Etsy hands you buyers and takes a cut of every sale. WooCommerce hands you a blank store and charges almost nothing, but you have to bring the buyers yourself.
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Table of Contents
- Why This Comparison Matters
- Etsy Overview
- WooCommerce Overview
- Head-to-Head: Pricing & Fees
- Head-to-Head: Features & Automation
- Head-to-Head: Ease of Use
- Head-to-Head: Who Owns the Traffic
- Who Should Choose Etsy?
- Who Should Choose WooCommerce?
- Migration Guide: Switching from Etsy to WooCommerce
- Frequently Asked Questions
- The Bottom Line
Why This Comparison Matters
A seller hits the same wall on Etsy eventually: transaction and payment fees chip away at every single sale, and the shop’s entire discovery engine belongs to a platform the seller doesn’t control. WooCommerce is the other end of that trade-off: a free, self-hosted plugin that turns a WordPress site into a full online store with no per-sale marketplace commission at all.
This guide breaks down what Etsy and WooCommerce actually cost, what each one does for a seller out of the box, and what it takes to get a store live on either one. By the end, you’ll know whether moving to WooCommerce is a realistic next step for your shop or a bigger jump than it’s worth right now.
Here’s exactly how the two stack up.
Etsy Overview
Etsy is a marketplace. Sellers open a shop inside Etsy’s existing site, list products into Etsy’s search index, and buyers discover those listings while browsing Etsy itself rather than the seller’s own domain.
Key strengths:
- Built-in buyer search traffic: a new shop can get its first sale without running a single ad, a pattern covered in how Etsy’s search algorithm actually ranks listings
- Same-day setup: no hosting, plugins, or technical configuration required, as walked through in how to set up an Etsy shop in 2026
- A buyer-trust layer already in place: reviews, buyer protection messaging, and the Star Seller program all exist before a new shop lists its first item
Key weaknesses:
- Fees apply to every order: listing, transaction, and payment processing fees all stack per sale, detailed in the full 2026 Etsy fee breakdown
- The seller doesn’t own the storefront or the customer relationship the way they would on a domain they control
- Ranking and visibility are set entirely by Etsy’s algorithm, and changes to it can move a shop’s traffic overnight, a risk covered in Etsy’s algorithm changes and their impact on small shops
Pricing summary: Etsy charges a $0.20 listing fee per item active for up to four months or until sold, a 6.5% transaction fee on the item price plus shipping, and a 3% + $0.25 payment processing fee for US sellers using Etsy Payments, according to Etsy’s own Fees & Payments Policy.
WooCommerce Overview
WooCommerce is a free, open-source plugin that turns a self-hosted WordPress site into an online store. There’s no marketplace to join and no shop to “open” inside someone else’s platform; the store lives on a domain and hosting account the seller owns outright.
Key strengths:
- No marketplace commission or per-sale transaction fee charged by WooCommerce itself, according to WooCommerce’s own site
- Full control over design, product data, checkout flow, and customer data, since the store runs on the seller’s own WordPress installation
- A large plugin ecosystem covers shipping, subscriptions, bookings, and made-to-order workflows without needing a developer for most common needs
Key weaknesses:
- Zero built-in buyer traffic: a new store gets no visitors until the seller drives them there through SEO, ads, email, or social channels
- The seller is responsible for hosting, security updates, and backups, which Etsy handles automatically for its sellers
- Initial setup takes real time: choosing a host, installing WordPress and WooCommerce, and configuring payments and shipping before the first sale can happen
Pricing summary: The WooCommerce plugin itself is free to install, per WooCommerce’s official pricing information. A seller still pays for web hosting (commonly in the roughly $10–$40 a month range for a small shop on shared or cloud hosting) and a payment processor. WooPayments, WooCommerce’s built-in processor, charges a standard rate of 2.9% + $0.30 per transaction for US domestic cards, per WooCommerce’s WooPayments documentation.
Head-to-Head: Pricing & Fees
Fees and hosting rates change without much notice on both sides. Always verify current numbers directly on Etsy’s official fee policy and WooCommerce’s own pricing and payments pages before deciding based on this table.
| Fee Type | Etsy | WooCommerce |
|---|---|---|
| Platform / plugin cost | $0 to join | $0, the core plugin is free |
| Listing fee | $0.20 per item, every 4 months or until sold | None |
| Marketplace commission | 6.5% transaction fee on item price + shipping | None (no cut of sales taken) |
| Payment processing | 3% + $0.25 (US sellers, Etsy Payments) | 2.9% + $0.30 (US cards, WooPayments) |
| Hosting | Included in Etsy’s platform | Roughly $10–$40/month for a small shop (varies by host) |
| Optional ad fees | Etsy Ads (min. $1/day) and Offsite Ads at 12–15% | Paid traffic (search, social) is entirely optional and self-managed |
| Premium extensions/themes | Not applicable | $0–$300+/year depending on features needed |
Run the actual numbers on your own price points using the Etsy fee calculator before comparing a specific product’s margin across both setups.
On a $50 individual sale with no separate shipping charge, Etsy’s fees total roughly $5.20: a $0.20 listing fee, a $3.25 transaction fee (6.5%), and a $1.75 payment processing fee (3% + $0.25). That leaves the seller about $44.80, or roughly 90% of the sale. The same $50 sale through a WooCommerce store using WooPayments costs $1.75 in processing (2.9% + $0.30), leaving about $48.25, or roughly 96.5% of the sale, before hosting is factored in. Hosting is a fixed monthly cost, not a per-sale one, so it eats a bigger share of a slow month and a smaller share once sales volume grows.
Head-to-Head: Features & Automation
Etsy’s seller dashboard bundles listings, messaging, payouts, and basic shop stats into one interface built specifically around one-shopper, one-order transactions. There’s very little to configure beyond writing listings and setting shipping profiles.
WooCommerce ships as a bare shopping cart, but its extension ecosystem covers most of what a growing shop needs: subscription billing, local pickup and delivery, bookings for made-to-order or custom work, and dozens of shipping-rate plugins. The tradeoff is that a seller has to choose and configure these pieces rather than have them built in from day one, unlike the all-in-one setup Etsy uses for tracking sales and fees or the email marketing tools sellers add on top of it.
Head-to-Head: Ease of Use
Etsy setup is built for a first-time seller: pick a shop name, list a product with a few photos, and the shop is live the same day. WooCommerce setup means registering a domain, choosing a host, installing WordPress, installing the plugin, and configuring at least one payment gateway before a single product can be sold.
Question is: does the seller already have (or want to learn) basic WordPress familiarity? Sellers comfortable installing plugins and picking a theme can have a working WooCommerce store live in an afternoon. Sellers with zero WordPress experience should budget several days, or the cost of hiring someone to do the initial setup.
Neither platform requires ongoing coding to run day to day once it’s set up. The difference is entirely front-loaded into the first setup.
Head-to-Head: Who Owns the Traffic
This is the real fork in the decision, more than the fee percentages.
Etsy buyers find a shop by searching Etsy itself. The seller doesn’t control that search algorithm, and a shop that ranks well today can lose visibility after an update it has no say over, a dependency covered in how Etsy’s algorithm changes have affected small shops. In exchange, a brand-new shop with zero existing audience can still get discovered.
A WooCommerce store gets none of that built-in discovery. Every visitor has to come from somewhere the seller actively built: Google search rankings for the store’s own pages, an email list, social media, or paid ads. The upside is that none of that traffic can be taken away by a platform policy change, because it belongs to the seller’s own domain and email list, which is why building an email list before leaving Etsy is usually step one for sellers making this move.
Who Should Choose Etsy?
- You’re a new or solo maker without an existing audience to bring to a new store
- You want to start selling today without registering a domain or setting up hosting
- You’re still validating whether a product sells at all before investing in your own infrastructure
- You’re still working out your pricing strategy and want retail-price data before committing to a separate store
- You’d rather rely on Etsy’s built-in search traffic than build SEO and email channels from zero
Who Should Choose WooCommerce?
- You already have some traffic source (email list, social following, or existing Etsy traffic you can redirect) to point at a new store
- You’re selling enough volume that Etsy’s 6.5% transaction fee plus payment processing meaningfully cuts into monthly profit
- You want full control over branding, checkout, and customer data instead of operating inside Etsy’s interface
- You’re comfortable with basic WordPress setup, or willing to pay someone for a one-time build
- You’re actively working through the transition covered in the complete guide to leaving Etsy for your own store
Migration Guide: Switching from Etsy to WooCommerce
Moving off Etsy doesn’t have to mean shutting it down first. A practical sequence looks like this:
- Keep the Etsy shop running while you build. Don’t close an active sales channel before the new one can take orders. Most sellers run both in parallel for months.
- Register a domain and pick a host. Look for a host that specifically lists WooCommerce or WordPress e-commerce support, since it typically comes with better default performance and one-click WordPress installs.
- Install WordPress and the WooCommerce plugin, then set up at least one payment gateway (WooPayments or an alternative processor) before adding products.
- Export your Etsy listing data. Etsy allows sellers to download a CSV of their listings from Shop Manager, which speeds up rebuilding product pages instead of retyping every description from scratch.
- Rebuild your top sellers first, not your full catalog. Focus on the handful of listings that generate most of your Etsy revenue, using the titles that actually rank as a starting point for on-site SEO copy.
- Start building an email list immediately, since a WooCommerce store has no built-in buyer traffic. This is the single biggest gap new store owners underestimate.
- Point existing traffic at the new store gradually. A link in Etsy order notes, a mention in listings, or a social post works better than trying to migrate every buyer at once.
Realistic timeframe: sellers with some WordPress familiarity typically report 2–4 weeks to get a working store live with a starter catalog. Sellers starting from zero technical experience should budget longer, or the cost of a freelancer for the initial build.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is WooCommerce cheaper than Etsy?
It depends on sales volume. WooCommerce has no per-sale marketplace commission, only payment processing fees and fixed hosting costs, so it tends to get cheaper per sale as volume grows. At very low volume, hosting can cost more per sale than Etsy’s combined fees would.
Does WooCommerce charge a percentage fee per sale?
No, not from WooCommerce itself. The only percentage-based cost is payment processing (for example, WooPayments’ 2.9% + $0.30 for US cards), which is comparable to the payment processing fee Etsy already charges.
Do I need to know how to code to use WooCommerce?
No. Most day-to-day tasks (adding products, managing orders, setting shipping rates) use the same kind of forms and dashboards as Etsy’s Shop Manager. Initial setup and any custom design work benefit from basic WordPress familiarity, but plenty of sellers manage it without writing code.
Can I run Etsy and a WooCommerce store at the same time?
Yes. Many sellers keep their Etsy shop open for its built-in traffic while building a WooCommerce store on the side, then shift more inventory and marketing effort to the store they own as it grows.
How much does it cost to start a WooCommerce store?
Expect to pay for a domain (commonly $10–$20 a year) and hosting (roughly $10–$40 a month for a small store), plus optional premium themes or extensions. The WooCommerce plugin itself is free.
Does WooCommerce come with built-in traffic like Etsy?
No. A brand-new WooCommerce store gets zero visitors until the seller drives traffic to it through search rankings, an email list, social media, or paid ads.
What happens to my listings if I switch from Etsy to WooCommerce?
Nothing happens to your Etsy listings automatically; the two platforms are separate. Etsy lets sellers export their listing data as a CSV from Shop Manager, which can speed up rebuilding product pages on a new WooCommerce store.
Is WooCommerce good for beginners?
It’s more approachable than building a store from scratch with custom code, but it has a steeper initial learning curve than Etsy’s same-day setup. Sellers with no WordPress experience should budget extra time or consider hiring help for the initial build.
Can WooCommerce handle handmade or made-to-order products?
Yes. Extensions exist for booking systems, custom product options, and made-to-order workflows, covering most of what a handmade seller needs beyond WooCommerce’s default product types.
What payment processors work with WooCommerce?
WooCommerce supports its own built-in WooPayments processor as well as third-party gateways including PayPal, Stripe, and others, giving sellers more processor choice than Etsy’s Etsy Payments system offers.
How long does it take to migrate from Etsy to WooCommerce?
Sellers with some WordPress familiarity typically report 2–4 weeks to get a working store live with a starter catalog. A seller starting with zero technical background should expect longer, or budget for outside help.
Do I lose my Etsy reviews if I move to WooCommerce?
Yes. Etsy reviews stay tied to your Etsy shop and don’t transfer to an outside store. A WooCommerce store starts with no review history, which is why keeping the Etsy shop running during a transition helps preserve that existing trust signal while a new one builds up.
The Bottom Line
Etsy and WooCommerce solve different problems for a seller. Etsy trades a meaningful cut of every sale for built-in buyer traffic and a same-day setup. WooCommerce trades that traffic away in exchange for close to zero per-sale fees and full ownership of the store, the data, and the customer relationship.
If you’re still building an audience or validating a product, staying on Etsy and getting the fee math right with the Etsy fee calculator is usually the lower-risk move. If you already have some traffic to bring with you and enough sales volume that Etsy’s fees are cutting meaningfully into profit, a WooCommerce store can pay for its own hosting costs quickly while returning a larger share of every sale.
Calculate your current Etsy fees before deciding whether the traffic you’d have to build from scratch on WooCommerce is worth the fees you’d stop paying on every sale.
Related Articles
- Etsy Fee Increases in 2026: The Full Seller Breakdown: the complete current Etsy fee schedule referenced throughout this comparison
- The Complete Guide to Leaving Etsy for Your Own Store: the full transition path this migration guide is part of
- How to Build an Email List Before Leaving Etsy: the traffic foundation a WooCommerce store needs before it can replace Etsy’s built-in discovery
About This Research
Nadia Cole has spent the better part of a decade elbow-deep in marketplace algorithms — first optimizing Etsy shops for other sellers, then writing about what actually works instead of what sounds good in a blog post.
This article is based on a direct comparison of Etsy’s own published Fees & Payments Policy against WooCommerce’s official plugin and payments documentation, cross-checked against current seller-reported setup costs rather than third-party estimates.
Content reviewed and updated: 2026-09-16
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