If you want your own online store without giving up a cut of every sale, put it on a store builder that charges a flat price per store, not a percentage. I'm the founder of LotsStore, and I built it so that LotsStore takes 0% of your sales: you pay per store, and shoppers pay straight into your own Stripe or Razorpay account. One honest note first: Etsy is a marketplace, so it brings shoppers to you. With a store of your own, you bring them.
Checked on 13 November 2026.
Etsy versus a store of your own
Etsy's big strength is its built-in audience. People go to Etsy to look for things, so a new listing can be found by shoppers who have never heard of you. That is real, and a store of your own does not come with it.
What a store of your own gives you is the whole sale. The shopper comes to your address, sees your brand and not a marketplace page, pays into your own payment account, and you keep the customer details. The price of that is that you bring the shoppers: Instagram, WhatsApp, your newsletter, a stall or a market, word of mouth, and Google over time.
| Etsy (marketplace) | A store of your own | |
|---|---|---|
| Who brings shoppers | Etsy's own shoppers and search, plus whatever you bring | You bring them |
| Where the sale happens | Inside Etsy | On your own store and domain |
| Cut of your sales | Etsy charges its own fees (see below) | 0% on LotsStore, a flat price per store instead |
| Where the money goes | Etsy's own fees apply to your sales | Shoppers pay into your own Stripe or Razorpay account |
What Etsy charges, and what I could not open
Etsy charges by fee type: a listing fee, a transaction fee, a payment processing fee and, if you take part, an offsite ads fee. I'm not giving any numbers here. On 13 November 2026 I tried to open Etsy's own fees page, etsy.com/legal/fees, and it returned a 403 error, so I could not read it. I did open one Etsy seller help article (help.etsy.com, article 360000344908), which says a fee applies to creating or renewing a listing and that editing a listing is free. For the current amounts of every fee, open etsy.com/legal/fees yourself and add them up for the orders you expect in a month.
The useful way to compare is by your own numbers. Take a typical month of orders, add Etsy's fees for them, and compare that total with a flat monthly store price. If you sell a lot of low-priced items, or high-priced ones, the answer changes, which is why I'd rather you check the fees page than trust my paraphrase.
LotsStore: your own store, 0% of your sales
LotsStore is for makers and small brands who want their own store. Here is what I checked on its pricing page on 13 November 2026:
- LotsStore takes 0% of your sales. Your payment provider charges its own processing fee, separately.
- Plans are Starter at $12 a month or $120 a year for 1 store, Pro at $29 a month or $290 a year for 3 stores, and Business at $79 a month or $790 a year for 10 stores. Every plan has every feature.
- With no plan, pay as you go is $15 per store a month, charged a little each day from LotsTech Credits. New accounts get free credits, no card needed.
- Products, variants, categories, collections, orders, customers and teammates are unlimited.
- Your own domain works on every plan.
- Shoppers pay into your own Stripe or Razorpay account, and LotsStore never holds the money. The guides are Connect your Stripe account and Connect your Razorpay account.
- You sell from 16 countries, each in its own currency, and you get a WhatsApp message for every new order.
- Tax: you set your own rates, and stores in India get GST with HSN and SAC codes. See Tax on your store.
- You can run the store from the dashboard, and also from ChatGPT, Claude or any MCP client.
If you are in India, this is the one paragraph that matters: connect Razorpay and your shoppers can pay by card, UPI, netbanking or wallet, with the money settling to your own Razorpay account and bank, and LotsStore still takes 0% of your sales. Outside India, connect Stripe.
For the full monthly picture of running a store, I wrote how much it costs to run an online store. If you are starting from zero, how to sell online from scratch covers store, payments, shipping and first orders. If you make things, the best online store for artists and makers is the closer read.
Other Etsy alternatives, checked on 13 November 2026
These are the other store builders I looked at, each from its own pricing page opened today. Prices are in US dollars with the billing period each page shows.
| Store builder | What its pricing page shows (checked 13 November 2026) |
|---|---|
| Big Cartel | Platinum is "7 days free, then $15/mo"; Diamond is "$30/mo"; there is also a free, limited-feature Gold plan. |
| Shopify | Basic is $29 a month paid yearly or $39 a month paid monthly. Third-party transaction fees are listed on Basic at 2%. |
| Squarespace | Basic is $19 a month paid annually or $25 monthly, with a 2% online store transaction fee. Core is $29 annually or $39 monthly, with 0% on online store transactions. |
| Sellfy | Starter is $22 a month billed yearly or $29 monthly, with "Up to $10,000 in sales per year". Sellfy states 0% transaction fees on every plan. |
How I'd place them for a maker:
- Big Cartel is built around makers and artists and has a simple setup, so it is the nearest in spirit to Etsy's seller crowd. I wrote about it in Big Cartel alternatives.
- Shopify is a full-featured store platform with its own payments. If you use a payment provider other than Shopify Payments, its page lists a third-party transaction fee. My comparison is LotsStore vs Shopify, and Shopify alternatives with no transaction fees goes through the options.
- Squarespace puts design up front, and its Basic plan lists a 2% store fee that its Core plan does not.
- Sellfy lists downloads, subscriptions and merch as what you sell, with 0% transaction fees and a yearly sales limit on each plan. If you sell digital products, also see Gumroad alternatives.
Where LotsStore differs: it takes 0% of your sales and does not put a yearly sales limit on the plan; you pay per store, so a second brand or a store for another country is one more store, not a new account.
Which one fits you
- You want to keep every sale and have your own brand: a store of your own. LotsStore if you want 0% of your sales and the payments straight into your own account.
- You have no audience yet and want shoppers to find you: keep Etsy as the place where you are found, and point people to your own store as it grows.
- You are in India: Razorpay with UPI on your own store, with GST handled as described in the tax guide.
- You sell digital downloads mostly: Sellfy or Gumroad are built for that.
FAQ
Is there an Etsy alternative that takes 0% of my sales?
Yes. LotsStore takes 0% of your sales: you pay per store (Starter is $12 a month or $120 a year for 1 store), and shoppers pay into your own Stripe or Razorpay account. Sellfy also states 0% transaction fees on every plan, though its plans have yearly sales limits. Your payment provider still charges its own processing fee on any store of your own.
Will I get fewer shoppers than I do on Etsy?
Probably, at the start. Etsy is a marketplace with its own shoppers and search, so your listings can be found by people who never heard of you. A store of your own is found through what you bring: your Instagram, your newsletter, your own domain and Google. If you already have people who buy from you or ask where to buy, a store of your own keeps the whole sale with you.
Do I need my own domain to run a LotsStore store?
No. Your store works on our address, and your own domain works on every plan. You add one CNAME record at your domain provider, press Verify DNS, and HTTPS is set up for you.
How do I move my products from Etsy to my own store?
Make a CSV of your products and import it into LotsStore, or add products one by one. Products, variants, categories and collections are unlimited on every plan, so you can bring the whole catalogue.
Can I get paid in rupees or in my own currency?
Yes. LotsStore sells from 16 countries, each in its own currency, and the money goes to your own payment account. Businesses registered in India connect Razorpay and shoppers can pay by card, UPI, netbanking or wallet. Elsewhere you connect Stripe.
I'm the founder of LotsStore and I wrote this to be useful even if you stay on Etsy: do the fee sum on your own orders, and let that decide. When you are ready to try a store of your own, you can create one on LotsStore and import your products from a CSV with the CSV import guide.