Search "Etsy vs Squarespace fees" and you'll find the same headline everywhere: Etsy takes 10–15% of every sale, Squarespace takes 0%. So Squarespace wins, right? Not so fast. That comparison is comparing two completely different pricing models, and if you pick based on the headline you can easily end up paying more — or worse, paying for a store nobody visits. Here's the honest math for 2026.
How Etsy charges: per sale
Etsy has no meaningful monthly cost (the optional Etsy Plus is about $10/mo and most sellers skip it). Instead it charges on every order:
- $0.20 listing fee per item, which renews every time the item sells
- 6.5% transaction fee on the item price plus shipping and gift wrap
- Payment processing — 3% + $0.25 in the US, higher elsewhere
- Offsite Ads — 12% or 15%, but only on sales Etsy's ads brought you
For a typical US seller that's roughly 10–12% per sale before Offsite Ads. We break every line down in Etsy fees explained and how much Etsy takes from a sale.
How Squarespace charges: flat monthly
Squarespace rebuilt its plans in late 2025, and in 2026 the commerce line-up is Basic, Core, Plus, and Advanced. The key detail buried under "0% transaction fees" is that "0%" only applies to some plans:
- Basic — $19/mo: still charges a 2% Squarespace transaction fee on physical products (and 7% on digital content and memberships). Not zero.
- Core — $29/mo: 0% on physical goods, but still a 5% fee on digital products.
- Plus — $49/mo and Advanced — $99/mo: 0% Squarespace transaction fee across the board.
Those prices assume annual billing (paying yearly knocks up to ~36% off the monthly rate). And "0% Squarespace fee" never means free: you still pay your card processor — around 2.9% + $0.30 per transaction, similar to Etsy's processing cut. So on every platform, the card fee is roughly a wash. The real difference is Etsy's per-sale percentage versus Squarespace's fixed monthly bill.
The break-even point
Because one cost is per-sale and the other is fixed, the honest question isn't "which percentage is lower" — it's how many sales you make. Card processing cancels out, so compare Etsy's extra per-sale fees ($0.20 listing + 6.5%) against Squarespace's flat monthly.
On a $25 order, Etsy's listing + transaction fee is about $1.83 ($0.20 + $1.63). Squarespace Core costs $29/mo flat. So Core only starts saving you money once you're making more than about 16 sales a month at that price point ($29 ÷ $1.83 ≈ 16). Below that, Etsy's pay-as-you-go is genuinely cheaper — you don't owe anything in a slow month. Above it, Squarespace's flat fee wins and keeps winning as volume grows. Run your own number with our free Etsy fee calculator to see your per-sale Etsy cost, then divide your Squarespace plan by it.
The hidden cost every comparison skips
Here's what "0% fees" quietly leaves out: Squarespace doesn't bring you a single customer. Etsy's fee is really the price of standing inside a marketplace where millions of buyers are already searching for handmade goods. A Squarespace store is a beautiful empty shop on a street with no foot traffic — you have to drive every visitor yourself through SEO, social media, or paid ads. Paid ads cost money that doesn't show up in the "0% fee" headline, and they often cost far more per sale than Etsy's percentage. A cheaper fee on zero sales is the most expensive plan there is.
So which should you pick?
There's no universal answer, but a fair rule of thumb: if you're starting out or selling in low volume, Etsy's per-sale model costs you nothing in quiet months and hands you built-in traffic. If you have steady volume and your own audience to send to a site, Squarespace's flat fee plus full brand ownership can be the cheaper, stronger long-term home. Many sellers eventually run both — Etsy for discovery, their own site for repeat buyers. The same "flat vs per-sale" logic applies to Etsy vs Shopify if you're weighing that too.
Know your real Etsy number first
You can't judge whether it's worth leaving Etsy until you know what Etsy actually costs you — not the published rates, but the real fees on your real orders, per product. That's the job Seller Profit Lens does: it connects to your shop read-only, reads the exact fees Etsy charged to the cent, and subtracts your own costs to show true per-product profit. Then a platform comparison stops being guesswork. See how to know if your Etsy shop is profitable — it's free in beta right now. Join the waitlist →