At 100 sales per month of a $50 handmade item, Etsy's marketplace costs roughly $520 in fees while Shopify costs about $214. At 10 sales per month, Etsy costs about $4.40 less. The Shopify vs Etsy decision hinges on where you are today and where your business is heading, and the math shifts dramatically as your sales volume grows, with the breakeven occurring around $1,350 per month in sales.
Most makers frame this as marketplace convenience versus storefront control. The decision comes down to business trajectory: are you testing whether people will buy your hand-poured candles, or are you building a candle brand that customers seek out by name? That distinction shapes everything from your fee structure (10.4% on Etsy vs. 3.89% on Shopify at higher volumes) to your customer relationships (marketplace traffic vs. owned email lists) to your ceiling for growth (70-variant limits on Etsy vs. 2,048 on Shopify). More importantly, it determines whether you're spending $5+ per sale on platform fees or $1.75, a difference that compounds to $651+ monthly savings once you hit consistent $10,000 monthly revenue.
How Etsy Works for Makers
Etsy works best when you want marketplace traffic quickly. It gives handmade sellers access to a large buyer pool actively searching for unique, crafted goods.
Etsy is a top online marketplace globally, and third-party measurement firms estimate it receives hundreds of millions of visits in peak months. For example, Similarweb data provides current traffic estimates and seasonality patterns for etsy.com.
The Fee Reality
The barrier to entry is genuinely low: $0.20 to list an item, and no monthly subscription is required. The per-sale costs add up quickly.
Every transaction carries a 6.5% transaction fee on the total order value (including shipping), plus payment processing of approximately 3% + $0.25. Once your shop exceeds $10,000 in annual revenue, Offsite Ads at 12% on ad-generated sales can push total fees on individual orders above 25%.
Discovery and Its Limits
Etsy's search algorithm rewards relevance and proven performance. Listings tend to rank better with strong sales history, high conversion rates, and positive engagement metrics, creating a catch-22 where new sellers need visibility to generate the sales history the algorithm rewards. Etsy describes key factors in its search guidance.
Established sellers with many reviews often outrank newcomers for competitive search terms, making organic discoverability harder as categories mature. Etsy has also stated that, for US sellers, listings with shipping prices below $6 can receive priority in search. See Etsy's shipping guidance.
The marketplace also limits what sellers can learn about customers. Sellers can see high-level shop analytics in Etsy Stats, but Etsy controls the customer relationship and the primary communication channel.
How Shopify Works for Makers
Shopify works best when you want a standalone store you control, and you can commit to generating your own traffic.
Shopify provides the infrastructure for an independent online store where you own customer data and control your brand experience. You start with zero built-in marketplace traffic and you drive sales through your own marketing.
Subscription Pricing
Shopify's Basic plan starts at $39/month (or $29/month with annual billing). Payment processing through Shopify Payments runs 2.9% + $0.30 per transaction, with no additional platform commission.
Ownership and Brand Control
The core advantage is ownership. Shopify sellers control their custom domain, customer data, email lists, and complete purchase history. Shopify documents customer export options in its customer tools.
Customers who buy from your Shopify store remember your brand directly. You also control the post-purchase experience, which supports repeat purchases and direct launches of new products.
Getting those customers requires consistent marketing work. Shopify lays out typical channels and expectations in its marketing guide.
Shopify vs Etsy: Head-to-Head Comparison
Five factors separate these platforms in practice: pricing structure, discovery versus ownership, customization depth, scalability ceiling, and the marketing effort required to generate sales.
Pricing Structure
The cost comparison flips at a clear threshold. Based on official fee structures from both platforms, including listing fees ($0.20 per item), transaction fees (6.5% of order value), payment processing (~3% + $0.25), and conditional offsite advertising fees, here's how they compare at different monthly revenue levels with a $50 average order value:
- $500/month (10 sales): Etsy costs ~$52 (10.4%) vs. Shopify Basic ~$56.40 (11.28%). Etsy saves $4.40/month.
- $2,000/month (40 sales): Etsy costs ~$208 (10.4%) vs. Shopify Basic ~$109 (5.45%). Shopify saves $99.00/month.
- $5,000/month (100 sales): Etsy costs ~$520 (10.4%) vs. Shopify Basic ~$214 (4.28%). Shopify saves $306.00/month.
- $10,000/month (200 sales): Etsy costs ~$1,040 (10.4%) vs. Shopify Basic ~$389 (3.89%). Shopify saves $651.00/month.
Discovery vs. Ownership
Etsy wins for discovery. The marketplace provides access to buyers searching for handmade goods through its algorithm-driven search and browse features. A new jewelry maker can list earrings and potentially make a sale by tapping into Etsy's existing base of active buyers.
Shopify wins for ownership. Every customer who buys from your Shopify store becomes part of your email list, your retargeting audience, and your repeat-buyer pipeline. Shopify supports loyalty and retention tactics through its platform features and partner ecosystem; see Shopify's retention guide.
The cost of Etsy's discovery model becomes clear at scale. A jewelry seller whose traffic comes entirely through Etsy has limited ways to reach past buyers outside Etsy's messaging, and product launches stay tied to platform visibility.
Brooklyn Candle Studio started on Etsy for market validation, then expanded to Shopify to deepen brand control and direct customer relationships.
Customization and Branding
Etsy confines every shop to the same marketplace template. Sellers can upload a banner, add a logo, and arrange featured items within shop customization. However, they cannot modify page layouts, change typography, access HTML or CSS code, customize checkout pages, or control navigation structure. Every Etsy product page uses a consistent template structure, and the store URL remains at etsy.com/shop/yourname. Even if you redirect a domain, buyers land on Etsy URLs.
Shopify offers Shopify themes with access to theme code in HTML, CSS, and Liquid. Sellers control navigation menus, color schemes, typography, and product page layouts, with domain setup supported via Shopify's domain docs. (Checkout customization varies by plan and configuration.)
For makers whose brand identity differentiates them from mass-market alternatives, this gap matters. A ceramics studio selling $200 bowls benefits from a visual experience that supports premium positioning. Shopify's theme control supports that differentiation, while a standardized Etsy template keeps buyers one click away from competitors.
Scalability
Etsy caps product variations at 70 combinations per listing. A jeweler offering 4 metals × 5 stones × 4 sizes hits 80 combinations, forcing separate listings and complicating inventory tracking. Shopify supports 2,048 variants per product.
Multi-channel selling highlights the gap further. Shopify integrates with multiple sales channels and supports inventory syncing through its platform and channel ecosystem; see Shopify's sales channels. Etsy's primary focus remains selling within its own marketplace.
Jono Pandolfi Designs scaled to seven-figure revenue selling handmade ceramics, showing how Shopify's infrastructure can support maker-led growth. The Woobles grew from garage operations to large-scale production in under four years, citing Shopify's ecosystem and platform reliability during traffic spikes.
Setup and Marketing Effort
Etsy gets sellers to market faster. The Etsy launch guide estimates basic shop setup can take a few hours to two days, with additional time for strong photography, tagging, and listing quality.
Shopify's setup can also be fast, especially with an off-the-shelf theme, and Shopify provides a launch checklist. The bigger variable is sales velocity. A Shopify store typically relies on content, email, social, and paid acquisition until organic traffic builds.
Ongoing marketing tells a similar story. Etsy sellers often spend weekly time on promotion while benefiting from marketplace search and browse traffic (see Etsy's marketing tips). Shopify sellers commonly spend more time building their traffic engine through content creation, SEO, email campaigns, and paid ads.
Matching Your Business Stage to the Right Platform
The Shopify vs Etsy comparison produces different winners depending on where your business sits today.
Testing a product idea with minimal investment: Etsy. The combination of low upfront costs (starting with listing fees at $0.20 per item), built-in traffic from Etsy's active buyers, and pay-per-sale pricing makes it ideal for validating whether anyone wants your hand-stitched wallets before committing to monthly subscriptions and traffic-building responsibilities.
Scaling a recognized brand past $30K annually: Shopify. Fee savings compound, customer data ownership supports direct marketing, and multi-channel tools support growth. Shopify shares common migration patterns in its Etsy migration coverage.
Running both platforms strategically: Many makers maintain Etsy for marketplace discovery while building a Shopify store for brand development and repeat customers.
When Neither Platform Fits
Some makers hit limitations that neither Etsy nor Shopify handles well natively.
For example, a jeweler who needs a visual product configurator with live previews for engravings may find Etsy relies on buyer notes and messages. Shopify can support configurators through themes and third-party solutions, and highly customized checkout experiences may require higher-tier plans; Shopify outlines checkout capabilities in its checkout help.
This is where Lovable's AI builder can fill the gap.
Instead of wrestling with platform constraints, you can describe what you need (a ring configurator with live engraving previews, a deposit-based ordering flow) and build it. Think of it as vibe coding your storefront: describe the experience, and Lovable generates production-ready code.
Use Agent Mode for autonomous AI development with independent codebase exploration, proactive debugging, real-time web search, and automated problem-solving. Use Chat Mode as an interactive collaborative interface for planning, debugging, and iterative development with multi-step reasoning capabilities. Or use Visual Edits to click and modify interface elements directly in real time without writing prompts.
Developers can access the full TypeScript and React codebase via GitHub sync to extend and customize further. Connect Stripe payments and Supabase data, then ship to a custom domain. If you want a head start, start from an ecommerce template and customize from there.
Choose Based on Your Growth Goals
The Shopify vs Etsy decision maps to different business models and growth stages. Below $1,350/month in sales, Etsy's marketplace traffic and pay-per-sale model costs less. Above that threshold, Shopify's lower per-transaction fees and customer data ownership create compounding advantages: $7,812 annually at $10,000/month in revenue.
This financial advantage assumes you can generate equivalent traffic independently. Etsy's built-in marketplace discovery provides real initial value that Shopify replaces through marketing work and paid acquisition.
Both Etsy and Shopify work well for their intended sellers. For needs that fall outside what these platforms offer, a custom solution can fit better. If you're building a custom product configurator for jewelry, a made-to-order furniture ordering system, or a unique checkout flow for subscription boxes, traditional custom development costs $15,000+ and takes months.
Build the custom layer with Lovable instead. You can ship (1) a product configurator with live previews, (2) a deposit-based ordering flow for custom work, and (3) a post-purchase portal for order status and add-ons. Start building from an ecommerce template and have a working storefront in hours, with full code access via GitHub sync when you want to extend it.
