Etsy or your own Shopify store? The break-even, in orders a month
Etsy takes roughly 10% + 53¢ of a Canadian order. Shopify takes 2.8% + 30¢ and a CA$37 plan fee. This returns the order count at which the plan fee is paid for — and the honest caveat that goes with it.
Everything in Canadian dollars. Etsy: CA$0.28 listing per item, 6.5% transaction fee on item + shipping + gift wrap, 3% + CA$0.25 processing (Canada and US buyers), 0.50% Regulatory Operating Fee. Shopify: online standard card rate plus CA$0.30; plan prices from shopify.com/ca/pricing. Rates read 6 November 2026.
What each platform takes, per order
| Charge | Etsy, Canadian account | Shopify, Canadian store |
|---|---|---|
| Fixed, per order | CA$0.28 listing + CA$0.25 processing = CA$0.53 | CA$0.30 processing |
| Percentage, per order | 6.5% + 3% + 0.50% = 10.00% (4% processing on orders from outside Canada and the US) | 2.8% Basic / 2.6% Grow / 2.4% Advanced |
| Monthly, whether or not you sell | Nothing beyond the listing fee per item | CA$37 / CA$99 / CA$389 on yearly billing (CA$49 / CA$132 / CA$517 monthly) |
| Buyers | Etsy's own search brings them | None. Every visitor is yours to find and pay for |
Shopify's third-party transaction fee is 2% on Basic, 1% on Grow and 0.6% on Advanced, charged instead of nothing when a sale is paid through a provider other than Shopify Payments. It is not returned when an order is refunded.
Three findings the arithmetic produces
- The break-even is remarkably flat in sales, not in orders. At CA$15 an order it needs 28.24 orders a month; at CA$250 it needs 2.03. In sales terms every one of those is about CA$425–510 a month, because Etsy's 10% and Shopify's 2.8% are both percentages — only the CA$0.53 versus CA$0.30 fixed part changes with the order size.
- Paying through anything but Shopify Payments costs 1.35x the volume. The 2% third-party fee on Basic turns a CA$45 order from CA$1.56 to CA$2.46, and the break-even from 10.66 orders a month to 14.40.
- The plan ladder is a trap at small volume. Moving Basic to Grow saves 0.2% of the order and costs CA$62 a month more, which needs CA$31,000 of monthly sales to repay. Advanced needs CA$88,000. Stay on Basic until the sales are there.
The caveat that makes the number honest
This counts fees only. Etsy brings its own buyers to the listing; a Shopify store brings none, so the cost of getting a visitor — advertising, email, social, time — is the real missing line above the break-even. Compare that cost against your monthly Etsy fee bill: on CA$2,250 of monthly sales the whole Etsy fee bill is about CA$251, and no paid channel buys 50 visitors for less than that. The calculation favours the store in fees and ignores the reason sellers stay on Etsy.
Related: the full Canadian Etsy fee calculator, what a card rate really takes per sale in Canada, Etsy against eBay, Amazon and TikTok Shop on one product, or the price a target margin needs.
The GST/HST, Expense & Mileage Tracker does the tax side of the same shop: income and expenses with the tax split, input tax credits, mileage at the CRA rate, and a quarterly summary of what you owe or get back.
GST/HST Tracker — US$11.40 with LAUNCH40 (list US$19)Etsy, Shopify, Amazon and Walmart change their fee tables and plan prices without announcing it, and the Canadian tax deadlines move. I check and send one short email when something real changes. No sequence, no selling you something every Tuesday.
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