Numonday vs Etsy for UK makers: the fees cross at 3 sales a month — but that's half the story

Fee rates verified August 2026 from each platform's own published pricing. Worked examples use a £15 item + £3.20 postage (£18.20 total), seller not VAT-registered, no offsite-ads fee.

The fee maths

Etsy's UK stack on that £18.20 sale: ~15p listing + £1.18 transaction fee (6.5% of item and postage) + 93p payment processing (4% + 20p) + 9p regulatory fee (0.48%), plus 20% VAT on all of those if you're not VAT-registered. Total: about £2.82, a 15.5% effective rate.

Numonday's stack on the same sale: Stripe's 1.5% + 20p = 47p. Plus the £5 monthly subscription, however many sales you make.

Sales/month	Numonday (£5 + Stripe)	Etsy	Cheaper
1	£5.47	£2.82	Etsy
2	£5.95	£5.64	Etsy — just
3	£6.42	£8.45	Numonday
10	£9.73	£28.18	Numonday
30	£19.20	£84.54	Numonday

Each sale costs about £2.35 less on Numonday, so the £5 flat fee pays for itself from 3 sales a month — roughly £55 of monthly revenue at this order size. VAT-registered sellers cross at the same point on these numbers; bigger orders cross even sooner because Etsy's fees are mostly percentages. The calculator finds your own crossover.

The half the fee table doesn't show

Etsy brings buyers; Numonday mostly doesn't — yet. Etsy is one of the UK's biggest marketplaces with search traffic in the tens of millions of visits a month; Numonday is a small independent. On Etsy, a good listing can be found by strangers. On Numonday, realistically, you'll be sending much of your own traffic — social links, market-stall QR codes, email lists.

That reframes what you're buying. Etsy's 15.5% is partly a customer-acquisition cost. Numonday's £5 is closer to cheap, well-presented hosting for sales you generate yourself — the same job a standalone website does, at a fraction of the setup effort.

Who each suits

Etsy only: you're starting from zero audience and need the marketplace to find you buyers. Fees are the price of footfall.
Numonday alongside Etsy: you already have any owned audience at all. Point your own links at the low-fee channel and let Etsy keep doing discovery. Two shops, £5, and the maths above says the second shop pays for itself at 3 redirected sales.
Numonday only: you sell mainly at fairs and on social, and the marketplace fee was buying you little discovery anyway. Cheapest home for an existing audience.

Other differences worth knowing

Payouts: Numonday sales land in your Stripe account immediately — no payout schedule, no reserve holds. Etsy pays on its deposit schedule.
UK-only sellers: Numonday only admits UK-based sellers; buyers can be anywhere. Etsy is global on both sides.
Rules: both require items to be handmade, designed, vintage or curated — Numonday explicitly bans mass-produced resale.

This is information, not financial or tax advice. We're not affiliated with either platform, and this page carries no referral links. Made by CAAC (UK). See also: Numonday fees explained · Folksy Fee Calculator (the other UK-only option) · 7-channel fee comparator.