Where to sell laser-made products in 2026: platforms and fees compared

Fees decide how much of every sale you keep, and they differ a lot between platforms. We read the official fee pages of Etsy, Amazon Handmade, eBay, Shopify, Allegro, Hood, Kleinanzeigen, Faire, Square and SumUp and put them in one table. Then we turned them into one number: what is left of a $100 sale.

The full fee table: every platform in one place

This is the reference table. Commission is the percentage the platform keeps. Payment fees are charged by the card processor, either on top of the commission (Etsy) or as the whole cost (your own shop, card readers).

Official fee pages, checked 24 September 2026. Fees change often; check the source page before you set a price.

What do you keep from a $100 sale?

Here is the same $100 order through each channel. Assumptions: the price includes shipping, there is no separate sales tax line, no refunds and no ads unless a row says so.

Our calculation from the official fee pages (24 September 2026). The order volume is an example, not a forecast. Wholesale via Faire is in the B2B section below.

The cheapest channels are the ones where you do the selling yourself. Marketplaces cost more because they bring buyers. For pricing that absorbs these fees, see laser product prices and margins.

Etsy in 2026: every fee, including what EU sellers pay

Etsy's fee policy was last updated on 13 February 2026. The fixed parts are small: $0.20 per listing, renewed every four months or when an item sells. The transaction fee is 6.5% of the item price plus shipping and gift wrap. Payment processing depends on where your shop is based.

Before VAT on Etsy fees, which Etsy collects in VAT countries. The Polish row uses the ECB rate of 24 Sep 2026 (1 EUR = 4.3823 PLN) and excludes your bank's conversion cost.

• Currency conversion: 2.5% of the sale when your listing currency differs from your payout currency. Etsy sends Polish sellers their money in euros, so a Polish shop that lists in USD pays it; one that lists in EUR does not.
• VAT on fees: sellers in VAT countries pay VAT on every Etsy fee. Only a VAT-registered business can reclaim it.
• Offsite Ads: if a buyer clicks an Etsy ad elsewhere and buys within 30 days, you pay 15% of the order, capped at $100. Shops under $10,000 in sales over 365 days can opt out; above that the fee is 12% and mandatory for the life of the shop.
• Regulatory Operating Fee: rates in effect since 22 June 2026 include 1.14% in France and 0.48% in the UK. The US, Germany and Poland are not on Etsy's list.
• Extras: Etsy Plus ($10 a month) is optional. A one-time set-up fee "may be required", but the fee page gives no amount.

Old numbers still circulate: a laser-vendor list updated in April 2025 quotes a 3.5% Etsy transaction fee, and a 2020 Glowforge forum thread "5% + 3%". The official rate is 6.5%.

Amazon Handmade: 15% in the US, 12% on amazon.de

Amazon Handmade charges a referral fee per unit shipped: 15% or $0.30, whichever is greater, in the US. Amazon's US pricing page says referral fees apply to the total price, including shipping and gift wrap. You need a Professional account ($39.99 a month), but after a one-time first-month payment the fee is waived for approved Handmade sellers.

On amazon.de the Handmade fee is 12% (minimum €0.30), valid from 5 January 2026. The plan costs €39 plus VAT for the first month and is then waived. We could not confirm on the German page whether the 12% is calculated on shipping as well. Handmade on amazon.pl was not checked.

eBay and eBay.de: final value fees and the private-seller question

eBay US charges 13.6% of the total sale in most categories (up to $7,500 per item), plus $0.30 per order up to $10 or $0.40 above. "Total" includes shipping and sales tax, so the rate on the item price is higher than it looks. 250 listings a month are free, then $0.35 each. Sellers rated Below Standard pay an extra 6% on final value fees.

On eBay.de, commercial sellers pay category rates that took effect on 1 July 2026: 14% for Möbel & Wohnen, 13% for Heimwerker and 14% for Bastel- & Künstlerbedarf. On top comes €0.35 per order (€0.45 above €10). Domestic sales by private sellers are free. Whether a maker may sell their own production as a private seller is a legal question we found no official source for, so ask your tax office first.

Allegro and Allegro Lokalnie: the Polish marketplace

Listing on Allegro is free. The only basic fee is the sales commission, charged on the final price plus the delivery cost the buyer chose. For "Home and Garden" (outside cheaper subcategories) it is 11% net, which is 13.53% for a seller who is not VAT-registered and cannot reclaim the VAT. Under "Collections and Art" > Handicrafts it is 14% net / 17.22% gross. The rate for the "Handmade Items" subcategory itself was not in the document we read. The minimum is 0.49 zł per unit.

Category placement matters. In a 2022 thread on the Allegro community forum, a seller expected an 18.40 zł commission on a 183.99 zł sale and was shown 29.07 zł before publishing; a moderator traced it to the subcategory the item was listed in. Check the commission preview before you publish.

Allegro Lokalnie is simpler: free listings, 7.9% on buy-now and auction sales (4.9% in electronics), and no commission on local ads.

German marketplaces: Hood.de and Kleinanzeigen

Hood.de charges private sellers nothing. Commercial sellers pay no listing fees and 4–11% commission by category, calculated on the price including VAT and shipping. Furniture & living, household & kitchen and art & antiques are in the 11% group. Shop packages are optional (Gold €21–25, Platin €32–39 a month).

Kleinanzeigen mentions no sales commission on its fee page, and both private and commercial users can still post ads for free. From 1 September 2026, commercial users get 2 free ads per goods category every 30 days, ads run 30 days instead of 60, and further ads cost €3.49–4.49 each. PRO package prices are not on that page.

Your own shop: when does Shopify beat marketplace fees?

Shopify Basic costs $39 a month, or $29 a month billed yearly. Grow is $105 / $79 and Advanced $399 / $299. With Shopify Payments, US online card payments cost 2.9% + 30¢ on Basic; with another payment provider Shopify adds 2%.

The break-even is simple arithmetic. A $100 order costs $9.95 on Etsy and $3.20 on Shopify, so each order saves $6.75. The $39 monthly plan is covered after about 6 orders a month (4–5 on yearly billing). Against Amazon Handmade's 15% it is covered after about 3–4 orders. What the arithmetic leaves out is traffic: a marketplace brings buyers, your own shop does not.

Shopify Payments is available in Poland and Germany. The German page shows plans in euros (€29–39 for Basic), but its card rates matched the US ones in our check, likely because it ran from the US, so we do not quote EU card rates. If you sell custom maps from your own shop, see how to add a map designer to a Shopify store.

Craft fairs and card readers

In person, the payment fee is the smallest cost of all. Square's free US plan charges 2.6% + 15¢ in person (3.3% + 30¢ online). SumUp charges 1.39% in Germany and 1.49% in Poland without a subscription; the Polish "Payments Plus" plan (89 zł a month) lowers it to 0.79%. The real cost of a fair is the booth, and we found no sourced booth-fee figures for the US, Germany or Poland. Even xTool's farmers-market guide only says that most markets have an application process with vendor fees.

B2B, wholesale and corporate gifts

Etsy's Seller Handbook gives the classic keystone structure: break-even = supplies + overhead + labor; wholesale = break-even × 2 or more; retail = wholesale × 2 or more. In other words, a shop that buys your work expects to pay about half of your retail price. Craftybase, an inventory-software vendor, adds a rule of thumb: wholesale only works if your base cost is no more than 25% of retail.

Faire is the main wholesale marketplace. In North America a new retailer's first order costs 15% plus a one-time $10 fee, and repeat orders 15%. Outside North America the first order costs 25% (a 10% referral fee on top of 15%). Orders through Faire Direct, from retailers you bring yourself, carry 0% commission.

A $100 retail item sold wholesale at $50 (keystone). Faire's payment processing for EU brands was not verified.

Corporate orders are the other B2B route. Bulk and logo listings show up on the first page of Etsy's market pages: logo cork coasters at $4.00 each for 5–250 pieces, logo ornaments at $3.27 (as displayed on 24 September 2026). Laser maker OMTech also advises home laser businesses to sell to wedding planners, small businesses and corporate clients.

Which channel for which product?

Fixed fees hurt cheap items; on expensive ones, the percentages and ads decide. The table shows total fees as a share of the sale.

Our calculation from the fees above. The Offsite Ads cap of $100 per order only binds above about $667 at 15%.

• Low-price items (keychains, coasters, tags) lose close to a fifth of their price to fees on Etsy and eBay; the fixed per-listing and per-order charges alone are 6–9% of a $5 sale. On fees alone, they do better in person, in bundles or as bulk B2B orders.
• High-ticket personalized pieces such as layered maps (from €75 for 20×20 cm to €355 for 45×90 cm in our size guide) carry marketplace fees easily. Here the risk is Offsite Ads: at 15%, one ad-driven sale costs more than all other Etsy fees together.
• Repeat customers and companies are the cheapest buyers to serve through your own shop or an invoice.

Channels can be combined: a marketplace for discovery, your own shop for repeat buyers, B2B for volume. If you make map products, Maperivo's Laser Map Designer creates the layered files; see also how to sell laser-cut maps online and how much you can really earn with a laser.