How Etsy's fees change the price of a candle

A common rule of thumb is "double your costs". That skips two things that quietly eat your profit: your own time, and the platform's cut. Here is one batch of candles worked through line by line, so you can see where the money goes. Swap in your own numbers as you read.

The batch: 12 jar candles (example figures)

Your time is a cost too

Say the batch takes 90 minutes of hands-on work. That is 7.5 minutes per candle. At $15 an hour, that is $1.875 per candle. Add $0.35 per candle for labels and a care card.

Cost to make one candle: $3.805 + $1.875 + $0.35 = $6.03

If you leave your time out, you are pricing as if your hours are free. They aren't. If you ever pay someone to help, that wage has to come from somewhere.

What Etsy takes (US seller)

For a seller whose bank account is in the US, each sale carries three charges.

• Transaction fee: 6.5% of the order amount, including what you charge for postage and gift wrap. Source: Etsy Help, Etsy Fee Basics. Checked 7 Nov 2026.
• Payment processing: 3% + $0.25 per order, taken from the total sale price including postage and any sales tax. Source: Etsy Help, What are Payment Processing Fees for Selling on Etsy? (United States: 3% + 0.25 USD). Checked 7 Nov 2026.
• Listing fee: $0.20. Charged when you list an item, and again when a listing set to auto-renew sells, or for each extra item bought from a multi-quantity listing. Source: Etsy Help, Etsy Fee Basics. Checked 7 Nov 2026.

Some sales also carry an Offsite Ads fee: 15%, or 12% if your shop has ever made $10,000 or more in any 365-day period. It applies only to orders Etsy attributes to one of its ads on another site, and it never exceeds $100 per order. Source: Etsy Help, How Etsy's Offsite Ads Work. Checked 7 Nov 2026.

To keep the arithmetic simple, the example below assumes free shipping (postage built into the price), no Offsite Ads sale, and leaves sales tax out. Where Etsy collects US sales tax, the 3% processing fee is also charged on the tax, so real fees run slightly higher than shown.

What $8 actually earns

The 76¢ profit is about 9.5% of the price. (If you list each candle once and don't auto-renew, the 20¢ is paid once at listing instead, but it is still a cost of the sale.) The 76¢ is on top of paying yourself $15 an hour. Count your wage and the profit together and the candle pays you about $21 per hour of hands-on time ($2.635 per 7.5 minutes). That figure ignores the time spent photographing, listing, packing and posting.

The price that keeps a 30% profit

Say you want 30% of the price left over after fees and costs. Because Etsy's percentages come off the price, you can't simply add 30% to your cost. You solve for the price instead:

price = (cost + fixed fees) ÷ (1 − fee percentages − target margin)

Here the fixed fees are $0.25 + $0.20 = $0.45, and the fee percentages are 6.5% + 3% = 9.5%:

($6.03 + $0.45) ÷ (1 − 0.095 − 0.30) = $6.48 ÷ 0.605 = $10.71

Round up, never down, to $11.00. At $11, fees come to $1.495 ($0.715 + $0.58 + $0.20) and you keep $3.48 per candle (about 32%). Your wage plus profit then works out at about $42.80 per hour of hands-on time.

The gap between $8 and $11 isn't greed. It is fees plus a fair wage.

Selling from the UK?

The structure is the same, but the numbers differ:

• Transaction fee: 6.5% of the order amount, including postage and gift wrap. Source: Etsy Help, What are the Fees and Taxes for Selling on Etsy? Checked 7 Nov 2026.
• Payment processing: 4% + £0.20 per order. Source: Etsy Help, What are Payment Processing Fees for Selling on Etsy? (United Kingdom: 4% + 0.20 GBP). Checked 7 Nov 2026.
• Regulatory Operating fee: 0.48% of the item price plus postage and gift wrap. Source: Etsy Help, What is a Regulatory Operating Fee? Checked 7 Nov 2026.
• Listing fee: 0.20 USD, converted to pounds at the market rate when it is charged, so the pound amount moves with the exchange rate. Source: Etsy Help, What are the Fees and Taxes for Selling on Etsy? Checked 7 Nov 2026.
• VAT on Etsy's fees. If you are a UK seller and haven't given Etsy a VAT ID, Etsy charges VAT on your seller fees and lists it on a monthly VAT invoice. Its help pages say the payment processing fees and the Regulatory Operating fee are subject to VAT too. If you have given Etsy a VAT ID, it doesn't charge it. The UK standard rate is 20%. Sources: Etsy Help, How VAT Is Collected on Seller Fees, the processing and Regulatory Operating fee pages above; GOV.UK, VAT rates. Checked 7 Nov 2026.
• Currency conversion: 2.5%, only if you list in a different currency from your bank account (for example, listing in USD with a UK bank account). Source: Etsy Help, What are the Fees and Taxes for Selling on Etsy? Checked 7 Nov 2026.

On an £11 candle, the percentage fees (6.5% + 4% + 0.48%) plus the 20p come to about £1.41. If you have no VAT ID, 20% VAT on those fees takes that to about £1.69, before the listing fee. Your own Etsy statement is the final word.

For a 30% profit in the UK, with no VAT ID the percentages become 10.98% × 1.2 = 13.18%, and the 20p becomes 24p. If your candle also costs £6.03 to make:

(£6.03 + £0.24 + listing fee with VAT) ÷ (1 − 0.1318 − 0.30) = (£6.27 + listing fee with VAT) ÷ 0.568

Without the listing fee that is £11.04, and each 10p of listing fee adds about 18p. The 0.20 USD listing fee is less than 20p, so even with VAT it is under 24p, and £11.50 covers it. With a VAT ID, the same sum gives about £10.56 before the listing fee.

Do it for your own products

Write down what each supply cost and how much of it one batch uses. Add your time and the small extras. Then solve for the price with the formula above.

If you'd rather not keep a spreadsheet, Tallymade does this calculation for each product and re-prices everything when a supply cost changes. From version 1.0.2 (on iOS and Android) its Etsy UK preset includes a "VAT on Etsy fees" line. If you have added a VAT ID to your Etsy account, delete that line.

This is a pricing example, not tax or accounting advice. The candle figures are examples. Fees change: check Etsy's fee pages before you rely on any number here.