How Much Does It Cost To Start An Etsy Shop?
You might be wondering “how much does it cost to start an Etsy shop?” And the answer is… As much or as little as you want!
Can I start an Etsy shop for free?
Technically yes. You can start an Etsy shop for free. But you won’t have any listings. So in reality, it will cost you at least $0.20. That’s because Etsy will charge you $0.20 for every listing you put up in your store. But that’s pretty freaking close to being free. Which makes Etsy a really great opportunity. Since the start up costs are so low, it’s very easy to put up a couple of listings and see if you get any traction. With that in mind, you have the ability to control how much your Etsy store costs because you’re in control over how many listings you publish. If you want to start your store with some free listings, use my referral link to open your store and you’ll get 40 free listings.
When do I get charged Etsy fees?
You will get charged the $0.20 listing fee up front. So if you list an item and it never sells, you’re only out $0.20. However, you will get charged Etsy fees when you sell an item. The fees will come out of your earnings instead of being paid up front. In my opinion, this is a huge benefit of selling with Etsy. In fact, there have been tons of items I have listed just to see if they would ever sell. Some do, some don’t. But with amazing mockups and digital products, you don’t even necessarily need to have inventory before you open your Etsy shop.
When I first started my Etsy shop, I didn’t have any inventory on hand. Instead, I printed cards as they were ordered. In fact, I didn’t have any inventory at all until I did my first pop up shop!
Do I need to pay for Etsy Ads as a new Etsy shop?
Nope! You can opt out of those as long as you’ve made less than $100,000 on Etsy in the last 365 days. Of course you can always run ads on your own if you’d like to pay the extra fees, but I don’t recommend doing that until you know which of your products sell really well and you have your prices optimized so that the additional ad fees don’t cut too far into your profit margins.
Overall, the cost to start an Etsy shop is quite low. Especially compared to other sites like Shopify where you have to pay both fees AND a monthly subscription cost. So if you’re just starting out and want to try selling your products, Etsy is a great place to start!
Have any other questions about starting an Etsy shop? Ask them in the comments!
XOXO,
Tiffany