The buyer pays it, by default, at whatever number the seller's shipping profile generates. Etsy is not a third party splitting the bill: it displays the seller's chosen price at checkout, then takes its own cut of that same number before the seller sees a payout.
The buyer pays the shipping line; the seller buys the label; Etsy takes a cut of both.
Every listing is attached to a shipping profile the seller built, and that profile sets the price one of three ways: a flat rate, a calculated amount tied to the buyer's address, or free. Our Etsy shipping options page compares the three with a live example; what matters here is that whichever one is active, the number it produces is what the buyer is charged, full stop. Etsy does not add a markup of its own to that line, and it does not discount it either.
The seller then uses the money collected, plus whatever margin sits in the item price, to actually get the parcel moving — either by buying a label through Etsy's own shipping tool or by printing one somewhere else and marking the order shipped by hand.
Etsy is not free to run a marketplace on, and the shipping line is not exempt from its fees. Etsy's Fees & Payments policy states the 6.5% transaction fee applies to the price displayed for a listing plus the amount you charge for shipping and gift wrapping, checked on etsy.com 2026-08-25. Whatever number a seller puts on the shipping line, that same percentage is taken out of it, not just out of the item price next to it.
Because the transaction fee is a percentage of what the buyer was charged, a seller who prices shipping high to build in a margin is also raising the base the fee is taken from. Pricing the shipping line close to the real label cost keeps that fee smaller.
The transaction fee is taken from the sale. Printing a label through Etsy's own tool is a separate purchase against the seller's balance, at the carrier rates our Etsy shipping labels page compares against the Post Office counter price.
The buyer only ever sees the one number the shipping profile generated. Etsy's fee on that number is settled between Etsy and the seller afterward, and never appears as a separate line on the buyer's receipt.
A seller who sets a profile to free is choosing to fold the expected label cost into the item price rather than show it separately. The buyer's checkout reads no charge for shipping, but the label still costs whatever the carrier charges, and the transaction fee is now calculated on an item price that has to carry both the product and the postage. The Etsy free shipping page on this site prices four real parcels against the order threshold that makes this trade worthwhile for some shops and not others.
Etsy's fee schedule is revised from time to time; check the live policy page for the current rate before relying on the figure above for bookkeeping.
The buyer, by default, at whatever price the seller's shipping profile charges: a flat rate, a calculated amount, or nothing if the seller set the profile to free. The seller decides which of those three applies; Etsy just displays the resulting number at checkout.
No. Etsy sells labels at a negotiated carrier rate through its own shipping tool, but the seller's account is charged for the label at the time of purchase. Etsy is a payment processor and label reseller in this transaction, not the party covering postage.
Yes. Etsy's Fees & Payments policy states its 6.5% transaction fee is charged on the price displayed for a listing plus the amount charged for shipping and gift wrapping, checked 2026-08-25. Whatever a seller sets the shipping charge to, that fee is taken on it the same as on the item price.
The seller sets the profile to free, folds the expected label cost into the item price, and the buyer's checkout shows no charge for shipping. The label still costs what it costs; the Etsy free shipping page on this site works through what that trade does to the money left over from a sale.