UK makers usually frame this as "which marketplace is cheapest?" — but the three aren't priced differently for the same thing; they're selling different things. Here's the same £30 handmade product (with £3.95 delivery charged) across all three, using each platform's full verified fee stack.
| Marketplace | Approx. fees | Structure |
|---|---|---|
| Folksy | ~£2.36 | 18p listing + 7.2% commission (item only) + your card processing |
| Etsy (UK) | ~£3.30 | listing + 6.5% (item + delivery) + processing + 0.48% regulatory + VAT on fees |
| NOTHS | £9.00 | 30% of product price (25% + VAT); no listing fees; £238.80 to join |
(Etsy and Folksy figures from our calculators for a typical non-VAT-registered seller; offsite-ads and optional extras excluded. Pennies vary with your processing rates.)
Folksy sells you cheap access to a small, UK-only, handmade-loyal audience — lowest fees, lowest footfall, zero curation barrier. Etsy sells you the biggest handmade-adjacent audience in the world, with fee complexity to match and an algorithm you'll develop opinions about. NOTHS sells you curation and a gifting brand: fewer, higher-intent buyers who arrived to buy a present, at triple the commission and an application hurdle. Same product, three different businesses.
The fee structures barely overlap in what they punish: Folksy punishes nothing much (its risk is invisibility), Etsy punishes postage-heavy low-margin items (commission on delivery), NOTHS punishes thin margins (30% forgives nothing). Makers who thrive on NOTHS typically run a giftable, higher-priced subset there while the full range lives on Etsy or Folksy — and price each channel separately. The one mistake all three punish: identical prices everywhere, set for the cheapest channel's fees.
Fees verified August 2026; platforms change them — their current terms are the authority. Not affiliated with any marketplace mentioned. Not financial advice.