What Etsy actually kept last month
Fee calculators tell you what a sale should cost. Your statement tells you what it did cost. Drop the CSV in and see the real number, including the lines most calculators quietly leave out.
Your statement never leaves this page. There is no upload, no account and no server. The file is read by your own browser, analysed on your machine, and forgotten the moment you close the tab.
Where to find the file
- On Etsy, open Shop Manager, then Finances.
- Choose Monthly statements, then View all.
- Pick the month you want and select Generate CSV.
- Etsy prepares the file and emails it to you, or offers it as a direct download.
The right file has columns beginning Date, Type, Title, Info. If you grab the orders or listings export instead, this tool will tell you which one you picked rather than showing you nonsense.
Why the number surprises people
Etsy's headline transaction fee is 6.5%, and almost every fee calculator online models some version of that plus payment processing. The result is a tidy figure somewhere around 10%, which is a fine estimate for one sale and a poor description of a month.
A month contains costs a per-sale model cannot see. Listing fees are charged when you publish and again every time a listing renews, whether or not it ever sells, so a wide catalogue quietly accumulates them. Ad spend arrives daily and is unrelated to how many sales it produced. In the EU, VAT is charged on top of Etsy's own fees. None of that is hidden, exactly, but it is spread across hundreds of lines in a spreadsheet nobody wants to read.
There is also a mistake that runs the other way. Etsy's statement puts sales tax and VAT that the buyer paid in the same column as your fees. Count those as costs and your take rate looks worse than it is. This tool splits them out and says so, because a number you cannot trust in both directions is not worth having.
Questions
Is my Etsy statement uploaded anywhere?
No. The tool has no server and no account. Your browser reads the CSV from your own disk, does the arithmetic in memory, and forgets it when you close the tab. You can disconnect from the internet after the page loads and it will still work.
Where do I get my Etsy monthly statement CSV?
In Shop Manager, go to Finances, then Monthly statements, then View all. Pick the month you want and select Generate CSV. Etsy prepares the file and either emails it to you or offers it as a direct download. The correct file has columns beginning Date, Type, Title, Info.
Why is my real take rate higher than the 6.5% Etsy advertises?
6.5% is the transaction fee alone. Your statement also contains payment processing, listing and renewal fees, any Etsy Ads or Offsite Ads spend, regulatory operating fees in some countries, subscriptions, currency conversion, and in the EU the VAT charged on top of Etsy's own fees. Listing fees in particular are charged whether or not an item sells, so a large catalogue with a low sell-through rate can push the real rate far above the headline number.
Why does this tool exclude sales tax and VAT paid by the buyer?
Because that money was never yours. Etsy collects it from the buyer and remits it onward, and it appears in the statement's Fees and Taxes column alongside genuine costs. Counting it as a fee inflates your take rate and makes the shop look less profitable than it is. This tool separates it out and shows it under a heading of its own.
Can I load more than one month at once?
Yes. Select or drop several statement CSVs together and the totals are combined, with a month-by-month table showing how the take rate moved. Everything still happens locally.
What is the difference between this and the Etsy Fee Calculator?
The calculator models what a hypothetical sale will cost using published rates, which is what you want before you set a price. The decoder reads what actually happened, from your own statement, which is what you want when the payout does not match what you expected.
Why are there more transaction fee lines than sales?
Etsy charges the transaction fee per item, while payment processing is charged once per order. An order containing three different listings produces three transaction fee lines and one processing fee line, so the counts legitimately differ.
My VAT on fees shows as charged and then credited back. What does that mean?
That pattern normally means a valid VAT number is registered on your Etsy account and the fees are being reverse charged, so the VAT nets to nothing. It is worth knowing that it is working, because if the credits ever stop appearing, a real cost has started arriving quietly.
This tells you where the money went. It cannot tell you which discount caused it.
The statement records fees, not the coupon codes and sale events behind them. Working out which discount survives the fee stack and which is quietly costing you margin needs your order exports as well, which is what Discount Lab does. Same principle: your files, your browser, nothing uploaded.