Etsy pricing calculator

How the price is found

The fee calculator goes forward: price in, fees and profit out. This tool goes backward. It starts from a price of zero and doubles the bracket upward until the profit at that price clears your target, then narrows the range by bisection, testing the midpoint's profit against the target and cutting the search in half each time, down to the nearest cent. It calls the exact same fee function the fee calculator uses at every step, so the two tools never disagree about what a given price nets you.

A margin target works the same way, except the target itself moves with the price: at 35% margin, the target profit at a $20 price is $7 and at a $30 price is $10.50, so the solver compares profit against price × margin at each step instead of a fixed number.

Why margin and profit-per-sale pull in different directions

A flat profit target gets easier to hit as costs rise, because Etsy's percentage fees are a shrinking share of a larger order. A margin target does the opposite: since the fee percentages apply to price and margin is also measured against price, a higher item cost pushes the required price up faster than a flat amount would, because the price now has to cover both the extra cost and the fees on that extra cost while still leaving the same percentage behind.

Margins above roughly 90% are not reachable at all once fees apply, because Etsy's transaction fee, payment processing and any Offsite Ads or Regulatory Operating Fee together already take a fixed share of the order before your cost is even subtracted. This calculator returns a clear error rather than a wrong number when a margin cannot be reached.

A worked example

Item cost $8, shipping cost $4, shipping charged to the buyer $5, US bank account, no Offsite Ad, target profit $14.90. The solver lands on a $25.00 price, the same figure the fee calculator's own worked example starts from: a $30 order total, $3.10 in fees, a $26.90 net payout, and $14.90 left once the $8 item cost and $4 shipping cost come out. Ask for a 35% margin instead with the same costs, and the price moves higher, since the fees now have to be covered on top of a target that scales with price rather than sitting still.