Etsy Payment Processing Fee: What the 3% + $0.25 Applies To

Short answer: 3% + $0.25 on the gross order

Etsy's payment processing fee is 3% + $0.25 per order for US bank accounts via Etsy Payments, charged on the gross order amount — item, shipping, and tax when applicable (as of 2026-10-31). On a $50 item with $5 shipping and $0 sales tax, that gross is $55.00 and the processing fee is $1.90, about 3.45% of the order.

This fee is what Etsy charges for processing the buyer's payment. It is not the 6.5% transaction fee: both lines appear at the moment of sale, but they have different rates and — the part that trips sellers up — different bases. The 6.5% line excludes US sales tax; the 3% + $0.25 line includes it.

What the payment processing fee is

The payment processing fee is Etsy's charge for handling the buyer's payment — the card, wallet or bank-transfer side of the sale. For US sellers on Etsy Payments with a US bank account, the rate is 3% of the order plus a fixed $0.25 per order, per the Etsy sell page and the Etsy Payments policy (compiled 2026-10-31).

The structure matters: a percentage part that scales with the order and a fixed part that does not. The fee fires per order, not per item — a buyer who purchases three items from your shop in one checkout pays once, so the $0.25 lands once. Etsy states the fee applies to the gross order amount, including shipping and tax when applicable.

What the 3% + $0.25 is charged on

Every dollar that runs through checkout is in the base. Etsy assesses the 3% + $0.25 on the gross order amount: the item price, whatever the buyer paid for shipping, and sales tax where applicable, per the Etsy Help article on fees and taxes (compiled 2026-10-31).

Two per-dollar consequences follow. Every $1 of buyer-paid shipping adds $0.03 of processing fee — free shipping does not make this fee free, it just shrinks the base to the item price alone. And where sales tax applies, it adds 3% of the tax amount: money the seller collects and remits, not keeps, but part of the base all the same.

Confirm the base wording on Etsy's own pages before pricing; the table above restates the published components.

Processing vs. transaction fee: the tax asymmetry

On every Etsy bill, processing sits next to the 6.5% transaction fee, and sellers routinely add them as if they shared a base. They do not. The transaction fee is 6.5% of item price plus shipping plus gift wrap, and US sales tax is excluded from that base. The processing fee is 3% + $0.25 on the gross order amount, and tax is included when applicable.

The practical effect: a sales-tax line widens the processing fee by 3% of the tax amount while the 6.5% line stays exactly where it was. On a tax-free order the two bases happen to match, which is why the asymmetry hides until the first taxed order. The full four-fee schedule is on the full Etsy fee schedule; the listing-vs-transaction split is covered in transaction fee vs listing fee.

Worked example: $50 item + $5 shipping, $0 tax

Assume a US seller on Etsy Payments with a US bank account: a $50.00 item, $5.00 buyer-paid shipping, no gift wrap, no sales tax, no ads. Gross order: $55.00. The processing fee is 3% × $55.00 = $1.65, plus the fixed $0.25 — $1.90, or about 3.45% of the order.

For context, the two order-side fees together are $5.48 and the payout is $49.52, before the $0.20 listing fee already sunk at publish. That is the whole stack this page touches: total-take math, including the listing fee in the percentage, is on how much Etsy takes from a sale.

Order size: the fixed $0.25 drag

The 3% scales with the order; the $0.25 does not. On small orders the fixed quarter is a large share of the fee — and of the order. At $10.00 gross, processing is $0.30 + $0.25 = $0.55, which is 5.5% of the order, nearly double the headline 3%. At $100.00 gross it is $3.00 + $0.25 = $3.25, or 3.25%, close to the rate sellers quote from memory. The $55.00 example lands in between at 3.45%.

The fixed $0.25 fades as a share of the order, so processing bites hardest on small orders — two shops quoting the same "3% + $0.25" see very different effective percentages depending on order size.

Where this fee sits in the stack

Payment processing is one of Etsy's order-side fees — charged when a buyer pays — alongside the 6.5% transaction fee. It is not the whole picture: the $0.20 listing fee is sunk at publish or renewal, before any sale, and the Offsite Ads fee is a separate attributed-order fee this page does not cover. The full four-fee schedule is on the Etsy seller fees guide, total take-home math on how much Etsy takes, and reduction levers on how to reduce Etsy fees.

Disclosure: this is not a live calculator

This page is not a live Etsy processing-fee calculator, and no calculator is embedded here. Etsy is not in Feebrief's live fee-comparer data set (fees.json, last updated 2026-10-26), so every number above is static arithmetic with its inputs shown, re-checked against Etsy's official pages on 2026-10-31. See how Feebrief sources fee data and the Feebrief disclosure.

Related fee guides

• Etsy seller fees: the full four-fee schedule and every base in one table.
• How much does Etsy take: total take and payout on a $55 order.
• Transaction fee vs listing fee: the other pair sellers mix up, compared.
• Etsy fees explained: the life of one order, fee by fee.
• Etsy fee math in detail: the net grid and list-price math, worked by hand.
• Etsy listing fee: the $0.20 publish or renew charge.
• Etsy Offsite Ads fee: the attributed-order fee this page does not cover.
• How to reduce Etsy fees: which levers move and which do not.
• Resale marketplace fees compared: how take-home works across the platforms Feebrief covers.