Folksy vs Etsy: which one should a UK maker list on?

Who and what each one accepts

Folksy is the narrower door. Its help says you have to be resident in the UK to sell there, which leaves out the Republic of Ireland, British overseas territories and British citizens living abroad, and lets in the Channel Islands and the Isle of Man only if postage to the UK is priced at UK rates. Each item has to meet at least one test: handmade by you through a craft practice, an original piece of art created by you, or your own original design. Craft supplies are the exception, handmade or not.

Etsy asks for a human touch in one of four ways: made by the seller, designed by the seller, handpicked by the seller, or sourced by the seller. That admits vintage, items you designed and had printed by a third party, and craft and party supplies. The table sets the common cases side by side, in each marketplace's own words.

Folksy SEO: the title, the 15 tags and the first 50 words →

Sources: Folksy help: What can I sell on Folksy? (handmade by you, original art, own design, craft supplies, no resellers, no AI-generated artwork), checked 25 October 2026 · Folksy help: I'm not in the UK, can I sell on Folksy? (UK residents, Channel Islands and Isle of Man at UK postage rates), checked 25 October 2026 · Etsy's Creativity Standards (made, designed, handpicked or sourced by a seller, vintage at 20 years, last updated 10 June 2025), checked 25 October 2026

What one sale costs on each

Folksy charges its 6% commission on the item price only, and its help says plainly that commission is not charged on postage. Etsy charges its 6.5% transaction fee on the item price plus the delivery and gift wrapping you charge, and its payment processing and its Regulatory Operating fee for UK sellers are worked out on the whole order too. On a sale with postage, Folksy's lower rate also has a smaller base.

VAT changes the picture less than it seems. Folksy adds 20% VAT to its listing and selling fees for every seller, which puts this sale at £3.95. Etsy lists its fees before VAT and charges VAT on them to UK sellers who haven't given it a VAT ID, so a UK shop without a VAT number pays VAT on both. Etsy's Offsite Ads add 15% of an order its ads bring in, or 12% once a shop passes $10,000 of sales a year, while Folksy says it pays for its own advertising.

Folksy fee calculator: Basic or Plus, Stripe or PayPal → · Etsy fee calculator, with Offsite Ads on or off →

Sources: Folksy help: How much does it cost to sell on Folksy? (6% + VAT on the item price, not postage, £0.15 + VAT per unit, Stripe and PayPal rates as quoted, 20% VAT on Folksy's fees), checked 25 October 2026 · Folksy: The UK's alternative to Etsy (Folksy only charges commission on your product price, Folksy funds all advertising costs), checked 25 October 2026 · Etsy Fees & Payments Policy (listing 0.20 USD, transaction fee 6.5% of price plus delivery and gift wrapping, fees exclusive of VAT, Offsite Ads 15% or 12%), checked 25 October 2026 · Etsy Payments Policy (United Kingdom: 4% + 0.20 GBP), checked 25 October 2026 · Etsy Help: What is a Regulatory Operating Fee? (United Kingdom 0.48%, on item price and postage), checked 25 October 2026 · Etsy Help: How VAT Is Collected on Seller Fees (UK sellers without a VAT ID are charged VAT on eligible fees), checked 25 October 2026

Listing fees: per unit on Folksy, per listing on Etsy

Folksy's 15p + VAT is charged for each unit of quantity, when you list: ten of the same mug on a Basic account cost £1.80 with VAT the day the listing goes live, and a listing lasts 120 days. Your first three listings are free, and re-listing is charged again on Basic. Folksy Plus, at £7.50 a month or £75 a year, makes listing and re-listing free, and on the listing fee alone the monthly plan pays for itself at 42 listed units a month (our arithmetic).

Etsy charges $0.20 per listing whatever the quantity, and its policy says a multi-quantity listing renews automatically at $0.20 each time one of the items sells. Listings expire after four months. So ten mugs cost you $0.20 to list on Etsy and the rest as they sell, while on Folksy Basic you pay for all ten up front.

Sources: Folksy Fees and Subscription Policy (Folksy Plus £7.50 a month or £75 a year, 6% + VAT commission for all accounts), checked 25 October 2026 · Etsy Fees & Payments Policy (0.20 USD per listing, renewed at 0.20 after each sale of a multi-quantity listing, listings expire after four months), checked 25 October 2026

One item, two listings: the title and tags don't transfer

The two marketplaces now give opposite advice on the title. Etsy's April 2026 guidance asks for a title of under 15 words with colour, material and size up front, and tells sellers to leave gift and occasion phrases out of it, because its search reads the tags, attributes, description and photos as well. Folksy's help says the title has the highest weighting in its search, caps it at 80 characters, and asks you to include the occasions or people the item would suit as a gift.

Tags pull apart the same way. Etsy gives 13 tags of up to 20 characters each and suggests short phrases such as "gift for her", apostrophes allowed. Folksy gives 15 tags but caps all of them together at 255 characters, commas included, takes only letters, numbers, spaces and hyphens, and says the shorter the better. Thirteen full-length Etsy tags come to 272 characters with their commas, over Folksy's 255, and even a set that fits spends the total on long phrases Folksy says match less often.

Check a title against Folksy's 80 or Etsy's 140 characters → · Etsy titles under the April 2026 guidance →

Sources: Folksy help: Titles and description (title up to 80 with the highest weighting in search, gift occasions in the title, 15 tags and 255 characters in all, the shorter the better, the first 40-50 words), checked 25 October 2026 · Etsy Seller Handbook: New Guidance for Listing Titles, and a Tool to Help (27 April 2026, under 15 words, gifting phrases out of the title), checked 25 October 2026 · Etsy Help: How to Use Tags to Get Found in Search (13 tags, 20 characters each, "gift for her"), checked 25 October 2026 · Etsy Help: How to Create a Listing (title up to 140 characters, up to 20 photos and 2 videos), checked 25 October 2026

Moving listings from Etsy: what Folksy's import does and doesn't

Folksy Plus sellers can move an Etsy shop across for free. You download your listings from Etsy as a CSV file, email it to Folksy with your username, and Folksy imports them, usually within a couple of days, as drafts in a temporary IMPORT category. Before they go live you move each one into a real category and set postage, and Folksy suggests changing the title, description and tags while you are there.

That last step is the one to take seriously. The same Folksy help that sets the title at 80 characters asks for content that is unique to Folksy, and says copying descriptions from other sites works against you in Google and Bing. An imported Etsy title over 80 characters has to be cut before Folksy's form will save it, any slash has to go, and the 13 Etsy tags need reshaping into Folksy's 15 short ones.

• Cut each title to 80 characters or fewer, the item first, and add the occasion if Etsy's guidance made you take it out.
• Swap any "/" for a comma or "and".
• Rebuild the tags as 15 short ones that fit 255 characters in all, without apostrophes.
• Rewrite the first 40 to 50 words of the description so it is not the Etsy text, and keep materials and dimensions in it.
• Set the category and the postage, then publish from the Draft tab.

Describe one product, see the Folksy and Etsy titles and scores free → · Cross-listing SEO: what to rewrite when a listing moves →

Sources: Folksy help: Etsy Import Service (free for Folksy Plus, CSV by email, imported as drafts, then categories, postage and optional edits to title, description and tags), checked 25 October 2026 · Folksy help: Titles and description (make sure the content you publish to Folksy is unique to Folksy), checked 25 October 2026

Selling on both

A UK maker who qualifies for Folksy can keep an Etsy shop too: Folksy even imports Etsy listings. Two of Folksy's rules shape how. Folksy doesn't allow links that send a buyer elsewhere to buy, so a Folksy listing can't point at your Etsy shop. And every Folksy item ships from the UK, though Folksy says its customers can be from anywhere.

Neither marketplace syncs stock with the other, so a one-off piece that sells on Etsy has to come off Folksy by hand, and the reverse. Price the same item on its own terms: the fee tables above give Folksy the lower cost per sale, and Etsy charges its listing fee as each unit sells where Folksy Basic charges for every unit you list.

How to get sales on Folksy once you are listed →

Sources: Folksy help: Policy on listing items for sale (ship from the UK, no directing buyers to another site), checked 25 October 2026 · Folksy: selling on Folksy (UK sellers only, customers from anywhere, plans and fees), checked 25 October 2026

What Sellura does, and what it doesn't

Sellura writes each marketplace's listing from one description of the product. For Folksy it returns a title of about 75 characters inside the 80, with no slash and the occasion in it when your details support one, 13 short tags of up to 18 characters inside the 255 (our numbers), up to 5 materials and a description inside 1,500 characters that opens with the power paragraph, in British English. For Etsy it returns a title inside 140 and 13 tags of up to 20 characters. The two never share a text, which is what Folksy's help asks for.

Free, no card: the title preview and a 0 to 100 score on every generation (15 before we ask you to make an account), the Folksy and Etsy fee calculators, and the title checker. The Listing Grader is free to try, with 2 checks. The score is deterministic: the same listing always gets the same number, and each weak factor comes with one fix. A credit unlocks one finished listing with every field. Starter is $15 a month for 25 credits or $150 a year, and Pro is $24 a month for 65 credits plus bulk, or $240 a year.

• It does not list, import or sync stock on Folksy or Etsy. You paste the text in.
• It does not decide whether your item qualifies for Folksy. Folksy's rules in the first section do.
• It has no keyword-volume database, no rank tracking and no ads analysis, and it is not affiliated with Folksy or Etsy.

Describe one product, see the Folksy and Etsy titles and scores free → · Plans and credits →