What a print-on-demand sale actually leaves you

Provider cost, shipping, the full Etsy stack — including the 0.5% Regulatory Operating fee Canadian sellers pay that most fee breakdowns leave out entirely.

Where you sell from

Order kind (Canada only — international costs more)

Your retail price

Shipping you charge the buyer

Provider base cost (per unit)

Provider shipping you pay

Extra print placement or personalisation

Offsite Ads on this sale

Etsy Ads or other ad spend per sale

Listing currency differs from payout (adds 2.5%)

Provider plan you are on

Etsy figures are its published rates: $0.20 US listing fee per listing (renewing while it runs and again on each sale), 6.5% transaction fee on item price plus shipping, payment processing of 3% + CA$0.25 for Canadian accounts on domestic and US orders and 4% + CA$0.25 on other international orders, a 0.50% Regulatory Operating fee for Canada, Offsite Ads at 15% or 12%, and 2.5% currency conversion when the listing currency differs from your payout. Checked November 2026. Printful's paid plan is US$24.99/month and becomes free at US$12,000 of yearly sales; Printify Premium is US$39/month or US$24.99/month billed yearly. Both advertise up to 33% off product pricing on the paid tier — how much of that you actually get varies by product, so set the base cost to the price you really pay.

Two lines almost every POD fee breakdown omits. Canadian sellers pay a 0.50% Regulatory Operating fee on the item price plus shipping — small per order, but it is a permanent margin cut that no generic calculator applies. And a Canadian account pays 4% + CA$0.25 rather than 3% on orders from outside Canada and the US. Sell one shirt to the UK and the processing line is a third higher than the same shirt sold to Ontario.

What comes off a US$24.99 shirt

Provider base US$11.50 with US$4.75 shipping, buyer pays US$4.99 shipping, no ads, Canadian account, domestic order.

What to do with this

Price to the fee stack, not to a round number. Etsy takes roughly 10–12% of the order before ads. A price that ignores that is a price that works only until you check.
A paid provider plan needs volume to pay for itself. The calculator shows how many sales a month it takes to earn back the monthly fee from the discount alone. Below that number, the free plan keeps more.
Free shipping is not free. If you absorb the buyer's shipping to win the listing, that amount comes straight out of your margin — the calculator treats buyer-paid shipping as revenue, so setting it to zero shows the real cost.
Offsite Ads change the ranking of your products. A 15% cut can turn a comfortable product into a break-even one, while an unprofitable product stays unprofitable without them.

Turn this into your own numbers

Knowing the fee is step one; knowing which of your products is quietly losing money is the part that changes the month. Or run one export free, no signup.

Margin Guard Pro — US$29

Working on a Canadian spreadsheet instead? The GST/HST, Expense & Mileage Tracker is US$19.

Fee changes and deadlines, when they actually change

Etsy, Amazon, Walmart and TikTok change their fee tables 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.

Stored on this site's own database. Reply to any email to come off the list.