Etsy vs Mercari Fees: The Full US Breakdown (2026)
Mercari's US fee schedule fits in one sentence: a 10% selling fee on the item plus whatever the buyer pays for shipping, with listing free and seller-side processing folded in. Etsy's bill for the same order runs longer — a $0.20 listing fee, 6.5% of the order in transaction fees, and 3% + $0.25 for processing — and it can grow again if a sale is attributed to Offsite Ads. The surprise is how little that length matters: worked to the cent on a $48.00 and a $108.00 order, the two schedules finish twenty-one cents and nine cents apart. This page shows that arithmetic line by line, dates every rate, and isolates the one toggle that turns dimes into dollars.
Last updated . Etsy rates reflect Feebrief's Etsy fee record, compiled 2026-11-01 from Etsy's legal fees page, the Etsy Payments policy and the Offsite Ads help pages; Mercari rates reflect Feebrief's Mercari fee record, last checked 2026-10-23, whose current structure applies to listings created or updated on or after 2026-01-06. United States sellers, USD, sales tax held at $0 in every example.
Feebrief is an independent reference with no affiliation to either marketplace, and no calculator runs on this page. Schedules may change; the platforms' own fee pages are the final word before you price a listing.
The $48 basket: a 21-cent decision
Take a $43.00 item with $5.00 of buyer-paid shipping — a $48.00 order, US, tax $0 — and run it through both schedules with advertising off.
| Charge | Etsy | Mercari |
|---|---|---|
| Fee on the sale | $3.12 — 6.5% of item + shipping | $4.80 — 10% of item + shipping |
| Payment processing | $1.69 — 3% + $0.25 | None — included for the seller |
| Listing cost | $0.20 | $0.00 — listing is free |
| All-in fee | $5.01 (10.4% of the order) | $4.80 (10.0% of the order) |
| Seller keeps, before label | $42.99 | $43.20 |
Twenty-one cents is the entire always-on difference, and it survives the label: spend the $5.00 shipping charge on postage and the Etsy net becomes $37.99 against Mercari's $38.20. The reason the gap is this small is structural. Etsy's combined percentages (9.5% of the order) sit below Mercari's flat 10%, but Etsy adds $0.45 of fixed cents per order — $0.25 processing plus the $0.20 listing — while Mercari adds nothing. Set the two formulas against each other, 9.5% plus $0.45 versus a clean 10%, and the crossover lands at exactly a $90.00 order, where both platforms take $9.00. Below that size Mercari usually wins by pennies; above it Etsy usually does; near it, neither margin is worth an argument.
Stack map: Etsy's four lines vs Mercari's one selling fee
The map below is deliberately flat — one component per row, and each cell states what the charge is assessed against, not just the headline rate.
| Component | Etsy US | Mercari US |
|---|---|---|
| Getting listed | $0.20 per listing, charged on publish and again on each renewal; listings run four months or until sold | $0 to list; no per-listing renewal charge in the fee record |
| Fee on the sale | 6.5% transaction fee on item + shipping + gift wrap; US sales tax excluded | One 10% selling fee on the item plus buyer-paid shipping (structure applies to listings created or updated on or after 2026-01-06) |
| Payment processing | 3% + $0.25 per order on the gross order, shipping and any tax included | No separate seller line — processing is included |
| Buyer-side charge | Not part of this seller schedule | Buyer Protection, roughly 3.6%, added at checkout and paid by the buyer |
| Advertising surcharge | Offsite Ads, only on attributed orders: 15% while the shop is under $10k in trailing 365-day sales (opt-out available); 12% and mandatory once a shop reaches $10k in any 365-day window; never more than $100 per order; 30-day attribution | No equivalent advertising fee in the record |
| Volume or loyalty discounts | None in the schedule | None — the Seller Tiers beta has ended |
Similar-looking percentages, different plumbing
- Both headline rates already contain the shipping money: Mercari's 10% is charged on the item plus buyer-paid shipping, and so are both of Etsy's order-side percentages.
- Where the two part ways is tax. Etsy's 6.5% skips US sales tax while its 3% + $0.25 does not — which is why the worked examples on this page hold tax at $0 rather than blur the distinction.
- The second asymmetry hides in the fixed cents: Etsy's $0.45 per order barely registers on a $200 sale but is loud on a $12 one, and Mercari carries no fixed component at any price.
The $108 basket, then the Offsite Ads toggle
Now the bigger basket: a $100.00 item with $8.00 of buyer-paid shipping, a $108.00 order, tax still $0. At this size Etsy's percentage edge has outgrown its fixed costs, and the lead quietly changes hands.
| Charge | Etsy | Mercari |
|---|---|---|
| Fee on the sale | $7.02 — 6.5% of $108.00 | $10.80 — 10% of $108.00 |
| Payment processing | $3.49 — 3% + $0.25 | Included |
| Listing cost | $0.20 | $0.00 |
| All-in fee | $10.71 (9.9% of the order) | $10.80 (10.0% of the order) |
| Seller keeps, before label | $97.29 | $97.20 |
Nine cents to Etsy — the $90 crossover from the first section doing exactly what the algebra promises. Since both nets stop before label costs, a label priced more than nine cents apart between the two shipments will usually decide this basket more than the fee schedules do.
Then Etsy's optional fourth line shows up
Offsite Ads is the one component with no Mercari counterpart, and it is optional only below $10,000 in trailing 365-day sales. If the $108.00 order is attributed inside Etsy's 30-day window, Etsy adds 15% of the order — $16.20 — while the shop is under the threshold. The bill jumps from $10.71 to $27.31, about 24.9% of the order, and the seller keeps $81.09 before the label: $16.11 behind Mercari's $97.20. A shop at or above $10k cannot opt out but pays 12% instead — $12.96 on this order, a $23.67 total, $84.33 kept. The $100-per-order ceiling only starts to matter well above this basket, on orders past roughly $667 at the 15% rate.
How often attribution happens is not something this page assumes; no share of sales is claimed either way. The honest framing: with no attributed sale, Etsy wins this basket by nine cents; with one, it loses by double-digit dollars. If that asymmetry bothers you, the opt-out available under $10k is covered in Feebrief's guide to reducing Etsy fees.
Shipping money and listing friction: the practical differences
Whose money pays the postage
Both platforms fold buyer-paid shipping into the fee base, but the plumbing differs. On Etsy you set the shipping charge (or absorb it with free shipping); the charge enters the order, gets fees applied to it, and the label is bought out of what the buyer paid you — $5.00 of shipping costs about $0.48 in Etsy fees, leaving the rest for postage. On Mercari the buyer pays shipping at checkout, that amount joins the item price inside the 10%, and the seller's label cost — printed through the app or bought elsewhere — comes out of the payout. That is why every net on this page stops before label costs: it keeps the two sides comparable.
The meter that runs while nothing sells
Etsy's listing fee is a quiet meter: $0.20 on publish, then again every four months for each listing that has not sold. A shop carrying forty listings pays $8.00 per renewal cycle before a single sale registers. Mercari charges nothing to list, so a slow-moving closet costs nothing to keep online — a real edge for sellers who stock broadly and sell slowly. Listing quality rules like photo counts differ too, but those are not fee lines and sit outside a fee comparison.
One live estimator exists for this pair, and it isn't Etsy's
Feebrief maintains a live Mercari fee tool on the Mercari fee page; it applies the same dated structure quoted here — 10% of the item plus buyer-paid shipping, 2026-01-06 wording — to any price you enter. There is no Feebrief Etsy calculator, so no Etsy estimator could be embedded on this page even in principle. Every Etsy figure above was worked by hand from the fee record compiled 2026-11-01, and the arithmetic is intentionally static and checkable. If a rate moves, the record moves first and this page follows it.
FAQ: the structural questions behind the percentages
Which platform is actually cheaper once everything is counted?
Neither, on the always-on schedules — the answer is measured in dimes. On a $48.00 order ($43 item, $5 buyer-paid shipping, tax $0), Etsy collects $5.01 and Mercari collects $4.80, so Mercari leads by 21 cents; on a $108.00 order ($100 item, $8 shipping), Etsy collects $10.71 and Mercari $10.80, so Etsy leads by 9 cents. The crossover sits at a $90.00 order, where both bills come to $9.00. The only decisive swing is Offsite Ads: a 15%-attributed $108.00 order leaves the Etsy seller $81.09 before label costs, $16.11 behind Mercari's $97.20.
Do both platforms charge their fees on shipping?
Yes — this pair taxes the same money on both sides. Etsy's 6.5% transaction fee applies to item + shipping + gift wrap with US sales tax excluded, and its 3% + $0.25 processing applies to the gross order including shipping and any tax. Mercari's single 10% covers the item plus whatever the buyer pays for shipping. In practice, $5.00 of shipping costs the seller about $0.48 in Etsy fees and $0.50 inside Mercari's 10%.
Does Mercari's Buyer Protection charge come out of the seller?
No. Mercari adds a Buyer Protection charge of roughly 3.6% at checkout and the buyer pays it; it is never deducted from the seller's payout. Sellers comparing take-home should leave it out of the math — treating it as a seller cost is an easy way to overstate Mercari's fees.
When did Mercari's fee structure change, and do Seller Tiers still discount it?
Feebrief's Mercari fee record, last checked 2026-10-23, describes a 10% selling fee on the item plus buyer-paid shipping for listings created or updated on or after 2026-01-06; listing is free and seller-side processing is included. The Seller Tiers beta has ended, so no tier discounts apply to the 10% — pricing against older tier tables will usually overstate the net.
Related comparisons, sources, and disclaimer
Related
- Mercari seller fees and the live 10% estimator — the Mercari side of this pair in full
- Etsy seller fees explained — every Etsy line, including gift wrap and Offsite Ads detail
- Etsy vs Poshmark fees — the same Etsy schedule against a 20% commission
- Etsy vs eBay fees — Etsy measured against eBay's final-value structure
- How to reduce Etsy fees — the Offsite Ads opt-out and other levers
- Resale marketplace fees — the hub for every platform Feebrief tracks
Sources
Etsy figures were compiled into Feebrief's Etsy fee record on 2026-11-01 from Etsy's public materials — the legal fees page, the Etsy Payments policy, and the Offsite Ads help pages. Mercari figures come from Feebrief's Mercari fee record, last checked 2026-10-23; per that record, the 10%-of-item-plus-buyer-paid-shipping structure applies to listings created or updated on or after 2026-01-06. How Feebrief gathers and dates fee data is documented on the methodology page.
Disclaimer
Feebrief sells nothing, runs no marketplace, and speaks for neither platform. The figures here are a dated snapshot of public fee schedules plus hand-checked arithmetic — not a quote, a prediction, or tax advice. Etsy and Mercari may change their terms at any time, and when they do these numbers age instantly; trust the platforms' own fee pages for the rate you will actually pay. How this site handles advertising and affiliates is on the disclosure page.