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Shopify or Etsy for selling art
Hardly anyone genuinely picks one. The useful question isn't which is better but what job each one does — and that depends on whether you already have a way to bring people in.
The short answer
Etsy gives you traffic and charges you for it. Shopify gives you control and no traffic at all. Hardly anyone really chooses: the stores that work usually run both, with different jobs.
What each one costs
| Etsy | Shopify | |
|---|---|---|
| Fixed fee | None | From around $29 a month |
| To list | $0.20 per item, every four months | Nothing |
| Per sale | Transaction fee plus payment fee | Payment gateway only |
| Internal ads | Extra fee if the sale came from their ads | Doesn't apply |
At low volume Etsy is cheaper because there's no subscription. Past a certain revenue it flips: per-sale fees overtake the flat fee. Run the number with your figures, not anyone else's.
What actually separates them
It isn't price, it's who owns the customer. On a marketplace the buyer belongs to the marketplace: you don't have their email to sell to them again, and the marketplace can change the rules, raise fees, or show a competitor right under your listing.
On your own store the customer is yours, with their email and their history. That's only worth something if you have a way to bring them in — which is exactly what Etsy hands you and Shopify doesn't.
Do you already have a way to bring people in — a mailing list, social reach, interior-design clients? If the answer is no, a standalone store is a shop window in the middle of a field.
Where Shopify wins outright
- Real variants. Size and frame as combinable options with their own price and stock. Marketplaces do this half-way.
- Apps. Augmented reality, cart recovery, subscriptions. It's an ecosystem, not a listing.
- Brand. Your domain, your design, your checkout. On a marketplace you're one card using the same template as your neighbour.
- Data. You know which piece gets looked at and not bought, and you can act on it.
The order that works
- Start on the marketplace if you have no audience. Validate what sells without paying for traffic.
- Build your own store alongside, even if it sells little. That's where the list and the brand get built.
- Send your own people to your own store. People who already know you don't need the marketplace, and there the margin is whole.
- Keep the marketplace as a discovery channel, not as the only place you exist.
What doesn't work is cloning the catalogue onto both and forgetting about it. They're different shop windows and they want different listings.
Use what a marketplace won't let you do
Frames tied to your variants and real-size augmented reality on the product page itself. That doesn't exist on a marketplace. Free plan of three artworks, no card.
See it on the Shopify App Store →Keep reading: how to sell art online.