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Etsy does not raise the fee card for Q4. The listing fee stays $0.20, the transaction fee stays 6.5% of item price plus shipping you charge, and US Etsy Payments stays 3% + $0.25. What changes is the stack on top: more Offsite Ads attributed orders, a Black Friday discount on the same fee base, and a last-ship date that is a carrier fact, not an Etsy setting.
Type the calculator defaults — a $35.00 item and
$5.99 shipping — into the
Etsy Fee Calculator. With Offsite
Ads off, the same etsy.ts file this page imports returns
$22.15 / 54.0%.
Toggle Optional 15% Offsite Ads and it falls to
$16.00 / 39.0%.
If the shop is still under $10,000 trailing sales, that toggle is a
decision. If it has ever crossed $10,000, the 12% rate is
mandatory on attributed orders for the life of the shop.
Case study · illustrated math
Same $35.00 listing — Offsite Ads off vs 15%
Item $35.00 + shipping charged $5.99 = $40.99 fee base. COGS $10.00, actual postage $4.50. Listing $0.20 + 6.5% transaction + 3% + $0.25 processing on both. Optional Offsite Ads adds 15% of the sale, capped at $100.00.
Ads off
$22.15 keep6.5% txn + 3% processing on $40.99 · no Offsite Ads.
15% Offsite Ads
$16.00 keepSame card plus 15% attributed ads ($6.15), under the $100.00 cap.
Fee verdict on this SKU: ads off keeps $22.15 (54.0%); optional 15% Offsite Ads leaves $16.00 (39.0%). Mandatory 12% is $17.23. Q4 does not change the card — it changes how often the ads layer fires. Reproduce it in the Etsy Fee Calculator.
The Etsy Q4 2026 calendar at a glance
Black Friday 2026 falls on November 27 and Cyber Monday on November 30. Etsy does not publish a separate peak-fee schedule or a shop-wide Christmas cutoff. The dates that actually bind a US shop are the carrier send-by dates for delivery before December 25 — USPS recommended Dec 17 for Ground Advantage, Dec 18 for Priority Mail, and Dec 19 for Priority Mail Express in the contiguous US — minus your own processing time. Treat the timeline below as a planning anchor and confirm every ship-by date in your carrier account before you put it on the listing.
What Etsy actually charges in Q4
Nothing on the fee card is seasonal. The figures below come from SellerGains' Etsy dataset (verified 2026-10-01 against the Etsy Fees & Payments Policy). When the policy changes, this page updates with it. An October 2026 re-check of the Fees & Payments Policy and the Help fee table found the same numbers.
Etsy US fee card · verified 2026-10-01
| Line item | Rate | What to know for Q4 |
|---|---|---|
| Listing fee | $0.20 | Charged when you publish or renew. Listings expire after four months — a Q4 refresh still costs $0.20. |
| Transaction fee | 6.5% | Runs on item price + shipping charged + gift wrap. A holiday shipping add-on raises the fee base, not just postage. |
| US Etsy Payments | 3% + $0.25 | Same base as the transaction fee. Non-US processing can differ — verify in your payment account. |
| Offsite Ads — under $10k | 15% | Only on orders attributed to an offsite click within 30 days. Opt-out is available until the shop has ever hit $10,000. |
| Offsite Ads — ever ≥ $10k | 12% | Required for the life of the shop. You cannot pause it for December. Capped at $100.00 per attributed order. |
Etsy Ads (on-site) are a separate seller-set budget and are not in
etsy.ts. Currency conversion, Pattern, and Regulatory
Operating Fees are also out of this file — verify those lines in Shop
Manager.
Two things follow. First, the 6.5% transaction fee is not where Q4 margin usually disappears — Offsite Ads at 15% is 2.3× that line on the calculator default SKU. Second, Etsy charges the transaction and processing percentages on shipping you collect. A “free shipping, postage rolled into price” listing does not dodge the fee; a separate shipping charge does not hide it either. The Etsy Fee Calculator applies both percentages to item + shipping charged.
SKU A: calculator default, three Offsite Ads states
SKU A is the tool default: $35.00 item, $5.99 charged to the buyer, $10.00 product cost, $4.50 actual postage. Sale base $40.99. Listing $0.20, transaction $2.66, processing $1.48 — then Offsite Ads either stay off, hit the optional 15% rate, or hit the mandatory 12% rate.
SKU A · $35.00 + $5.99 ship charged · $10.00 COGS · $4.50 postage
| Line item | No Offsite Ads | Optional 15% | Mandatory 12% |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sale (item + shipping charged) | $40.99 | $40.99 | $40.99 |
| Listing fee | $0.20 | $0.20 | $0.20 |
| Transaction fee (6.5%) | $2.66 | $2.66 | $2.66 |
| Processing (3% + $0.25) | $1.48 | $1.48 | $1.48 |
| Offsite Ads | — | $6.15 | $4.92 |
| Net profit / unit | $22.15 | $16.00 | $17.23 |
| Margin on sale | 54.0% · healthy | 39.0% · healthy | 42.0% · healthy |
Profit = sale − listing − transaction − processing − Offsite Ads − COGS − actual postage. Reproduce in the calculator with the defaults, then the Offsite Ads dropdown. The $100.00 cap does not bind on a $40.99 order.
If A — trailing 365-day sales have always stayed under $10,000 and Shop Manager still lets you opt out — leave Offsite Ads off when organic and Etsy Ads already convert. The calculator default stays $22.15 / 54.0% healthy. If B — the shop has ever crossed $10,000 — budget 12% on every attributed order ($17.23 / 42.0% on this SKU) and do not plan a December pause. Attribution is a 30-day window after the offsite click, on any item in the shop, unless the buyer’s last click is an Etsy Ad.
Black Friday on the same fee base
A 25% sale on SKU A cuts the item to $26.25 and leaves shipping charged at $5.99, so the fee base becomes $32.24. Transaction and processing fall with the sale. Offsite Ads, if the order is attributed, do too — and still take more than the transaction fee.
SKU A · 25% off the item · same shipping charged, COGS, postage
| Line item | List · no ads | BFCM · no ads | BFCM · 15% ads |
|---|---|---|---|
| Item price | $35.00 | $26.25 | $26.25 |
| Sale (item + shipping charged) | $40.99 | $32.24 | $32.24 |
| Etsy fees (listing + txn + processing + ads) | $4.34 | $3.51 | $8.35 |
| Net profit / unit | $22.15 | $14.23 | $9.39 |
| Margin on sale | 54.0% · healthy | 44.1% · healthy | 29.1% · healthy |
The 25% discount costs $8.75 of item revenue. Stacked with 15% Offsite Ads, SKU A profit falls $12.75 versus the list / no-ads column and still clears 25% on this cost structure. Change the item price to $26.25 in the calculator to reproduce the last two columns.
SKU A can take a 25% cut and an attributed Offsite Ad and remain healthy. That is not a license to copy the sale onto a tighter SKU. SKU B keeps the same $10.00 COGS and $4.50 postage on a $19.99 item:
SKU B · $19.99 + $5.99 ship charged · same $10.00 / $4.50 costs
| Scenario | Sale | Offsite Ads | Profit / unit | Margin |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| List · no ads | $25.98 | — | $8.56 | 33.0% · healthy |
| List · 15% ads | $25.98 | $3.90 | $4.66 | 18.0% · thin |
| 25% off · 15% ads | $20.98 | $3.15 | $0.89 | 4.2% · thin |
| 40% off · 15% ads | $17.98 | $2.70 | -$1.38 | -7.6% · loss |
Same calculator, different item price. SKU B at list + 15% is already thin ($4.66 / 18.0%). A 40% Black Friday cut on an attributed order is a loss (-$1.38).
If A — contribution after $0.20 + 6.5% + 3%+$0.25 still looks like SKU A — a 25% sale plus attributed Offsite Ads still screens healthy in the calculator. If B — COGS and postage eat most of a $19.99 sticker — do not stack a deep discount on Offsite Ads traffic; 40% off plus 15% is a loss on SKU B. Type your own item price before you accept a sale price from a marketplace prompt.
The $100.00 Offsite Ads cap
Offsite Ads are capped at $100.00 on a single
attributed order. On SKU A the cap never fires
($6.15 raw at 15%). It starts to matter on
large custom or furniture-scale tickets. A $750.00 fee base at
15% is $112.50 raw, then $100.00 after the cap
($12.50 not charged). The calculator uses
the same Math.min against offsiteAdsCapUsd.
There is no cap on how many attributed orders Etsy can bill in the
30-day window.
Christmas last-ship is a carrier date, not an Etsy fee
Publish a last-order date, not a vibe. USPS recommended the following send-by dates for expected delivery before December 25, 2026 (contiguous US), announced September 22, 2026:
- USPS Ground Advantage: Dec 17 (Dec 16 to Alaska, Hawaii, Puerto Rico, and U.S. territories)
- Priority Mail: Dec 18
- Priority Mail Express: Dec 19
Those are ship-by dates. Your listing cutoff is ship-by minus processing. With a 3-day processing time and Ground Advantage, last order is about December 14 for the lower 48 — a seller assumption, not a USPS date. Put the date in the shipping profile and the shop announcement. International and military tables were scheduled to appear on the USPS holiday page from mid-October; do not reuse last year’s foreign cutoffs. FedEx and UPS publish their own service-by-service calendars — verify those lanes in the carrier account rather than copying a blog’s blended “December 16” line.
Print-on-demand adds production in front of the same ship-by date. Confirm print + transit in the provider dashboard before you promise Christmas delivery; Printful* is the owned-fulfillment POD option already on the Printify vs Printful page. If production plus postage cannot clear Dec 17 Ground Advantage, stop the Christmas promise on that SKU and sell for January instead.
Q4 checklist by month
- Early October: holiday listings live; run SKU A / SKU B math in the Etsy Fee Calculator with Offsite Ads off, 15%, and 12%; decide the opt-out while you still have one.
- November: lock Black Friday prices against the table above; do not accept a 40% cut on a SKU B cost structure. Watch the Offsite Ads dashboard for attributed-order share as gift search rises.
- Early December: publish last-order dates (carrier send-by minus processing). Switch remaining open listings to Priority or Express only if the buyer-paid shipping still clears after 6.5% + 3%+$0.25 on the higher postage.
- After the cutoff: mark Christmas delivery as closed, keep the shop open for non-dated gifts, and do not cut prices again just to “use up” Q4 ads traffic.
Cross-platform peak is a different fee stack. TikTok Shop’s Q4 calendar and FBT inbound sit in the TikTok Shop Q4 playbook; Amazon’s inbound ladder and peak storage sit in Amazon Q4 2026 prep. To put the same SKU next to five other marketplaces, use the Marketplace Fee Comparison Calculator.
Frequently asked questions
Does Etsy charge higher seller fees in Q4 2026?
No. The fee card does not change for peak. US sellers still pay $0.20 per listing or renewal, a 6.5% transaction fee on item price plus shipping charged and gift wrap, and 3% + $0.25 Etsy Payments processing. Offsite Ads stay 15% (shops under $10,000 trailing 365-day sales, opt-out available) or 12% once the shop has ever crossed $10,000 (required for the life of the shop), capped at $100.00 per attributed order. What rises in Q4 is how often Offsite Ads attribute an order, how deep a Black Friday discount sits on that same fee base, and how little slack you have before the carrier last-ship date.
What is the last day to ship an Etsy order for Christmas 2026?
Etsy does not publish a shop-wide last-ship date. USPS recommended send-by dates for expected delivery before December 25, 2026 in the contiguous US are Dec 17 for Ground Advantage, Dec 18 for Priority Mail, and Dec 19 for Priority Mail Express (Ground Advantage to Alaska, Hawaii, Puerto Rico, and U.S. territories is Dec 16). Those are ship-by dates, not order-by dates. Subtract your processing time — 3 days in the worked example — and publish that last-order date in the listing and shop announcement. Confirm the live USPS holiday page and your carrier account before you lock the copy; international and military dates were scheduled to post mid-October.
How do I reproduce the $35 Q4 table in the Etsy Fee Calculator?
Open the Etsy Fee Calculator. Leave the defaults: item $35.00, shipping charged $5.99, product cost $10.00, actual shipping $4.50. With Offsite Ads off, net profit / item should read $22.15 (54.0%). Switch Offsite Ads to Optional 15% for $16.00 / 39.0%, or Mandatory 12% for $17.23 / 42.0%. For the Black Friday column, change the item price to $26.25 and keep shipping charged at $5.99 — 15% Offsite Ads should land on $9.39 / 29.1%.
Should I opt out of Etsy Offsite Ads before Q4?
If your shop has always stayed under $10,000 in Etsy sales in any consecutive 365-day period, Offsite Ads are optional. On the calculator default SKU, turning 15% Offsite Ads on costs $6.15 and drops profit from $22.15 to $16.00. If Q4 organic and Etsy Ads already cover demand, opting out keeps that line at zero — verify the toggle in Shop Manager. Once the shop has ever reached $10,000, participation is required for the life of the shop at 12%. That is not a Q4 setting you can pause for December.
Does the 6.5% transaction fee apply to holiday shipping I charge the buyer?
Yes. The 6.5% transaction fee and the 3% + $0.25 processing fee both run on item price plus shipping charged (and gift wrap). Free-shipping listings that roll postage into the item price do not escape the fee — the same dollars sit in the item field. Charging $5.99 on top of $35.00 makes a $40.99 fee base in the worked example. The calculator applies both percentages to that sum.
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