Platform and payment fees compared: what you can actually change

The same product on three platforms

One product for €29.90 incl. 19 % VAT, sold from Germany, 150 orders a month. Fees are calculated with our platform calculators from the official price pages (dates in the sources below). This is not a ranking: a marketplace brings you buyers, your own shop needs its own visitors – and those cost money too.

• Shopify: card rate of Shopify Payments plus the plan price (€24.00 a month, billed yearly) spread over 150 orders.
• Etsy: 6.5% transaction fee plus payment processing of 4% + €0.30. The listing fee of $0.20 per sale is not included because Etsy converts it at the day's exchange rate.
• Amazon: referral fee for the category “Küche” on amazon.de plus the Professional plan (€39.00 a month) spread over 150 sales. Fulfilment by Amazon (FBA) is not included.

What you can change on Shopify

• Plan: higher plans cost more per month but charge lower card rates. For this product, Grow becomes cheaper than Basic from about 1,506 orders a month.
• Payment provider: with an external provider instead of Shopify Payments, Shopify adds 2.0% on Basic on top of that provider's own fee.
• International cards: the same order paid with a card issued abroad costs €1.34 instead of €0.89 in fees. You cannot change who buys, but you should calculate with your real share of foreign customers.
• Billing: paying the plan yearly is cheaper per month than paying monthly.

What you can change on Etsy

• Offsite Ads: when an order comes through an Offsite Ad, Etsy charges 15% (or 12% for larger shops), at most $100 per order. For this product that raises the fees from €3.44 to €7.92. Etsy's Offsite Ads page explains who can switch them off.
• Currency: if your listing currency differs from your bank account currency, Etsy adds 2.5% – here €0.75 per order. List in the currency of your bank account to avoid it.
• Shipping: Etsy's transaction fee also applies to the shipping you charge. Shipping is not free of fees, so include it in your calculation.

What you can change on Amazon

• Plan: the Individual plan costs €0.99 per sold item, Professional €39.00 a month. From 40 sales a month Professional is cheaper.
• Price and category: in some categories the referral rate depends on the price. A price just above a threshold can leave you less money than a price just below it – the Amazon fees guide shows this with an example.
• Fulfilment: FBA fees depend on size and weight. Use Amazon's own calculator and enter the result in our Amazon calculator.

Payment providers in your own shop

For WooCommerce or other shops you choose the payment provider yourself. We do not list rates for PayPal, Stripe, Klarna and others here because we have not verified them. Take the current rates from each provider's price page and enter them in the profit calculator – then compare the contribution per order, not just the percentage, because the fixed fee per payment matters a lot for cheap products.