traffic-building for a lower per-sale cost and full brand control. Which one costs less depends entirely on your catalog size, price points, and whether you already have customers to bring with you.