The Shopping Master alternative to Etsy
Your own store, with no listing fees and no cut of each sale — next to Etsy or instead of it.
Etsy brings you shoppers who are already searching, and it charges for that: $0.20 per listing, 6.5% of each sale including shipping, payment processing, and 12% or 15% more on orders that come from its Offsite Ads. With a Shopping Master store you pay a flat plan price, starting at $0, with no listing fees and no percentage of your sales; only your payment processor charges per payment. The trade-off is traffic: on your own store, you bring the shoppers.
Shopping Master vs Etsy
Fee on each sale
Shopping Master: None — Etsy: 6.5% transaction fee
Listing fee
Shopping Master: None — Etsy: $0.20 per listing, every 4 months
Fee on orders from Etsy’s ads
Shopping Master: None — Etsy: 12% or 15% (Offsite Ads)
Shoppers already searching
Shopping Master: No, you bring them — Etsy: Yes, the Etsy marketplace
Store with only your products
Shopping Master: Yes — Etsy: Other shops’ items shown too
Your own domain
Shopping Master: Yes, from Pro — Etsy: Not on Etsy.com
Digital downloads
Shopping Master: Yes, from Pro — Etsy: Yes
What Etsy charges a seller
These are the fees in Etsy’s Fees & Payments Policy (last updated October 5, 2026), for a seller in the US:
- Listing fee: $0.20 for each item you list, for four months or until it sells. With auto-renew on, each renewal costs another $0.20, and a listing with several in stock renews for $0.20 after each sale.
- Transaction fee: 6.5% of the price you display plus what you charge for shipping and gift wrapping.
- Payment processing: charged on the whole sale, tax and shipping included, at a rate set by the country of your bank account. In the US it is 3% + $0.25, per the Etsy Payments Policy (last updated July 31, 2026).
- Offsite Ads: when a shopper clicks an ad Etsy runs for your listing on another site and orders from your shop within 30 days, Etsy charges 15% of that order, or 12% once your shop has made $10,000 or more in the past 365 days, up to $100 per order. Under $10,000 you can opt out; at or above it, you can’t.
- Fees that may also apply: a one-time set-up fee when you open the shop, 2.5% for currency conversion if you list in a currency other than your payment account’s, regulatory operating fees in some countries, and the optional Etsy Ads and Etsy Plus ($10 a month).
Source: Etsy’s Fees & Payments Policy, checked November 2026. Fees change, so read it before you decide.
One $46 order, on Etsy and on your own store
Take a US order for a $40 item plus $6 shipping, $46 in total before sales tax. On your own Shopping Master store, the example uses Stripe’s standard US card rate of 2.9% + 30¢ (Stripe pricing).
| Fee | Etsy | Shopping Master with Stripe |
|---|---|---|
| Listing | $0.20 | $0 |
| Transaction or platform fee | $2.99 (6.5% of $46) | $0 |
| Payment processing | $1.63 (3% + $0.25) | $1.63 (2.9% + 30¢) |
| Total fees on the order | $4.82 (10.5%) | $1.63 (3.5%) |
| If it came from an Offsite Ad | $11.72, with $6.90 more (15%) | No such fee |
Your plan is a fixed monthly cost on top: $0 on Free, $15 on Pro and $35 on Business. At about $3.19 less in fees per order like this one, Pro pays for itself at around five orders a month, before counting any Offsite Ads orders. International cards and currency conversion add to Stripe’s rate, as they add to Etsy’s. See pricing.
What Etsy does better
- Shoppers. Etsy is a marketplace where people already search for handmade, vintage and one-of-a-kind items, so a new listing can be found without any marketing. A new store of your own starts with no visitors.
- Trust. Buyers know Etsy’s checkout and its purchase protections, so they’ll buy from a shop they’ve never heard of.
- Speed. There’s no store to design: you write a listing and you’re selling.
If most of your sales come from Etsy search, those fees are paying for real demand. Leaving Etsy altogether means replacing that demand yourself, so be honest about where your orders come from before you move.
What your own store gives you
- No listing fees and no percentage of your sales, on any plan: a bigger order never means a bigger fee to the platform.
- Only your brand: no other shops’ items next to yours, your own domain from Pro, and your design, built in a visual editor with a live preview. See Customize your theme.
- Your audience stays yours: repeat buyers, followers and newsletter subscribers land on your store, not on a marketplace that suggests other shops.
- Your own tools: discount codes on every plan; gift cards and abandoned-cart emails from Pro.
- Digital downloads from Pro: files up to 200 MB each, delivered automatically once the order is paid. See how to sell digital products.
Keep Etsy, and add a store of your own
You don’t have to choose. Many sellers keep Etsy for discovery and send their own audience (social media followers, email subscribers, repeat customers and people who find them on Google) to their own store, where no per-sale platform fee applies.
One rule to respect: Etsy’s policies prohibit moving an Etsy transaction off Etsy, for example by asking a buyer in Etsy Messages to pay you elsewhere. Grow your store through your own channels instead:
- Put your store’s address in your Instagram, TikTok and Pinterest profiles, and link products in your posts. Our guide to selling on Instagram covers it step by step.
- Collect email addresses with your store’s newsletter signup and tell subscribers about new products first.
- Give your own store something extra, like bundles or gift cards, so followers have a reason to buy there.
Moving your listings, step by step
- Download your active listings from Etsy as a CSV file, from the Download Data option in your Shop Manager settings.
- Create your Shopping Master store for free.
- In Products › Import products, choose the Excel option and download the template.
- Copy your listings into it, one row per product: name, description, price, stock, SKU and tags. Etsy variations become rows with up to two options, such as size and color, one row per combination.
- Save it as .xlsx (up to 10 MB) and upload it. You see the progress, and any row that can’t be imported is listed with the reason.
- Add photos, connect Stripe in Settings › Payment methods, set your shipping rates and place a test order.
Comfortable with spreadsheets? You can arrange the columns into Shopify’s CSV layout instead (Handle, Title, Body (HTML), Variant Price, Image Src and so on) and use the Shopify import, which copies each photo from its web address. More in Import products.
Keep more of each sale: create your store for free and bring your Etsy listings over today. Create your store for free
Frequently asked questions
How much does Etsy take from a sale?
For a US seller: 6.5% of the item price plus shipping and gift wrap, payment processing of 3% + $0.25 on the order total, and the $0.20 listing fee. An order that came through Etsy’s Offsite Ads costs 12% or 15% more, up to $100 per order. On a $46 order without Offsite Ads, that’s about $4.82.
Does Shopping Master charge listing or transaction fees?
No. You pay your plan ($0 on Free, $15 on Pro, $35 on Business a month) and your payment processor’s fee on each payment, such as Stripe’s 2.9% + 30¢ on US cards. There’s no fee per listing and no percentage of your sales.
Will my own store get traffic like Etsy?
Not by itself. Etsy has a marketplace full of shoppers; your store gets the visitors you bring through social media, email, search and word of mouth. That’s why many sellers keep Etsy and add a store of their own.
Can I sell digital downloads?
Yes, on Pro and Business. Upload files up to 200 MB each; buyers get their download links by email and on their order page as soon as the order is paid.
Can I use my own domain?
Yes, from the Pro plan. You add an A record where you manage your domain’s DNS and we issue the SSL certificate. Steps in Publish and view your store.
Is Shopping Master part of Etsy?
No. Etsy is a trademark of Etsy, Inc., and Shopping Master isn’t affiliated with it. The fees on this page come from Etsy’s public policies.