How to Sell on Etsy in 2026: Vintage Rules, Fees, Offsite Ads & Shipping

Etsy buyers come looking for something specific and a little special: a 1970s Pyrex pattern, a 1980s band tee, mid-century brass. They search like collectors and pay for character. If your sourcing leans old, Etsy can support higher prices than eBay for the same piece. If it leans modern, Etsy is simply the wrong venue, and the rules say so.

What resellers can (and can’t) sell on Etsy

Everything on Etsy has to be made, designed, handpicked or sourced by the seller. For resellers that boils down to three lanes:

What’s out: modern secondhand clothing and home goods, new-with-tags retail, anything drop shipped, and “handmade” or fair-trade goods you didn’t make. Adding a gift tag to a commercial item doesn’t make it yours. Listings that break these rules can be removed, and repeated violations put the shop at risk.

Setting up and listing your first item

1. Open a shop. Choose your shop language, country and currency (list in your bank’s currency to avoid the 2.5% conversion fee), pick a shop name, add a bank account, verify your identity, and pay the one-time set-up fee, which varies by country and is shown before you confirm.
2. Photograph it well. Up to 20 photos and 2 videos of 5–15 seconds. Etsy recommends images at least 2,000 pixels wide. Show the maker’s mark, labels and every flaw; vintage buyers expect wear but want to see it.
3. Mark it as vintage. In “How it’s made”, say another company or person made it and choose the decade in “When was it made?”. This puts it in vintage search filters.
4. Write the title. Up to 140 characters, but Etsy suggests under 15 words. Lead with what it is and the decade, maker and pattern: “1970s Pyrex Spring Blossom Casserole Dish 1.5 Qt”. Skip “perfect”, “rare” and shipping claims.
5. Fill attributes, then all 13 tags. Attributes (color, material, era) feed filters. Tags hold up to 20 characters each; use them for phrases buyers type that aren’t already covered, such as “mid century kitchen” or “70s gift for mom”.
6. Describe condition and measurements. Dimensions, materials, chips, crazing, fading, repairs. For clothing, give flat measurements, not just the tag size (see our measuring guide); vintage sizing runs small.
7. Price, quantity and shipping profile. Set quantity to 1 for one-offs, attach a calculated shipping profile (below), and publish. The $0.20 fee is charged at that moment.

Etsy fees

These are the US rates. Other countries have different processing rates, and some pay an extra regulatory operating fee.

The $0.20 listing fee and renewals

A listing lasts four months. New listings are set to auto-renew by default, so an unsold item quietly costs another $0.20 every four months. That’s cheap for a piece that will sell eventually, but a shop of 500 stale listings pays $300 a year to sit still. Review your oldest listings each season and turn off auto-renew on anything you’d rather move elsewhere.

Multi-quantity listings work differently. If you list four identical vintage napkins as one listing, you pay $0.20 up front. When one sells and three remain, the listing auto-renews for another $0.20. If a buyer takes all four in one order, you pay $0.20 for each of the three extra units. Editing a listing is free.

Offsite Ads

Etsy advertises listings on Google, Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest and partner sites. If a buyer clicks one of those ads and buys from your shop within 30 days, you pay an advertising fee on that order: 15% if your shop has never made $10,000 in any 365-day period, 12% once it has. The fee never exceeds $100 per order, which kicks in at about $667 at 15% or $833 at 12%.

Small shops can opt out in Shop Manager → Settings → Offsite Ads. Once you pass $10,000, participation is required for the life of the shop. You can’t pick which listings get advertised, so price vintage with room for the occasional 12–15% hit rather than hoping it won’t happen.

Worked example

You sell a 1980s wool cardigan for $60 and charge $8 shipping. The buyer’s sales tax is $4.76, which Etsy collects and remits.

• Listing fee: $0.20
• Transaction fee: 6.5% × $68 = $4.42
• Payment processing: 3% × $72.76 + $0.25 = $2.43
• Total fees: $7.05, so you receive $60.95 of the $68 you charged. Subtract the label you buy (say $7.40) and you keep $53.55.
• If the sale came through an Offsite Ad at 15%, add 15% × $68 = $10.20. Your fees become $17.25 and you keep $43.35 after the label.

Shipping on Etsy

You set the shipping price, you buy the label, and you pay if you guessed wrong. Two tools keep that in check:

• Calculated shipping (US and Canada, for USPS, Global Postal Shipping or Canada Post). You enter each item’s packed weight and size, and Etsy quotes the buyer the cheapest eligible service to their address. It picks the smallest box from Etsy’s defaults or your own package preferences. Handling and package fees can no longer be added to calculated shipping, so fold packing materials into the item price.
• Etsy shipping labels. Buy USPS (or FedEx) labels in Shop Manager at discounted rates, with no extra fee. Tracking uploads automatically, Ground Advantage and Priority Mail include $100 of insurance, and cubic pricing can cut the cost of small, heavy parcels such as stoneware. Unused labels can be refunded within 30 days.
• Fixed prices for oversized or fragile pieces. Furniture, framed art and large glass often need a manually entered rate. Quote them from a real box and weight, and pack with double boxing.

Buyers like free shipping, but building postage into the price doesn’t dodge fees: the transaction fee is on whatever the buyer pays, whether you call it shipping or price. Also note USPS’s temporary rate increase on Ground Advantage and Priority Mail runs through January 17, 2027, so re-check older fixed rates. Our cheap clothing shipping guide covers packaging.

What vintage sells on Etsy

Experience, not Etsy data: the strongest resale categories are the ones where buyers shop by era and aesthetic rather than by model number. Think mid-century and 1970s kitchenware (Pyrex, Corning Ware, Dansk, Fire-King), vintage clothing from the 1960s to 1990s, brass and teak decor, vintage jewelry, ephemera and prints, sewing patterns, and craft lots such as fabric, yarn and buttons. Items that struggle: generic thrift-store decor with no era appeal, and anything buyers search by exact part number, which belongs on eBay. Before listing, check Etsy’s sold items in your niche and compare them with eBay sold prices to decide where each piece earns more. Our pricing guide walks through that comparison.

Common mistakes

• Listing modern items as vintage. It’s the fastest way to lose listings. Date it or don’t list it here.
• Ignoring Offsite Ads in your pricing. A 15% ad fee on a thin-margin item can wipe out the profit. Opt out while you can if your prices can’t absorb it.
• Letting hundreds of dead listings auto-renew. $0.20 every four months adds up. Prune or reprice.
• Guessing weights. Calculated shipping is only as good as the packed weight and size you enter. Weigh the item as it will ship.
• Using only 3–4 photos. Vintage buyers can’t touch the item. Use the 20 slots for marks, flaws and scale.
• Leaving tags blank. All 13 tags are free search reach. Use different phrasings, not the title repeated.