Why I Switched From Etsy to MadeThis for Digital Products

I want to be fair to Etsy before I tell you why I left.

Etsy is a legitimate platform with real traffic. It's how I made my first digital product sales. When I didn't know anything about SEO or driving traffic, Etsy's built-in marketplace brought buyers to me.

For that — getting your first few sales before you've built your own audience — Etsy is hard to beat.

But after 14 months and $4,200 in sales on Etsy, I switched to MadeThis. Here's why.

The Fee Problem

Etsy's fee structure eroded my margins in ways I didn't fully calculate when I started.

Here's what Etsy takes on a typical sale:

• Listing fee: $0.20 per item listed (renews every 4 months or per sale)
• Transaction fee: 6.5% of the sale price
• Payment processing: ~3% + $0.25

On a $37 product, that's roughly:

• $0.20 listing
• $2.41 transaction fee (6.5%)
• $1.36 payment processing

Total fees: ~$3.97 on a $37 sale. That's ~10.7%.

On 100 sales, I was paying Etsy about $400 instead of keeping it.

MadeThis doesn't charge a transaction percentage on top of payment processing. I pay only Stripe's standard rate — no platform cut. On the same $37 product volume, I keep significantly more.

See the full MadeThis fee comparison at /madethis-pricing.

The Branding Problem

On Etsy, you're a seller in a marketplace. Your product page lives at etsy.com/shop/YourShopName/listing/123456789. Etsy's branding is everywhere. Your brand is secondary.

This matters more than it might seem, because:

1. Buyers associate the purchase with Etsy, not you. Repeat buyers may go back to Etsy and accidentally buy from a competitor.
2. You can't customize the checkout experience. You can't add trust signals specific to your products.
3. If Etsy changes its algorithm, policies, or fees, you have no control.

On MadeThis, I have a custom domain. My store looks like my store. Buyers are in my world, not Etsy's.

The Competition Problem

When someone finds my product on Etsy, related products from competitors appear all over the page. Etsy actively shows buyers alternatives.

I once noticed that a competitor had copied my product title almost word-for-word and was appearing directly below my listing. Etsy's algorithm was using my listing to drive traffic to my competitor.

On MadeThis, my product page is my product page. No competitor listings, no "customers also bought" boxes showing alternatives, no advertising in the sidebar.

What I Gave Up by Leaving Etsy

I want to be honest about this, because it matters.

Etsy marketplace traffic. Etsy's search brings buyers to your products without you having to generate all the traffic yourself. When I first moved to MadeThis, my monthly sales dropped for about six weeks while I built my SEO content and traffic channels.

That six-week dip was real and uncomfortable. If you're considering the same move, plan for it. Don't leave Etsy until you have some traffic source of your own — even a small email list or some SEO traction.

Buyer familiarity. Some buyers trust Etsy more than unknown stores because they've bought from Etsy before. On MadeThis, your store needs to establish its own trustworthiness. Good product pages, responsive support, and reviews help with this.

The Transition Timeline

Here's how I actually made the move:

Months 1-2 on MadeThis: Ran both platforms simultaneously. Set up my MadeThis store, wrote my first three SEO blog posts linking to it, kept Etsy running to maintain cash flow.

Month 3: MadeThis was matching Etsy's monthly revenue. Started directing all new content toward MadeThis.

Month 4: Closed the Etsy shop. MadeThis was generating more revenue with lower fees, and I was done paying for a platform I was building a competitor to my own store for.

Was It Worth It?

Yes, unambiguously.

My annual revenue from the same products is higher on MadeThis because I keep more per sale. My brand is stronger because buyers experience my store, not Etsy's. My traffic isn't controlled by Etsy's algorithm.

The trade-off is that I had to build my own traffic. That work was real. But it's work I own — SEO articles, an email list, content that drives consistent visitors regardless of what Etsy does next.

If you want to compare MadeThis against Etsy in more depth, /compare/madethis-vs-shopify covers some overlapping territory around owning your own store.

Ready to start building something you own? Start your free trial on MadeThis → and set up your first product alongside your existing channels. You don't have to leave Etsy on day one — run both until MadeThis is clearly the better earner.