Should You Sell Your Etsy Products on Amazon? Run the Numbers First
Your best-selling Etsy listing has been steady for a year. Amazon has more traffic than Etsy will ever send you. The product is already made, photographed and described. Moving it across feels like free upside.
It usually is not, and the reason is not competition. It is arithmetic.
The same product at the same price can be profitable on Etsy and loss-making on Amazon, because the cost stack is different, the fulfilment model is different, and the buyer behaviour that decides your ad spend is different.
This guide is the check to run before you list anything.
Quick answer: Do not ask whether to expand to Amazon. Ask whether one specific unit still makes money there. Model the full Amazon cost stack for that unit: selling plan, category referral fee, FBA fulfilment fee, storage, returns processing, advertising and your landed cost of goods. Amazon's referral fees vary by category and are charged as a percentage of the total price or a minimum amount, whichever is greater. If the unit clears your target margin with advertising included, test it. If it only clears with no ad spend and no returns, it is not a business, it is a hope.
Expansion is a spreadsheet decision before it is a strategy.
The right question to ask
"Should I sell on Amazon" has no answer, because Amazon is not one thing. It is a set of fee structures applied to whatever you list.
The answerable version is narrower: if I sell this exact unit on Amazon at a price the category will accept, what is left after every fee, and is that enough to justify the inventory and the work?
That question can be answered on one page before you open an account.
What actually changes when a product moves to Amazon
| Dimension | Etsy | Amazon |
|---|---|---|
| Buyer intent | Browsing, gifting, discovering, valuing the maker | Searching for a known item, comparing on price and delivery speed |
| What differentiates you | Style, story, personalisation, shop identity | Price, reviews, delivery speed, keyword relevance |
| Fee model | Listing, transaction and payment processing fees | Selling plan, category referral fee, plus fulfilment fees if you use FBA |
| Fulfilment | Usually you, per order | You, or FBA with per-unit fulfilment and storage charges |
| Returns | Your policy, within Etsy's rules | Amazon's customer-first standard, and returns processing charges in some categories |
| Advertising | Optional and often modest | Frequently necessary for a new listing to be seen at all |
| Branding | Your shop is the destination | The product page is the destination, and the brand is secondary |
The row that surprises Etsy sellers most is advertising. On Etsy, an old listing can keep earning quietly. On Amazon, a new listing with no sales history and no reviews usually needs paid placement to get its first orders, and that cost belongs in your model from day one rather than being discovered in month two.
The Amazon cost stack you have to model
Work through every line. A missing line is where the margin disappears.
- Selling plan. Amazon publishes an Individual plan at $0.99 per item sold and a Professional plan at $39.99 per month. Below roughly forty units a month the per-item plan is usually cheaper, above it the subscription is.
- Referral fee. Charged per item sold as a percentage of the total price or a minimum amount, whichever is greater. Rates vary by category, spanning roughly 5% to 45%, with a $0.30 minimum in most categories. Look up your actual category rather than assuming the common figure.
- FBA fulfilment fee. A per-unit charge based on size tier and weight. This is why packaging dimensions are a pricing decision: crossing into a larger size tier can move the fee more than a material change would.
- Storage. Charged monthly on the volume your inventory occupies, and higher in the final quarter of the year. Slow-moving stock also attracts long-term surcharges.
- Returns processing. Applies in certain categories and at certain return rates. High-return categories such as apparel need this modelled explicitly.
- Inbound costs. Getting stock to Amazon: freight or postage, cartons, prep, labelling, and any placement service charges.
- Advertising. Model it as a percentage of revenue, not as an afterthought. A new listing frequently spends a meaningful share of its early revenue on ads.
- Landed cost of goods. Materials, packaging, and your own labour at a rate you would actually accept.
On timing: Amazon announced its 2026 US referral and FBA fee changes on 15 October 2025, effective 15 January 2026, describing an average FBA increase of $0.08 per unit sold, less than 0.5% of an average item's selling price, with no new FBA fee types introduced. Fees had not increased in 2025. The practical lesson is not the size of that change but the pattern: rates move, Amazon gives at least 90 days notice, and any model you build needs the current rate card rather than a number you remember.
A five-line unit calculation
Do this per unit, per marketplace. The numbers below are illustrative, not a benchmark.
- Price the market will accept. Not your Etsy price. Look at what comparable listings on Amazon actually sell for, including delivery expectations.
- Subtract Amazon's cut. Referral fee for your category, plus FBA fulfilment fee for your size tier and weight, plus a monthly storage allocation per unit.
- Subtract your landed cost. Materials, packaging, labour, and the inbound cost of getting the unit into Amazon's network divided by units per shipment.
- Subtract an advertising allowance. Take a deliberately pessimistic percentage of price for a new listing, and a lower one for a mature listing. Model both.
- Subtract a returns allowance. Your category's realistic return rate multiplied by the cost of a returned unit, including the ones that come back unsellable.
What remains is contribution per unit. Now ask two questions.
- Does it clear your target margin with the pessimistic advertising figure? If it only works at zero ad spend, it does not work.
- How many units per month does it need to sell to be worth the operational load? A product with $2 of contribution needs volume you may not be able to supply.
Contribution per unit, line by line, before any inventory is ordered.
Which Etsy products travel well
| Product type | Fit with Amazon | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Repeatable physical product, standard sizes | Good | Predictable fulfilment fees, keyword-searchable demand, restockable |
| Consumables and refills | Good | Repeat purchase suits Amazon's buying pattern |
| Compact, light, sturdy items | Good | Low fulfilment fee, low damage and return risk |
| One-of-a-kind handmade pieces | Poor | No repeatable listing, and the maker story that justifies the price does not carry |
| Heavily personalised items | Poor to difficult | Amazon's model is built around standardised, restockable units |
| Large, heavy or fragile goods | Difficult | Fulfilment and storage fees plus damage risk erode the margin |
| Digital downloads | Not comparable | Amazon has no general third-party download marketplace like Etsy's; books go through Kindle Direct Publishing |
Handmade and personalised work: the honest assessment
Amazon can host handmade and customisable products, but the platform's economics reward standardisation. Every variable in your process, whether a proof step, a buyer message, a bespoke size, adds time that the price does not pay for once the referral fee and fulfilment fee are taken.
For most makers the better use of Amazon is not the flagship one-off piece. It is the simplified, repeatable version of a proven seller: fewer options, fixed sizes, packaging designed around a size tier, produced in batches.
That is a product development decision, not a listing decision, and it is the part people skip.
Digital products: set expectations correctly
If your Etsy shop sells printables, templates or planners, Amazon is not a parallel channel in the way sellers expect. There is no general marketplace for third-party digital downloads equivalent to Etsy's.
The realistic route for digital sellers is a physical adaptation. Turn the printable into a bound low-content book or a physical planner through Kindle Direct Publishing, and treat it as a new product with its own trim size, cover, interior and unit economics.
How to test without betting the shop
- Choose one product, not a catalogue. Pick your most repeatable proven seller, not your most beloved one.
- Simplify it. Cut variations to the minimum that still sells. Design the packaging around a size tier deliberately.
- Model it twice. Once with mature-listing advertising, once with launch-level advertising. Only proceed if both clear your floor.
- Order the smallest sensible batch. Enough to survive a stockout, not enough to fund a mistake.
- Set a decision date and a metric before you launch. For example: at 90 days, contribution per unit after ads must be above X, or the listing stops.
- Keep Etsy fully supported. Expansion that starves the channel already paying you is not expansion.
The mistakes that turn expansion into a loss
- Copying the Etsy price across. Different fees, different buyer expectations, different delivery promise.
- Leaving advertising out of the model. New Amazon listings rarely get discovered for free.
- Ignoring dimensions. Packaging that crosses a size tier can cost more per unit than the material inside it.
- Forgetting storage and slow stock. Inventory that does not move is charged for the privilege of not moving.
- Underestimating returns. A returned unit is often not resellable, so the loss is the full unit plus handling.
- Not costing your own labour. If your time is free in the model, the model is wrong.
- Listing fifty products at once. Fifty untested listings is fifty times the inventory risk and none of the learning.
The underlying discipline is the same one that decides whether an Etsy listing deserves to stay in the shop. If you have not run that check on your existing catalogue yet, start with the diagnosis in why an Etsy shop gets no sales, and make sure your production commitments are realistic first using the guide to setting Etsy processing times you can hit.
Run the numbers before you run the launch
Modelling this by hand once is instructive. Modelling it for every candidate product, at two advertising levels, across changing fee tiers, is where most sellers quietly give up and guess instead.
The Amazon FBA Profit Calculator and Launch Planner from F5 Design Studio was built for that step: a Google Sheets and Excel workbook plus a Notion edition that takes your price, category referral rate, fulfilment and storage inputs, landed cost, advertising allowance and return rate, and returns contribution per unit and a break-even volume, alongside a launch plan for the first 90 days.
Amazon also publishes its own revenue calculator, and you should cross-check against the current official rate card whatever tool you use. The point is to make the decision on a number instead of an instinct.
Frequently asked questions
Is Amazon cheaper than Etsy for sellers?
Not inherently. The two use different fee structures, so the answer depends on your category, price point, size and weight, fulfilment choice and advertising need. Model one specific unit on both rather than comparing headline percentages.
What are Amazon's main seller fees?
A selling plan (published at $0.99 per item sold for Individual, or $39.99 per month for Professional), a category referral fee charged as a percentage of the total price or a minimum amount whichever is greater, and, if you use FBA, per-unit fulfilment fees plus storage. Additional charges can apply for returns processing, inbound placement and long-term storage.
Can I sell handmade items on Amazon?
Yes, but the economics favour standardised, restockable products. Most makers do better launching a simplified, batch-produced version of a proven seller than transplanting one-of-a-kind work.
Can I sell Etsy digital downloads on Amazon?
Not in the same form. Amazon has no general third-party marketplace for digital downloads comparable to Etsy's. Books and low-content books go through Kindle Direct Publishing, which means creating a physical or Kindle edition rather than uploading a PDF.
How much should I budget for Amazon ads at launch?
Treat launch advertising as a deliberately pessimistic percentage of price and require the unit to remain profitable at that level. If the product only works with no ad spend, it is not ready for a marketplace where new listings compete for visibility.
Should I keep selling on Etsy if Amazon works?
Usually yes. Etsy buyers reward the brand, style and personalisation that Amazon flattens, and two channels with different demand patterns are more resilient than one.
Final takeaway
Amazon is not a bigger version of Etsy. It is a different cost structure applied to a different buying motive.
Pick one repeatable product. Look up your real category referral rate and your real size-tier fulfilment fee. Add storage, returns, inbound and honest advertising. Cost your own labour. Then look at what is left per unit and decide with the number in front of you.
If the unit works, expansion is a straightforward operational project. If it does not, you have just saved yourself a pallet of inventory and a very expensive lesson.
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