Etsy is where a lot of US artists sell their first custom portrait, and it is also one of the more expensive places to keep selling them. The fees are small one at a time: a listing fee, a transaction fee, a processing fee. Together they take about a tenth of every commission, and if Etsy's Offsite Ads bring the buyer in, closer to a quarter. Below is every fee that applies to an Etsy art commission, a calculator, and what the same order leaves you elsewhere.
The short answer. On a $150 art commission, a US Etsy seller pays a $0.20 listing fee, a 6.5% transaction fee ($9.75) and payment processing of 3% plus $0.25 ($4.75), and keeps $135.30, a 9.8% cut. If the order came through Offsite Ads, Etsy takes another 15% ($22.50) and you keep $112.80. The same $150 commission keeps $138.00 on an 8% gig page and $145.50 on a 3% one, with no ad fee.
Etsy commission fee calculator
Put in the price of the commission and any shipping you charge, then choose whether the buyer arrived through Offsite Ads. The calculator applies Etsy's published $0.20 listing fee, 6.5% transaction fee and the US processing rate of 3% plus $0.25, all charged on the price plus shipping.
The same price on a gig page here keeps on Starter and on Studio, with no ad fee and nothing added to the client's bill.
How much commission does Etsy take?
Etsy takes about 9.5% to 10.4% of a US art commission before any advertising: 6.5% of the order total as a transaction fee, 3% plus $0.25 for card processing, and $0.20 to list it. Etsy charges the transaction fee on shipping and gift wrap too, so an order with $15 of shipping pays fees on the full amount. The fixed parts weigh most on cheap orders, which is why a $50 sketch loses a bigger share than a $1,000 painting.
| Commission | You keep, no ads | Etsy's cut | You keep, Offsite Ads 15% | Etsy's cut with ads |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| $50 sketch or headshot | $44.80 | 10.4% | $37.30 | 25.4% |
| $100 digital portrait | $90.05 | 10.0% | $75.05 | 25.0% |
| $150 pet portrait | $135.30 | 9.8% | $112.80 | 24.8% |
| $250 full body with background | $225.80 | 9.7% | $188.30 | 24.7% |
| $500 painted portrait | $452.05 | 9.6% | $377.05 | 24.6% |
| $1,000 large original | $904.55 | 9.5% | $804.55 | 19.5% |
The US processing rate of 3% plus $0.25 is the figure Etsy's processing article gave when we read it on 10 September 2026. It varies by the country of your bank account, and Etsy also charges it on any sales tax collected, which this table leaves out. If you list in a currency other than your payment account's, add 2.5% for conversion.
Does Etsy charge a fee for custom orders?
Yes, the same fees as any sale. When a buyer sends a custom order request, you agree the details in messages and then create a private listing for that one buyer. Etsy's help center puts the custom listing fee at the standard $0.20, and the 6.5% transaction fee and processing apply when the buyer pays. The private listing stays out of search and out of your public shop, and appears on your Sold Items page once it sells.
Two limits matter for artists. Etsy caps processing time on a custom order at 6 to 8 weeks, so a large painting with a long queue needs a start date agreed before you create the listing. And the help center states that private listings cannot be created for digital items at all, which leads to the next question.
How do digital art commissions work on Etsy?
Through a public made-to-order digital listing, not a private custom order. Because Etsy does not allow private listings for digital items, a digital portrait or character commission is usually sold as a regular listing that tells the buyer to send references after purchase, and you deliver the file later. It works, but every one of those listings costs $0.20 to publish and renew, the buyer pays before you have seen the brief, and there is no built-in step for a sketch approval or a milestone payment. For a $40 headshot that is fine. For a $400 illustration with revisions, it puts the scoping conversation after the money instead of before it.
Etsy Offsite Ads: the fee that can more than double the cut
Offsite Ads are Etsy's ads for your listings on Google, social media and partner sites, and you pay only when one of them leads to a sale. The catch is the rate. Etsy's fee schedule charges 15% of an attributed order for shops with under $10,000 in sales over the past 365 days, and 12% once a shop passes $10,000, capped at $100 per order. Shops under the threshold can opt out. Shops over it cannot, which means the more successful your Etsy shop gets, the less say you have.
On a $150 pet portrait, a 15% Offsite Ads fee is $22.50 on top of the $14.70 in regular fees, and the order keeps $112.80. The $100 cap only starts to help on orders over $667 at 15%, which is why the $1,000 row in the table above drops back to 19.5%. For most commission price points, an Offsite Ads order costs about a quarter of the sale.
What Etsy art commissions cost over a year
Per-order percentages hide the number that actually matters, which is the total. Here is a steady commission queue, ten $150 orders a month with no Offsite Ads, sold through each option. Our plan prices are included, because a subscription is part of the cost.
| Where you sell 120 commissions of $150 | Fees for the year | What it includes |
|---|---|---|
| Etsy | $1,764 | Listing, 6.5% transaction, 3% + $0.25 processing |
| Etsy with Etsy Plus | $1,884 | The above plus $10 a month |
| FreelanceNation Starter | $1,548 | 8% plus $9 a month |
| FreelanceNation Pro | $1,128 | 5% plus $19 a month |
| FreelanceNation Studio | $1,128 | 3% plus $49 a month |
| Fiverr | $3,600 | 20% from the seller, plus 5.5% added to each buyer |
If a quarter of those orders arrive through Offsite Ads, Etsy's total rises by another $675, to $2,439. The gap between Etsy and a direct gig page is about $200 to $650 a year on regular orders, and $900 to $1,300 once ads are involved. If you sell on several of these at once, a single place to track every payout by platform makes it obvious which channel is really paying for itself, because each one reports its own fees in its own format.
Etsy vs other places to sell art commissions
The same $150 commission, with no shipping, through the platforms artists usually compare. Ko-fi's processing is modeled at Stripe's 2.9% plus $0.30.
| Platform | You keep on $150 | Client pays | Monthly price |
|---|---|---|---|
| FreelanceNation Studio (3%) | $145.50 | $150.00 | $49 |
| FreelanceNation Pro (5%) | $142.50 | $150.00 | $19 |
| FreelanceNation Starter (8%) | $138.00 | $150.00 | $9 |
| VGen (5% + Stripe) | $137.85 | $150.00 | None |
| Ko-fi free plan (5% on commissions) | $137.85 | $150.00 | None |
| Etsy | $135.30 | $150.00 | None, Etsy Plus $10 optional |
| Fiverr | $120.00 | $158.25 | None |
| Etsy, Offsite Ads order | $112.80 | $150.00 | None |
Etsy on its own is not the most expensive option: Fiverr takes more on every order, and VGen and Ko-fi only beat it by about $2.50 on this price. What makes Etsy costly is the Offsite Ads row and the fact that it applies to shipping as well. Every platform is compared on the same commission in our guide to art commission sites and websites by fee, and VGen's full schedule is broken down in VGen fees per commission.
When Etsy is still the right place to sell commissions
Etsy's real product is its buyers. People search Etsy for "custom pet portrait" and "family portrait from photo" with a gift date in mind, and they already trust the checkout. If most of your orders are physical portraits bought as gifts by people who have never heard of you, that discovery is worth the fee, and no gig page brings you those strangers on day one.
The fee stops being worth it for the clients who were never Etsy's to begin with: repeat buyers, people who found you through your social accounts, and businesses ordering illustration for a product, a book or a brand. Sending them to an Etsy listing pays Etsy 10% or more for a sale it did not make. Those clients belong on a page with your own packages, where they see the price, order and pay, and a business client can be quoted properly. Our sell art commissions page shows what that page looks like, and the illustration rates guide covers how to price client work with usage rights, which Etsy listings are not built for.
How to price Etsy commissions so the fees are covered
Work out the price that nets what you want, rather than taking the fee out of your own pay. Divide your target plus the fixed $0.45 by 0.905 for a regular Etsy order. To net $150, list at about $166.24. If you are over the $10,000 threshold and cannot opt out of Offsite Ads, price for the worst case: dividing by 0.785 at 12% gives about $191.66, or by 0.755 at 15% gives $199.27.
Start from the net figure itself, though, not from what other Etsy shops charge. Our art commission prices guide builds a price sheet from the roughly $77 an hour a US artist needs to match the federal median wage, and the freelance fee calculator runs any order size through every platform at once.
Is it cheaper to sell art commissions on Etsy or on your own page?
On your own page, for orders you did not need Etsy to find. At $150 an order, Etsy keeps $14.70 and an 8% gig page keeps $12, a 3% page $4.50, and an Offsite Ads sale on Etsy $37.20. The honest split most working artists land on is to keep an Etsy shop for gift buyers who arrive through Etsy search, and send every repeat client and business order to a page they own, where the fee is lower and the client relationship stays with the artist.