Blog · 5 min read

How to Calculate Your Real Profit on Etsy (Not Just Sales)

By the Oak & Tally team

Your Etsy stats show views, visits, orders and revenue. They don't show the most important number: how much you actually keep.

Plenty of sellers with healthy-looking revenue discover they're earning very little once every cost is counted. Others find one or two listings quietly carry the whole shop. Either way, you can only make good decisions when you know your real profit.

Here's how to calculate it, from a single order up to a full monthly profit and loss.

Oak & Tally is not affiliated with or endorsed by Etsy. Fee rates change and vary by country. Check your own Etsy Payment account and the current Etsy fees page for your rates.

Revenue vs. profit: a quick definition

• Revenue (or gross revenue) is what buyers paid you for items and shipping, minus any discounts you gave.
• Profit (or net profit) is what's left after every cost: platform fees, materials, packaging, postage, advertising and other business expenses.

If you want, you can also count your own labor as a cost. That shows you whether the shop pays you a fair wage, not just whether it's "in the black".

Sales tax that Etsy collects and pays on your behalf isn't your revenue, so leave it out.

Step 1: Calculate profit on a single order

Start with one order. You need:

1. Item total (price × quantity)
2. Shipping charged to the buyer
3. Discount you gave, if any
4. Fees: - Transaction fee (a percentage of item total + shipping) - Payment processing fee (a percentage + a fixed amount, charged once per order) - Listing fee (per item sold, since Etsy auto-renews the listing) - Offsite Ads fee, if the sale came from an offsite ad
5. Cost of goods: materials, packaging and (optionally) labor for each item
6. Actual shipping cost: what you paid for the label

Then:

Order profit = item total + shipping charged − discount − total fees − cost of goods − actual shipping cost

Example

A buyer orders one ceramic mug at $32 with $6 shipping. (Rates below are illustrative; use your own.)

Line	Amount
Item total	$32.00
Shipping charged	$6.00
Gross revenue	$38.00
Transaction fee (6.5% × $38)	−$2.47
Processing (3% × $38 + $0.25)	−$1.39
Listing fee	−$0.20
Cost of goods (clay, glaze, firing share, box)	−$9.50
Actual postage	−$7.10
Order profit	$17.34

That's a 46% margin on gross revenue, which is healthy. Now imagine the same order came through an offsite ad at a 15% fee: that's another $5.70 gone, and profit falls to $11.64. Same mug, very different result.

Step 2: Roll orders up into profit per listing

Once you can calculate one order, add up every order for each product:

• Units sold
• Revenue
• Fees
• Cost of goods
• Shipping cost
• Profit, profit per unit and margin

Then rank them. This is often eye-opening. Your best seller by orders may rank fifth by profit because it's cheap, heavy to ship or often discounted. A slower listing might earn double per unit.

Use this to decide:

• Which products to promote, restock and photograph better
• Which to reprice or rethink
• Which to quietly retire

Step 3: Build a monthly profit and loss (P&L)

A monthly P&L adds the costs that aren't tied to a single order: things like packaging bought in bulk, software subscriptions, Etsy Ads (onsite), equipment and craft fair booth fees.

Each month, track:

• Orders
• Item sales, shipping income and discounts → gross revenue
• Transaction, processing, listing, offsite ad and other fees → total fees
• Cost of goods and shipping cost
• Other expenses
• Net profit and margin

Twelve months side by side shows you seasonality. When are your busy months? When do costs spike? That helps you plan stock, marketing and cash flow.

Step 4: Watch a few key ratios

You don't need dozens of metrics. These four tell you most of what you need:

1. Net margin (net profit ÷ gross revenue). Many handmade sellers aim for at least 25–40%, but it depends on your product.
2. Fees as a percentage of revenue. If it climbs, check offsite ads, discounts and payment fees.
3. Average profit per order. Rising is good; falling suggests discounts or shipping costs are biting.
4. Best product by profit. Not by sales.

Step 5: Plan a tax set-aside from profit

Because profit, not revenue, is generally what's taxed, a monthly profit figure also tells you how much to put aside. Many sellers move a fixed percentage of monthly profit into a separate account. This is not tax advice; ask a tax professional what percentage suits you.

Where to get the numbers

• Orders: Etsy lets you download a CSV of your sold orders from Shop Manager (look for the download data / CSV option in Settings). Copy the columns you need into your tracker.
• Fees: your Etsy Payment account shows a breakdown of fees per period.
• Costs: your own records of materials and packaging, ideally cost per item.
• Postage: your label purchase history.

Common mistakes when calculating Etsy profit

• Ignoring the fee on shipping. The transaction fee usually applies to shipping charged too.
• Counting the fixed processing fee per item instead of per order. With multi-item orders, that overstates fees.
• Forgetting renewals. Each sale of a multi-quantity listing triggers another listing fee.
• Leaving out your time. It's still a cost, even if you don't pay yourself yet.
• Only checking once a year. Monthly reviews catch problems while you can still fix them.

Let a spreadsheet do it

We built the Handmade Seller Profit Tracker so you don't have to do this by hand:

• Paste your sold orders into the paste zone, and every fee calculates per order (with the fixed processing fee counted once per order)
• Products tab with unit cost, the price you need and current margin
• Listing Profit tab, ranked by profit
• Monthly P&L for 12 months, plus an expenses log
• Fee Calculator for what-if pricing on a single sale
• Dashboard with revenue, net profit, margin, fees % of revenue, average profit per order, best product and a tax set-aside estimate

It works in Google Sheets and Excel, with no macros and no subscription, and comes with a filled demo to learn from. See the Profit Tracker →

If you also want pricing, inventory and bookkeeping, the Maker Back-Office Bundle includes all three templates for less than buying them separately. See the bundle →

Quick recap

1. Revenue isn't profit. Count every fee and cost.
2. Calculate profit per order, then roll it up per listing.
3. Rank listings by profit, not sales.
4. Keep a monthly P&L and watch four key ratios.
5. Set aside tax money from profit.

Revenue is vanity. Profit is sanity. Know your numbers. Keep making.

General information only, not financial or tax advice. Etsy fees vary by country and change over time; check your own account for current rates.

Not tax, legal or accounting advice. Our templates are organizing and estimating tools; results depend on the data and rates you enter. Etsy is a trademark of Etsy, Inc. Oak & Tally is independent and not affiliated with, sponsored or endorsed by Etsy, Inc. Screenshots show a fictional demo shop.