Offsite Ads Impact Calculator
Offsite Ads takes 12–15% of the whole order, not of your profit. See what that does to a real order — and how much ad-attributed volume you can afford before your margin disappears.
Rates last verified: October 2026 · US/USD model, other countries vary only in processing.
Results per order
| Scenario | Profit | Margin |
|---|---|---|
| No Offsite Ads | — | — |
| Offsite Ads at 15% | — | — |
| Offsite Ads at 12% | — | — |
How Offsite Ads actually charges you
Etsy advertises listings on Google, Facebook, Instagram and partner sites. When a buyer clicks one of those ads and purchases within 30 days, the order is "attributed" and an advertising fee of 15% applies to the entire order total — item price, shipping charged, and gift wrap. If your shop has made at least $10,000 in the past 365 days, participation becomes mandatory for life at a reduced 12% rate, and the fee is capped at $100 per order. Below that revenue threshold you can opt out in Shop Settings, which removes the fee but also removes the external traffic.
The detail that surprises sellers is the base of the calculation. A 15% fee on a $40 order is $6.00, which sounds manageable until you notice it comes out of a profit line that might only be $15–20 before ads. In percentage-of-profit terms, Offsite Ads routinely consumes 30–50% of the money you would have made. Because attribution applies to the whole order, multi-item baskets pay proportionally more, and because it also applies to shipping charged, there is no pricing trick that avoids it — you can only price it in.
Reading the "max ad-attributed share"
Not every order in an opted-in shop is ad-attributed; typically only a fraction of orders carry the fee. That means the real question is not "can I survive one ad order" but "what mix of ad and non-ad orders keeps my average margin healthy". If your no-ads profit is $18 per order and the ad fee is $6, then every attributed order costs you $6 of average profit. At a 20% target margin on a $40 order ($8), you have $10 of slack, so roughly $10 ÷ $6 ≈ 167% — in other words this order could be entirely ad-driven and still clear the target. On a tighter listing the same math might cap ad share at 30% or less.
Use this number as a health check rather than a target: if your actual attributed share (visible in your Etsy stats) sits well above the sustainable level, the listing is effectively subsidizing Etsy's advertising with your margin. The fixes are raising price, cutting costs, or — if you are under the $10k threshold — opting out and comparing total profit over a full month rather than guessing.
Frequently asked questions
Should I opt out of Offsite Ads?
If you are below $10k/year, run the numbers. Opt out when ad-attributed orders are mostly cannibalizing sales you would have gotten anyway; stay in when the ads bring genuinely incremental buyers and your margins can carry the 15%. Check a full month of data, not a few orders.
Does the $100 cap make expensive items safer?
Yes — above roughly $667–$833 of order total (depending on 15% or 12%), the fee stops growing. High-ticket items are proportionally less affected by Offsite Ads than mid-priced ones.
Does this calculator include normal Etsy fees?
Yes. Each scenario includes the $0.20 listing allocation, the 6.5% transaction fee and US payment processing (3% + $0.25), then adds the Offsite Ads fee where shown.