The analysis the vendors can't publish
Crowding can be fixed with framing. Structure cannot. In the categories below, the published fee stack plus the prices page one actually clears at leave nothing — at any level of effort, photography, or hope. The companies that sell the blanks and files for these categories will never print this page. We don't sell blanks or files.
Analysis dated: October 21, 2026 · Fee policy checked the same day
Every Etsy sale carries $0.45 of fixed fees (the $0.20 listing + the $0.25 processing part) before percentages move. At $3.50, that fixed slice alone is 13% of the price; add 9.5% in percentages and the ordinary sale keeps 77.64%. Credit the sale to Offsite Ads and it keeps 62.64%. That is why sub-$5 digital singles — tumbler wraps, single SVGs, one-page printables — are a volume game only bundle sellers with thousands of past sales can win. A beginner entering at those prices is not underpriced. They are in a structure that pays the platform first and the bundle shops second.
A POD tee at $19.95 with a $16 all-in print-and-ship cost: fees take $2.35, leaving $1.60 on an ordinary sale — and $-1.39 when an ad brings the buyer. Negative is not a marketing problem. The same design at a specific framing and a $28–$32 price can live; at the race price, the category is dead at any price the beginner is willing to charge — which is the only definition that matters.
A $5 handmade item with $4 of materials: the stack takes $0.93, the materials take $4, and the maker keeps $0.07 for their hands, their packaging, and their hour. When page one's floor is set by sellers who do not count their own labor, matching the floor means joining them. The honest moves are up (personalization, sets, occasions) or out — never down.
A price survives the ordinary case when price ≥ (your cost + $0.45) ÷ 0.905. It survives an ad-credited sale when price ≥ (your cost + $0.45) ÷ 0.755. If the category's page-one prices sit below your second number, the category is dead for you at those costs — whatever it does for sellers with cheaper inputs or older shops.
Every verdict on this site runs these two floors automatically, at your price and your cost. Run yours — or read how the structures play out per idea in the worked verdicts.
The Etsy Entry Kit turns a verdict into a launch: the narrowing playbook that takes a DON'T or a NARROW to a specific-enough idea, the listing-launch checklist, the fee-proof pricing worksheet, the first-10-listings plan, and the beginner mistakes fleet in checklist form.
Included in the $39 Etsy Entry Kit