Etsy knows its fees, not yours

The dashboard subtracts listing, transaction and payment fees. It has no idea what your clay, yarn, blanks or packaging cost, so none of that appears in the number you see.

Shipping is usually a quiet loss

The shipping you charge shows as revenue. The postage you pay shows nowhere. If those two do not match, the gap comes out of every order without ever being labelled.

Ad spend is reported separately

Etsy Ads sit in their own dashboard with their own numbers. Sellers routinely look at sales in one tab and ad spend in another, and never subtract one from the other.

Your time is not in any report

The single largest input to a handmade shop appears in no calculation Etsy provides. Until you divide profit by hours, the shop can look healthy while paying you less than a part-time job.

How do I calculate my Etsy shop's monthly profit?

Take your total revenue, subtract Etsy's fees, your material costs, the shipping you actually paid, your ad spend, and any fixed monthly costs. What remains is profit. Etsy's own dashboard shows revenue and fees but not your materials, postage or subscriptions, which is why the number there always looks better than reality.

What is a good monthly profit margin for an Etsy shop?

Most healthy handmade shops land between 25% and 40% after everything. Below 15% the shop is generating cash but very little of it is yours, and a single bad month or a batch of returns can wipe it out.

Why should I calculate my hourly rate?

Because it is the number that decides whether the shop is worth running. A shop can show $600 monthly profit and look successful, but if it took 80 hours of making, packing and messaging, that is $7.50 an hour. Most sellers have never worked this out, and it changes what they price at.

Should I include Offsite Ads fees in my monthly profit?

Yes, but only on the share of orders that came through them. Offsite Ads charge 12-15% on qualifying sales, not on every order. The calculator lets you set the percentage of your sales that came through Offsite Ads so the figure stays realistic.

What counts as a fixed cost for an Etsy shop?

Anything you pay whether or not you sell: software subscriptions, design tools, studio or storage rent, accounting, and any recurring service. Materials and postage are not fixed costs — those scale with orders and belong in the per-product section.