An Etsy alternative where the customer stays yours

What a marketplace sale costs

On a typical US Etsy sale there are several separate charges: a listing fee, a transaction fee on the item and its shipping, a payment processing fee, and, when the sale came through one of Etsy's offsite ads, an ads fee on top. As listed on Etsy's fee pages in September 2026: $0.20 a listing, 6.5% transaction fee, 3% + $0.25 payment processing for a seller with a US bank account, and 15% for an Offsite Ads sale (12% once a shop has made $10,000 in a year), capped at $100 an order. Shops under that mark can opt out of Offsite Ads.

For a US seller, a $30 order (shipping included, before sales tax) that did not come through an ad carries about $3.30 in Etsy fees, roughly 11%. Through an Offsite Ad it is about $7.80 at 15%, or $6.90 at 12%.

What a flat monthly shop costs instead

Here every shop pays a flat plan, not a percentage of its sales: the Maker plan is $19 a month, the Workshop plan $39 a month. The customer pays your own Stripe or PayPal account directly, and the processor charges its normal rate. At Stripe's standard US rate for domestic cards (2.9% + 30¢ in September 2026), a $30 order costs about $1.17; PayPal's standard rates are higher, about $1.39 to $1.54 on the same order. Check your processor's current rate.

So on $30 orders paid through Stripe at that rate, each sale keeps about $2.13 more than an Etsy sale that did not come through an ad, and the Maker plan covers itself at about 9 sales a month; with PayPal it takes a sale or two more. Everything after that is yours.

When Etsy is still the better choice

• You sell a few things a month: a flat plan can cost more than the fees it replaces.
• Most of your buyers find you through Etsy's own search, and you have no other way to reach them yet.
• You can keep both: Etsy for the buyers who find you there, and your own shop for the people you reach yourself, through your own profiles, markets and mailing list.

What changes with your own shop

• Your own address, which you can put on a card, a label or a market stall sign.
• Your customers' orders stay in your shop, and your shop shows only your products: no other seller's listings beside yours.
• You are still found: shops that opt in and are approved are listed on Pete's Marketplace, where there is no paid top spot.
• Bringing your catalogue across: products and prices import from an Etsy, eBay or spreadsheet export (from Etsy, each listing's main photo too).