You can turn off Etsy Offsite Ads only if your shop has never made $10,000 or more in any 365-day stretch. If that’s you, go to Shop Manager, then Settings, then Offsite Ads, and choose Opt out of Offsite Ads. If your shop has crossed that line even once, you can’t turn them off: you pay 12% on every order an ad brings in, up to $100 an order, for the life of the shop.
If you’re in the second group, the button isn’t there, so stop hunting for it. Work out what the fee costs you, and price for it.
How do I turn off Offsite Ads on Etsy?
If your shop qualifies, these are Etsy’s steps:
- On Etsy.com, open Shop Manager.
- Select Settings.
- Select Offsite Ads.
- Choose Opt out of Offsite Ads.
- Confirm.
Etsy words these steps for Etsy.com, so use a browser.
Two things catch people after they opt out. Etsy’s advertising policy says it “may take up to three business days” for your listings to stop showing in the program. And a buyer who clicked one of your ads before the opt-out took effect still costs you the fee on any order they place within 30 days of that click. So a fee or two in the week after you opt out doesn’t mean the setting failed.
The opt-out takes Partner Checkout with it. That’s Etsy’s name for buying your listing inside a partner’s app or site without coming to Etsy.com, and the policy says you can leave it “only by opting out of Offsite Ads.”
Changed your mind? Go back to the same Offsite Ads page and choose Turn on Offsite Ads.
Why can’t I opt out of Offsite Ads?
Because your shop passed $10,000 once, and Etsy doesn’t forget. Its advertising policy says a shop that crossed $10,000 “in any consecutive 365 day period after February 20, 2019” has to take part “for the lifetime of your shop even if you fall below that threshold at a later period.” A slow year later doesn’t get you out. One good stretch is enough, and it can be years old.
Etsy runs the check on the first day of each month. If you opted out while you were under, that opt-out ends: the policy says earlier opt-outs “no longer apply.” The one consolation is the rate: 12% instead of 15%, starting on the first day of the next month.
If your shop isn’t in US dollars, Etsy converts each sale to USD at the exchange rate it used when that sale was processed.
The $10,000 Etsy counts isn’t the total the fee is charged on
This one matters if you’re anywhere near the line. Etsy’s fees policy adds up your sales one way to check the limit, and a different way to charge the fee:
| What counts toward the $10,000 | What the Offsite Ads fee is charged on | |
|---|---|---|
| Item price | Yes, times quantity, minus discounts and cancelled orders | Yes |
| Shipping you charge | No | Yes |
| Gift wrap | No | Yes |
| US sales tax | No | No |
So a shop that ships heavy items can take in well over $10,000 a year and still be under Etsy’s line. Cross it, and the fee lands on that shipping too. If you’re close, look at your item sales, not your total revenue.
How do I know if my shop has crossed $10,000?
You don’t have to add it up yourself. Etsy’s advertising policy says the totals it uses “are displayed in your Shop Manager,” and Etsy gives you notice if you’ve crossed. One catch: Etsy counts item sales after discounts and cancellations, not the shipping buyers paid. So its number can be lower than the revenue in your own books.
How much does Etsy charge for Offsite Ads?
15% of the whole order for a shop that’s never crossed the line, 12% for one that has, and never more than $100 on one order. Some examples:
- A $40 item with $6 shipping is a $46 order. At 12% the fee is $5.52. At 15% it’s $6.90.
- The $100 cap only kicks in on big orders: above about $833 at 12%, or above about $667 at 15%.
An order counts as an Offsite Ads order when the buyer clicked one of your ads and bought from your shop within 30 days. One click can lead to more than one order, and Etsy says “each order may incur an Offsite Ads fee.” If the buyer’s last click before buying was an Etsy Ad on Etsy itself, you pay only the Etsy Ads cost for that order, not both.
If you charge extra for personalization, that fee is part of the listing price, so the fee applies to it like the rest of the price. The fee comes out of your payment account balance like your other Etsy fees.
What can you do when Offsite Ads are mandatory?
Less than you’d like. Etsy’s help center is plain about it: “You can’t choose which listings are advertised,” and Offsite Ads “don’t have a budget setting.” Etsy picks the listings and the channels (including Google, Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, Bing, the Google Display Network and partner sites).
1. Find out how much of your sales it touches. Go to Shop Manager, then Marketing, then Offsite Ads. Etsy’s dashboard shows which orders were attributed to an ad, the fees, the clicks, and “how much of your sales come from Offsite Ads.”
2. Turn that share into a cost across all your sales. A fee on some of your orders is a much smaller cost once you spread it across the whole shop. Multiply the share from your dashboard by the fee to get that cost:
| Share of your sales from Offsite Ads | Cost on all sales at 12% | Cost on all sales at 15% |
|---|---|---|
| 5% | 0.6% | 0.75% |
| 10% | 1.2% | 1.5% |
| 20% | 2.4% | 3% |
| 30% | 3.6% | 4.5% |
Those shares are examples, and the $100 cap is left out. Your real share will differ from one product to the next, so check which listings show up in the dashboard most.
3. Price for it where it hurts. I said it in my guide to pricing Etsy products and I’ll say it again: budget for 12 to 15 percent on the orders Offsite Ads drive. That one fee can turn a thin-margin product from profit to loss. On a product with a fat margin, the fee on one order in ten barely shows. On a $25 product that leaves you $3 after costs and Etsy’s other fees, the Offsite Ads fee takes the whole $3, and more once shipping is in the order. Start your repricing there.
To run the numbers on one product, our free Etsy fee calculator has an Offsite Ads setting for either rate. To see it across the whole shop, Listadum’s Profit Tracking imports your orders and transactions from your Etsy ledger, Etsy fees and ad costs included, so those costs show up in your margins instead of only in your payment account. Profit Tracking is on the Growth and Max plans.
Should you turn off Offsite Ads if you still can?
The opt-out covers the whole shop, so ask one question about your best sellers: does a 15% fee leave anything after Etsy’s other fees and your costs? If it doesn’t, every ad sale on them loses money. Opt out. If it does, leave it on: a sale from a buyer who’d never have found you is new money, even after the fee. I cover Etsy’s own ads inside Etsy, and how to tell whether ads pay, in Are Etsy Ads Worth It?
And if you’re growing toward $10,000, treat the opt-out as temporary. Plan your prices for the day it ends.