On the US pages each company published on September 11, 2026, Etsy Payments charges 3% + $0.25 per sale, and Shopify Payments charges 2.9% + 30¢ per online card payment on the Basic plan, falling to 2.7% on Grow and 2.4% on Advanced. On a $50 order the two cost exactly the same, $1.75. The card fee is close to a wash. The real difference in selling costs sits elsewhere: Etsy’s separate 6.5% transaction fee on one side, Shopify’s monthly plan price on the other.
That is the short version, and it surprises sellers who assume the processing line is where a marketplace quietly takes its cut. Below are the published rates, how the crossover moves with order size, where each fee actually shows up in your accounts, and how eBay and Amazon handle the same cost.
Last checked: September 11, 2026. All rates below are the US versions of each platform’s own pages, read that day. Payment fees differ by country.
Shopify Payments vs Etsy Payments fees, side by side
Etsy’s sell page, read September 11, 2026, lists a “3% + $0.25 payment processing fee” charged when an item sells through Etsy Payments, and notes that “Payment processing fees vary by bank country.” It also lists a 2.5% currency conversion fee where your listing currency differs from the currency of your payment account.
Shopify’s pricing page, read the same day with the region set to USA, lists these Shopify Payments rates:
| Plan | Monthly price (monthly billing) | Online card rate | In-person card rate | Fee if you use another payment provider |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Basic | $25 | 2.9% + 30¢ | 2.7% + 0¢ | 2% |
| Grow | $65 | 2.7% + 30¢ | 2.7% + 0¢ | 1% |
| Advanced | $399 | 2.4% + 30¢ | 2.7% + 0¢ | 0.6% |
| Plus | from $2,300 | 2.1% + 30¢ | 2.7% + 0¢ | 0.2% |
Etsy’s percentage is slightly higher and its flat amount slightly lower. That combination is why neither one wins at every order size.
How the crossover moves with order size
Because each fee is a percentage plus a flat amount, the cheaper one depends on how big the order is. Applying the published US rates to single orders:
| Order total | Etsy Payments (3% + $0.25) | Shopify Basic (2.9% + 30¢) | Shopify Grow (2.7% + 30¢) | Shopify Advanced (2.4% + 30¢) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| $10 | $0.55 | $0.59 | $0.57 | $0.54 |
| $25 | $1.00 | $1.03 | $0.98 | $0.90 |
| $50 | $1.75 | $1.75 | $1.65 | $1.50 |
| $100 | $3.25 | $3.20 | $3.00 | $2.70 |
| $250 | $7.75 | $7.55 | $7.05 | $6.30 |
The arithmetic is mine, from the two pages above, rounded to the cent. Against Shopify Basic, the processing lines meet at exactly $50: below it, Etsy’s line is a few cents cheaper, and above it, Shopify’s is. Against Grow the meeting point falls to about $16.67 an order, and against Advanced to about $8.33.
Look at the size of the gaps. At $250, the difference between Etsy and Shopify Basic on card processing is 20 cents. Nobody’s decision to leave a marketplace should turn on 20 cents, and this table is here mostly to show why it does not.
Where the card fee actually lands in your accounts
The rates are similar. The way they appear in your books is not, and this is the part that confuses sellers in their first month on a store.
On Shopify, processing fees never appear on your Shopify bill. Shopify’s Help Center page on transaction fees, read September 11, 2026, states that “Shopify Payments credit card processing fees aren’t included in these charge types, because they’re deducted from your payouts rather than billed on your Shopify bill.” So the invoice shows your plan and any app charges, while card fees come out before the money reaches your bank. Anyone auditing costs from the Shopify invoice alone will miss them.
Shopify’s page on payouts and fees says your card rate depends on your plan and shows separate domestic and “Rest of World” rates under Standard rates in your Shopify Payments settings. The US pricing page I read did not list the international rate, so it is not quoted here. Your own settings screen is the place to read it.
On Etsy, processing is one of several lines charged per sale. The sell page lists it alongside the 6.5% transaction fee and the listing fee, all tied to the same order. Because Etsy’s payment policy page did not open for us on the day of writing, I am not stating exactly which parts of an order total the 3% is calculated on. Your Etsy payment account records show the charge on each of your own orders.
The trap on the Shopify side: a third-party provider
The last column of Shopify’s table is the one that changes the answer. If you take payments through a provider other than Shopify Payments, Shopify’s payouts page states that such stores “pay both a transaction fee from Shopify, and credit card fees charged by their third-party payment provider.” On Basic, that Shopify fee is 2%.
As an illustration: at $2,000 a month in sales on Basic through another provider, Shopify’s 2% alone is $40 a month, before the provider charges anything for processing the card. That is my arithmetic from the published rate. It is the one situation where the payment line on a store can cost noticeably more than on Etsy, and it is easy to walk into during a migration if you connect the processor you already use elsewhere.
How eBay and Amazon handle the same cost
On Etsy and Shopify, card processing is a separate, visible line. On the two other large US marketplaces it is not, which makes a like-for-like processing comparison impossible there.
eBay’s selling fees page, read September 11, 2026, states: “We charge one final value fee when your item sells, and you don’t have to worry about third-party payment processing fees.” For most categories that fee is “13.6% on total amount of the sale up to $7,500 calculated per item,” plus a per-order fee of $0.30 on orders of $10.00 or less and $0.40 above that. eBay defines the total amount of the sale as including the item price, handling, shipping charged to the buyer and sales tax. The card cost is inside that percentage rather than beside it.
Amazon’s selling pricing page, read the same day, lists an Individual plan at “$0.99 / item sold” and a Professional plan at “$39.99 / month,” with referral fees that vary by category: “you’ll pay a percentage of the total price or a minimum amount, whichever is greater.” That page does not show a separate card-processing line. TikTok Shop’s public seller page did not load for us on the day of writing, so it is left out of this comparison rather than filled in from someone else’s summary.
The practical point: when a seller leaving eBay or Amazon sees Shopify’s card rate as a new cost, that cost was already being paid inside the marketplace’s bigger percentage. It has moved to its own line, not appeared from nowhere.
What this means for a move
I should say plainly that I am a Shopify partner and this site earns from Shopify referrals. That is why I would rather you hear this from me: payment processing is not a reason to move from Etsy to Shopify. On the published US rates the two lines are within cents of each other at every ordinary order size.
What does separate the two is everything else on the bill. Etsy’s full fee stack on one sale shows the 6.5% transaction fee and listing fees sitting on top of processing. Shopify replaces those with a plan price, and what a Shopify store costs per month once apps and a theme are added is the other half of the ledger. The break-even between Etsy’s fees and Shopify’s plans puts the two halves together, and our fee calculator runs that comparison on your own revenue, orders and listings.
If you run both for a while, you will have two processors, two payout rhythms and two places to reconcile card fees. Opening a store while still selling on Etsy covers what that parallel period involves.
FAQ
Is Shopify Payments cheaper than Etsy Payments?
Does Shopify charge a transaction fee on top of card processing?
Where do I see Shopify Payments fees?
Does eBay charge a separate payment processing fee?
Last checked: September 11, 2026. Etsy figures from etsy.com/sell (US); Shopify figures from shopify.com/pricing (USA, USD) and Shopify’s Help Center pages on transaction fees and on payouts and fees; eBay figures from eBay’s selling fees help page; Amazon figures from sell.amazon.com/pricing. All read that day. Payment fees change and differ by country.