Etsy hands you buyers already searching for handmade goods. Squarespace hands you the store, and lets you keep more of what you sell.
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Table of Contents
- Why This Comparison Matters
- Etsy Overview
- Squarespace Overview
- Head-to-Head: Pricing & Fees
- Head-to-Head: Features & Automation
- Head-to-Head: Ease of Use
- Customer Ownership
- Who Should Choose Etsy?
- Who Should Choose Squarespace?
- Migration Guide: Switching from Etsy to Squarespace
- Frequently Asked Questions
- The Bottom Line
Why This Comparison Matters
Etsy fees eat a real chunk of every sale before you ever pay for materials or your own time. A $30 item with $5 shipping loses roughly $3.78 (about 10.8% of the order) to Etsy’s mandatory listing, transaction, and payment processing fees alone, before any ad spend gets added on top.
This article breaks down exactly what Etsy and Squarespace charge in 2026, where each platform still wins on traffic or control, and what a realistic migration timeline looks like if you’re weighing a move. By the end, you’ll know which platform fits your shop’s current sales volume and which one is worth testing alongside it.
Etsy Overview
Etsy is a marketplace: buyers arrive already searching for handmade, vintage, or craft-supply products, and your listing competes inside that search. Etsy does the discovery work; you pay for every sale that discovery produces.
Strengths:
- Built-in buyer traffic: no ad budget required to get your first sale
- Search and category structure tuned specifically for handmade and craft goods
- Trust signals (reviews, Star Seller badge, buyer protection) that are hard to replicate on day one of a new store
Weaknesses:
- Multiple fees stack on every single sale, and Etsy sets the rates
- No email list or customer data without extra work: Etsy owns the buyer relationship
- Offsite Ads fees become mandatory once a shop crosses $10,000 in trailing 12-month sales, and can’t be turned off after that (Etsy Offsite Ads policy)
Pricing summary: $0.20 per listing (renews every four months), 6.5% transaction fee on the full order total, plus payment processing fees. See the full breakdown below.
Squarespace Overview
Squarespace is a website builder with commerce built into every plan. You design and host your own storefront, and Squarespace charges a flat monthly fee instead of taking a percentage of each individual listing.
Strengths:
- Design control: your store looks like your brand, not a marketplace template
- You own the customer relationship: email addresses, order history, and marketing list are yours
- No per-listing fee, so a large catalog doesn’t cost more to maintain
Weaknesses:
- Zero built-in buyer traffic: every visitor has to be earned through SEO, ads, or an existing following
- Squarespace runs more than one plan track, and depending which one you pick, the cheapest tier can still carry an online store transaction fee on top of card processing. Check the current plan comparison before you commit.
- Monthly cost is fixed whether you sell one item or one hundred that month
Pricing summary: Squarespace’s plans are billed monthly on a flat-rate basis rather than per sale. Whether a given tier still charges a percentage-based online store transaction fee on top of that flat rate depends on which plan track you pick, and Squarespace has changed its plan structure before. Squarespace’s official pricing page has the current lineup and rates for your region.
Head-to-Head: Pricing & Fees
Disclaimer: Fees change. Always verify current rates on each platform’s official pricing page before making a decision.
| Fee Type | Etsy | Squarespace |
|---|---|---|
| Monthly/plan cost | $0 (pay per listing/sale) | Flat rate per month, varies by plan tier (check current pricing) |
| Listing fee | $0.20 per item, renews every 4 months | None |
| Transaction fee | 6.5% of total order (item + shipping) | 0% on some plan tiers, a percentage-based fee on others (varies by plan track, check current pricing) |
| Payment processing | 3% + $0.25 per sale (US, Etsy Payments) | 2.9% + $0.30 per sale on most tiers; a lower rate on the top tier, via Squarespace Payments |
| Offsite Ads | 12–15% of order value, mandatory above $10,000 trailing sales, capped at $100 per order | Not applicable |
On Etsy, a $30 item with $5 shipping and no ads costs a seller roughly $3.78 in mandatory fees (about 10.8% of the order total), combining the $0.20 listing fee, the 6.5% transaction fee, and the 3% + $0.25 payment processing fee, per Etsy’s own fee and tax breakdown. On a Squarespace plan with a 0% online store transaction fee, that same $30 sale carries no per-transaction platform fee at all, though Squarespace Payments card processing still applies. The math flips depending on volume: a shop doing a handful of sales a month usually pays less on Etsy’s per-sale model, while a shop doing consistent volume can outgrow that 6.5% + processing stack fast. That’s exactly when the flat monthly cost of a higher Squarespace tier starts to look cheaper.
Head-to-Head: Features & Automation
Etsy’s tools are built specifically for marketplace selling: bulk listing edits, Star Seller tracking, and Etsy Ads for in-marketplace promotion. What it doesn’t give you is a native email marketing tool or CRM. Those require a third-party connection.
Squarespace ships with email campaigns, inventory management, and abandoned-cart recovery built into the commerce plans, plus a full website builder for pages beyond the store (an About page, a blog, a portfolio). The tradeoff is setup time: those tools have to be configured, not just switched on.
Head-to-Head: Ease of Use
Etsy is faster to get selling on. Create an account, list a product, and it can appear in marketplace search the same day, with no design decisions required.
Squarespace has a steeper starting curve. You’re choosing a template, laying out pages, and setting shipping and tax rules before a single sale happens. Sellers who’ve never built a website should budget a few days, not a few hours, for a clean first setup.
Customer Ownership
This is the sharpest difference between the two platforms. Etsy’s policies restrict what seller data you can collect and how you can contact buyers outside the platform. The sale, the message thread, and the review all live inside Etsy’s system.
A Squarespace store gives you the buyer’s email at checkout (with consent), which means you can build a list, run your own promotions, and message customers directly without a marketplace’s rules sitting between you and them. For a seller trying to build something that survives a platform policy change, that ownership is the entire point of going independent.
Who Should Choose Etsy?
- You’re testing a new product line and want buyer feedback before investing in a full storefront
- Your monthly sales volume is low enough that per-sale fees cost less than a flat monthly plan
- You rely on marketplace search traffic and don’t yet have another way to reach buyers
- You want to start selling today, not after a website build
Who Should Choose Squarespace?
- You already have an audience (social following, email list, or repeat customers) who can find your store without marketplace search
- Your sales volume is consistent enough that a flat monthly fee beats a 6.5% cut plus processing on every order
- You want full control over branding, layout, and the checkout experience
- You’ve hit Etsy’s $10,000 mandatory Offsite Ads threshold and want to stop paying a percentage you can’t opt out of
Migration Guide: Switching from Etsy to Squarespace
- Export your data first. Etsy lets you download your shop’s order history and listing data as CSV files from Shop Manager before you make any changes. Reviews stay tied to your Etsy shop and don’t export.
- Pick a Squarespace plan based on volume, not just budget. Once your monthly sales climb high enough, the plan tier that drops the online store transaction fee to 0% tends to pay for itself compared to staying on the entry-level plan and paying a percentage on every sale. Run the math against your own average order volume before committing to a tier, since the exact break-even point depends on current plan pricing.
- Rebuild listings with your own photography and copy. Don’t copy-paste Etsy descriptions; buyers arriving from search or social expect a branded page, not a marketplace listing.
- Set up shipping, tax, and payment settings before launch. Squarespace requires you to configure these manually; Etsy handles more of this by default.
- Run both stores in parallel for at least one full sales cycle. Keep the Etsy shop live while your Squarespace store builds its own search ranking and traffic; don’t cut off your only current source of buyers on day one.
- Redirect buyers with a clear reason to switch, such as a coupon, early access, or a line in your Etsy shop announcement pointing to the new store.
Realistic timeframe: 2–4 weeks for a straightforward catalog (under 50 listings), longer if product photography needs to be redone from scratch.
Frequently Asked Questions
Which is cheaper overall?
It depends on volume. Low-volume sellers usually pay less on Etsy’s per-sale fee model; sellers with consistent monthly sales often save more on Squarespace’s flat-rate Core plan or higher, since it removes the 6.5% transaction fee entirely.
Which is better for beginners?
Etsy is faster to start selling on since it needs no website setup. Squarespace takes longer to launch but gives beginners more control once the store is live.
How long does migration take?
Most sellers with under 50 listings can complete a Squarespace migration in 2–4 weeks, including exporting Etsy data, rebuilding listings, and testing checkout.
Are there hidden fees?
On Etsy, watch for Offsite Ads (mandatory above $10,000 in trailing sales), currency conversion fees, and Etsy Ads budget spend. On Squarespace, card processing fees (2.9% + $0.30 on Basic/Core) apply on top of the monthly plan even when the store transaction fee is 0%.
Can you sell on both platforms at the same time?
Yes. Many sellers run both during a transition period, keeping Etsy for marketplace search traffic while a Squarespace store builds its own SEO and audience.
Which has better SEO tools?
Squarespace gives you full control over page titles, meta descriptions, and URL structure across your whole site. Etsy’s SEO is limited to listing titles, tags, and categories inside its own search algorithm, so you’re optimizing for Etsy’s search, not Google’s.
Which has better customer support?
Etsy support is centralized and marketplace-focused, built around resolving buyer-seller disputes. Squarespace support covers the full website platform, including design and technical setup, since you’re responsible for more of the store yourself.
What happens to your data if you cancel?
On Etsy, your listings and shop go offline, though you can still export order history first. On Squarespace, your site and store go offline at the end of the billing period unless you export products, customer lists, and order data beforehand.
Do you need design skills to use Squarespace?
No prior design experience is required since templates handle layout, but expect to spend real time customizing pages, unlike Etsy where a listing goes live in a fixed format.
Can you migrate Etsy reviews to Squarespace?
No. Reviews are tied to Etsy’s platform and don’t transfer. Sellers moving to Squarespace typically screenshot or quote strong reviews (with the buyer’s permission) as testimonials on the new site.
The Bottom Line
Etsy and Squarespace solve different problems. Etsy gets you in front of buyers who are already looking, at the cost of a fee stack you don’t control and a customer relationship you don’t own. Squarespace hands you full ownership and a flat monthly cost, but only after you’ve done the work of finding your own traffic.
If you’re just starting out or selling inconsistently, stay on Etsy. The marketplace traffic is worth the per-sale cost until you have another way to reach buyers. If you already have an audience and steady monthly volume, Squarespace’s flat pricing and full customer ownership will save money and reduce platform risk over time. Many sellers do best running both at once during the transition rather than choosing one on day one.
Compare Etsy’s full fee breakdown before deciding which model fits your sales volume.
Related Articles
- Etsy vs Shopify for Handmade Sellers: Fees Compared: another independent-store comparison, focused on Shopify’s app ecosystem
- Etsy vs Big Cartel for Small Independent Shops: a lighter-weight, lower-cost alternative for very small catalogs
- Etsy Fee Increases in 2026: The Full Seller Breakdown: the complete line-item math behind the fee numbers used in this article
About This Research
Chloe Cruz has spent the last four years writing about eCommerce and marketplace selling, and writes Marketplace Hackers’ guides on Etsy fees, platform comparisons, and store growth.
This article is based on direct comparison of Etsy’s and Squarespace’s published 2026 fee schedules and plan pricing, cross-checked against official platform documentation and third-party pricing trackers current as of publication.
Content reviewed and updated: 2026-08-12
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Have a shop straddling Etsy and your own store? Read more Etsy vs. platform comparisons or browse our full library of Etsy seller guides for category-specific advice on making the move.
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