Etsy takes 6.5% of every
handmade item. We take 0%.
VeloCMS is a publishing platform for independent handmade sellers that handles product listings with rich photo galleries, a craft-process blog, variant tracking, and a restock email list — all in one place with zero platform fee on sales. The Restaurant theme — visual menu-style product showcase, rich imagery, clean typography — ships free on every plan and fits a handmade goods catalogue the way Etsy's listing grid never did.
Why independent makers keep running into the same walls
Three different fee layers, an algorithm that shows your competitors alongside your listings, and a platform that buries your craft story — all have the same root cause: Etsy was built for Etsy, not for your brand.
Etsy's fee stack compounds — 6.5% transaction + 5% offsite ads + $0.20 listing × every renewal = $1-$3 lost per sale, $300-$2000/year given up
Run the actual numbers on a $30 handmade item. After Etsy's standard 6.5% transaction fee ($1.95), a $0.20 listing renewal, and their payment processing, you're clearing about $26.10. If Etsy decides your shop qualifies for their Offsite Ads program — meaning a buyer found you through a Google ad Etsy ran on your behalf — they add another 5% ($1.50), dropping your take to roughly $22. You didn't opt into that ad. You can't opt out if your annual revenue is over $10,000. At 200 sales a year on a $30 item, that's $1,600 in fees you're paying to a platform that also shows competitors alongside your listings. On BYOK Stripe with VeloCMS, that same $30 item nets $28.83 — Stripe's 2.9% + $0.30 is the only cut. The savings compound fast.
Etsy owns your customer relationship — your buyer thinks they're shopping 'on Etsy', not 'on Your Brand'
When a customer searches your shop name in Google, the result that surfaces is Etsy's page — not your page. The URL is etsy.com/shop/yourbrand. The platform's branding dominates the checkout. If a buyer types your shop name directly into Google, Etsy may surface competitor shops in the same result. Your returning customers bookmark etsy.com, not your domain. Their email address — the one they used at checkout — goes into Etsy's system, not yours. When you eventually leave Etsy, or when Etsy changes its algorithm or fee structure again, you leave without your customer list. You built a business on land you don't own.
Etsy hides your craft story — the place where you explain how you carved the wood, dyed the yarn, sourced the vintage materials
Etsy gives you a shop bio and product description fields. That's it. The long-form explanation of how you developed your signature ceramic glaze, the story of sourcing antique fabric in Portugal, the process post showing the 14-step tooling sequence for a leather wallet — none of that has a home on Etsy. Etsy is a product listing grid. It was never designed for maker storytelling, and its SEO rewards product titles stuffed with keywords, not prose that builds a relationship. The buyers who become loyal fans — the ones who buy again, who recommend you to friends, who wait for a restock — are the ones who understand the 'why' behind the work. Etsy's product description field isn't the right container for that story. A blog post is.
What a maker-first platform gives you
Rich photo product listings, a craft-process blog, variant tags and inventory notices, BYOK Stripe at 0% platform fee, and a restock email list — bundled in one platform where you own the customer, not Etsy.
Product listings with rich photo gallery — multi-photo, alt text, lightbox
Publish each product as a post with as many photos as you need — process shots, detail close-ups, in-use lifestyle images, scale references. The TipTap editor's Image block handles bulk upload to Cloudflare R2, auto-generates WebP versions, and supports alt text per image for accessibility and image SEO. Buyers click any image to open a full-screen lightbox. No separate gallery plugin, no five-photo limit, no compression to Etsy's thumbnail grid.
Craft-process blog — the WHY of your work, not just product specs
Publish long-form making-of posts alongside your listings: how the glaze was developed, where the reclaimed wood came from, the sketch-to-final process for a commission. These posts rank in Google for terms your product listings never will. They're the content that converts a first-time visitor into a repeat buyer who follows the work, not just the product. Etsy has no equivalent. Your craft process posts live on your domain, compound SEO authority over time, and can be emailed to your restock list as newsletters.
Variants + simple inventory — size, color, finish, stock counts
Tag each product post with its available variants (small / medium / large, natural / stained / painted, sterling / gold-fill). Mark out-of-stock variants with a quick edit. Add a restock date estimate in the post body. Simple, no database schema required — your inventory is in your content, and your buyers can filter by tag to find what's available. No Shopify product metafields, no WooCommerce attribute tables — just posts, tags, and a restock notice in plain prose.
BYOK Stripe paid checkout — 0% platform fee, keep 100% minus 2.9%+$0.30
Connect your own Stripe account in Admin → Settings → Membership. Gate any product post behind a checkout — buyers pay on your domain via your Stripe account. Revenue goes directly to your bank, same day. VeloCMS takes 0% platform fee. The only cut is Stripe's standard 2.9% + $0.30. For a $30 item that's $0.87 in fees, not the $3.80-$8.00 Etsy takes. At 200 sales per year the difference is $585-$1,426 staying in your pocket instead of Etsy's.
Restock-notification email list — the customer-relationship layer Etsy never gave you
Add a newsletter signup block to every out-of-stock product page: 'This piece is sold out — join the restock list and be the first to know when it returns.' When the restock goes live, blast the announcement from Admin → Newsletter. The emails you collect belong to your account, not Etsy's. Export them anytime. When you restock a popular piece, your email list converts at 3-5x the rate of a cold visitor from Etsy search — because these are people who already wanted exactly this thing.
Features handmade sellers actually need
Restaurant theme visual showcase, multi-photo gallery, variant tags, BYOK Stripe checkout, restock newsletter, and ship-from transparency — all in one platform without a plugin stack, and nobody taking a cut of every sale you make.
Restaurant theme — visual menu-style showcase for handmade products
The Restaurant theme was designed to display items the way a curated menu does: rich imagery, short description, clear call-to-action, clean typography that doesn't compete with the photos. That architecture maps perfectly onto handmade goods — each product is an item, each category is a menu section, the overall layout is a portfolio-quality visual grid. It's the opposite of Etsy's keyword-stuffed listing grid. Ships free on every plan, zero configuration. Upgrade to Curator theme for a more design-forward portfolio aesthetic.
Multi-photo product gallery — R2 hosted, WebP converted, lightbox ready
The TipTap editor's Image block accepts bulk photo upload. Each photo uploads directly to Cloudflare R2 (opaque URL, not guessable), auto-converts to WebP for performance, and includes an alt text field for accessibility and image search. Add as many photos per product as the piece deserves — close-ups of stitching, process shots, packaging detail, scale reference, styled flat lay. Buyers open a full-screen lightbox from any thumbnail. LCP stays under 1s via lazy-loading and `next/image` srcset.
Variant tags + inventory — size/color/finish, stock notice
Tag each product post with its variant set: ring-size-6, ring-size-7, ring-size-8, or color-natural, color-walnut, color-ebony. When a variant sells out, edit the post to remove that tag and add a sold-out notice in the description. Add restock-date estimates in plain prose. Buyers can filter the product catalog by tag combination to find available variants. No database schema, no plugin — just the existing tag system used for blog categorization, repurposed for inventory.
BYOK Stripe checkout — 0% platform fee, direct bank payout
Connect your Stripe account once. Gate any product post. Buyers check out on your domain. Stripe's payout schedule is daily (business accounts) or weekly (standard) — your sales from Monday hit your bank account by Tuesday. VeloCMS has no revenue share, no monthly fee based on sales volume, no Offsite Ads levy. You pay $9/month for Pro regardless of whether you sell $100 or $100,000 worth of handmade goods that month.
Restock newsletter — blast to your email list when items return
The restock-notification workflow: visitor lands on sold-out product, sees 'Notify me when this is back' block, enters email. That email joins your subscriber list. When stock returns, go to Admin → Newsletter, compose a short 'Back in stock' email, and blast to the restock tag segment. The buyer who waited comes back and buys immediately — no Etsy algorithm needed to reach them. You own that relationship.
Ship-from transparency — state and country in post footer
Add a ship-from location block to every product post — 'Made and shipped from Portland, Oregon, USA' or 'Ships from Kyoto, Japan — 7-10 day international delivery'. Buyers increasingly filter Etsy search by ship-from location to avoid customs delays and get faster delivery. On your own platform, your ship-from transparency is a selling point you control, not a filter someone else applies to your listings.
From Etsy to your own handmade shop in five steps
No developer, no multi-tool stack, no ongoing platform commission. Get your products, craft blog, and restock signups live in an afternoon.
Export your Etsy listings as CSV via Etsy's export tool
In Etsy Shop Manager, go to Listings → click the three dots → Export. Etsy gives you a CSV with listing titles, descriptions, prices, quantities, and variant names. This is your product inventory in a portable format — save it. Your product photos are not included in the CSV; download those separately from each listing's edit page (or batch-export via Etsy's full shop export in Account → Privacy → Download your Data). The CSV becomes your roadmap for recreating listings in VeloCMS.
Upload product images to Cloudflare R2 via VeloCMS media library
In Admin → Media, bulk-upload your product photos. VeloCMS uploads each photo to Cloudflare R2, auto-generates WebP versions, and adds them to your media library with searchable filenames. Organize photos into folders by product name if you have a large catalogue. From the editor, you'll pull photos directly from the media library into each product post — no re-upload needed. Start with your top 10-20 best-selling products for the first migration wave.
Create product posts with the Restaurant theme layout
In Admin → Themes, click Restaurant → Apply first. Then in Admin → Posts → New, create one post per product. Use the listing title from your CSV as the post title. Add your product photos via Image blocks — as many as the piece deserves. Write the description in prose, not keyword-stuffed title format. Add variant tags (size-small, color-natural, etc.) and a category tag (ceramics, jewelry, textiles). Set the post status to Published. The Restaurant theme renders each published post as a visual menu-style card in your product grid.
Set up BYOK Stripe + connect Printful if dropshipping
In Admin → Settings → Membership, click Connect Stripe and complete the OAuth flow — takes about 60 seconds. Your Stripe account is now linked. For any product you want to sell direct, set the post to members-only (paid gate) and configure the price. If you use Printful for print-on-demand or drop shipping, add your Printful product URL to the product post's CTA button — buyers click through to Printful's checkout for fulfilment. The two coexist: BYOK Stripe for your handmade originals, Printful link for print products.
Activate restock signups and open your first craft-process blog post
In Admin → Settings → Newsletter, enable the email signup form. Add a Newsletter Signup block to any sold-out product page with copy like 'Notify me when this returns'. Then write your first craft-process blog post — the making-of story behind your most popular item. Publish it. Share the URL on Instagram with a link-in-bio update. That single post starts building your Google authority for terms no Etsy listing title can rank for. Your shop is now discoverable without Etsy's algorithm.
VeloCMS vs Etsy vs Shopify vs Squarespace
| Feature | VeloCMS | Etsy | Shopify | Squarespace |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Custom domain | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Platform fee on sales | 0% | 6.5%+5% offsite | 0% (on $29+/mo plan) | 3% (on $19+/mo plan) |
| Product listings | Unlimited | Unlimited | Unlimited | 100 |
| Variants | Yes | Yes | Yes | Limited |
| Inventory tracking | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Craft blog | Yes | Hidden in descriptions | Yes | Yes |
| Cost per year ($) | 0–348 | $0.20×listings + fees | $348+ + tx fees | $228+ |
Free for 100 product listings, craft blog, Restaurant theme, and variants. Pro when you need a custom domain and paid checkout.
Free
$0
Forever
- Up to 100 product listings
- Multi-photo gallery per product
- Restaurant theme included
- Craft-process blog
- Variant tags + inventory notices
- velocms.org subdomain
Pro
$9
per month
- 1,000 product listings
- Custom domain + SSL
- BYOK Stripe checkout (0% fee)
- Restock newsletter blasts
- Curator theme access
- AI writing assistant
Business
$29
per month
- Unlimited product listings
- Team accounts (multi-maker)
- White-label branding
- Priority support
- Advanced buyer analytics
- Team collaboration
Questions Etsy sellers ask before switching
Honest answers — no Etsy upsell.
How exactly does VeloCMS save me money compared to Etsy?
Take a $30 handmade item. On Etsy: 6.5% transaction fee ($1.95) + $0.20 listing renewal + Etsy Payments processing (~2.9%+$0.25 = $1.12) = you keep roughly $26.10. If Etsy's Offsite Ads drove that sale (mandatory above $10K annual revenue), subtract another 5% ($1.50) and you keep $24.60. On VeloCMS with BYOK Stripe: Stripe charges 2.9% + $0.30 = $0.87 on a $30 item. You keep $28.83. That's $2-$4 per sale, compounding over hundreds of transactions. At 300 sales/year on a $30 item: $600-$1,200 that stays in your pocket, not Etsy's. Plus your VeloCMS subscription ($0 free, $9 Pro, $29 Business) is flat — it doesn't scale with your revenue.
Can I migrate my Etsy listings to VeloCMS?
Yes, partially. From Etsy Shop Manager → Listings → Export, you get a CSV with all your listing titles, descriptions, prices, variant names, and quantities. Your product photos aren't in the CSV — download those separately from each listing's edit page, or use Etsy's full data export (Account → Privacy → Download your Data). The practical migration path: download CSV and photos, create product posts in VeloCMS for each listing, upload photos via the media library, add variant tags, set up Stripe pricing, and publish. Your Etsy shop can remain live during the transition — there's no technical reason to delete it immediately. Use a 'coming soon' note or exclusive restock-list signup as a bridge to pull your existing buyers to your new domain.
Why is Restaurant the recommended theme for handmade goods?
The Restaurant theme was designed around a 'menu' display metaphor: rich imagery per item, brief description, clear price and call-to-action, clean whitespace that lets the photography breathe. That exact architecture works perfectly for handmade goods — each product is an item, each craft category is a menu section, the grid layout presents work the way a curated boutique would display it, not the way Etsy's keyword-optimised search grid does. The visual weight is on your photos and your story, not on the platform brand. If you want a more design-forward portfolio aesthetic — particularly for jewellery, fine art, or bespoke items where the brand story is as important as the product — the Curator theme is a compelling Pro upsell. Both are included in your plan.
How do I handle shipping — BYOK Printful or self-fulfilled?
For self-fulfilled handmade items, add your shipping information directly in the product post body — estimated dispatch time, packaging description, international availability, ship-from location. No shipping calculator plugin is required; clear prose works better for handmade goods anyway ('I ship within 2 business days, UK orders arrive in 2-4 days, EU and USA in 5-10 days'). For print-on-demand or drop-shipped items via Printful, connect your Printful account separately and link product posts to the Printful product URL — buyers click through to Printful's checkout for those items. BYOK Stripe handles your original handmade pieces; Printful handles reproductions. Both work simultaneously on the same VeloCMS site.
Can I still keep my Etsy shop open while building VeloCMS?
Yes — and running both in parallel is the recommended transition strategy. Keep your Etsy shop live so you don't lose the revenue or the existing SEO while you build your VeloCMS presence. Direct new product launches to your VeloCMS site first. Announce restock notifications via your VeloCMS email list instead of relying on Etsy's follow notifications. Gradually shift your social links to point to your domain instead of Etsy. When your VeloCMS sales volume matches or exceeds your Etsy sales, you can reduce your Etsy presence — lower your listing quantities, stop renewing older listings — without a hard cutover that risks revenue. Most successful migrators spend 3-6 months in dual-platform mode before their own shop is their primary channel.
How do customers find me without Etsy's search algorithm?
Three channels that don't depend on Etsy. First, Google and AI search: your craft-process blog posts rank for terms like 'handmade ceramic mug Portland' or 'custom leather wallet initials' that Etsy listing titles never target. AI answer engines (Perplexity, ChatGPT Search) pull from your structured product schema and blog posts directly. Second, your email list: restock announcements sent to people who opted in for that specific item convert at 3-5x the rate of Etsy search traffic because they already wanted the product. Third, social referral: your domain URL on Instagram, TikTok, and Pinterest is a link to your actual shop — not a link to Etsy where competitors are one scroll away. You're building compound SEO authority on your own domain instead of contributing to Etsy's domain authority.
Does VeloCMS take a cut of my product sales?
No. VeloCMS charges a flat subscription fee ($0 free, $9 Pro, $29 Business) regardless of your sales volume. We take 0% of your revenue. The only variable cost is Stripe's payment processing: 2.9% + $0.30 per transaction in the US (rates vary slightly by country). On a $30 sale, that's $0.87 — compared to Etsy's $3.00-$5.00 depending on whether Offsite Ads applies. There are no per-listing fees, no renewal fees, no Offsite Ads levies, no monthly fees that scale with your shop performance.
What happens to my customer reviews when I migrate from Etsy?
Etsy reviews stay on Etsy — there's no official way to export or migrate them to another platform. This is one of the genuine transition costs. The practical approach: screenshot your best reviews and create a testimonials post or page on VeloCMS ('What buyers say'), linking back to your Etsy shop's review section during the transition period for social proof. Over time, add a testimonials block to your product posts with quotes from email buyers who've given feedback. After 6-12 months of operating your own shop, you'll have built enough direct buyer relationship that the Etsy review dependency matters less. New buyers trust a domain that looks established, has craft-process blog posts, and has an active newsletter more than they trust a review count on a marketplace.
Etsy is the marketplace. VeloCMS is your shop. Start free with Restaurant.
Multi-photo product listings, craft-process blog, variant tags, BYOK Stripe at 0% platform fee, and a restock email list you own — all on a platform where the customer relationship belongs to you, not Etsy.
Start free with Restaurant