The short answer
Should custom orders go through Etsy or your own link?
Etsy is for being found by people who have never heard of you. Your own order link is for the people who already have: your followers, your regulars, the friend of a customer. Most makers who do well use both, one for each. Home bakers selling fresh cakes are the exception: Etsy mostly does not suit them, for reasons below.
Full disclosure: we make Rapid Cart, an order link, so we have a side in this. Etsy does things an order link cannot, and this guide says so. What it says about Etsy was checked on 5 October 2026.
1 · The case for Etsy
What Etsy gives you that a link cannot
- Buyers who are already searching. Someone types “personalised wedding guest book” and lands on your listing without ever having heard of you. No order link does that. You bring every visitor to a link yourself.
- Trust you have not earned yet. A stranger will pay a seller with forty reviews on Etsy more readily than one on a site they have never seen.
- Checkout, handled. Card payments, the receipt, and a case system if something goes wrong.
- Custom orders built in. A listing can ask for personalisation, such as a name or a date, before the buyer pays. You can also switch on custom order requests, which puts a “request a custom order” link on your shop. The buyer describes what they want, and you reply with a private listing at your price.
2 · The cost
What Etsy takes from a custom order
For a seller in the UK, when we checked, each sale carried:
- a listing fee of $0.20, charged again when an item sells;
- a 6.5% transaction fee on the whole order, including delivery;
- payment processing of 4% plus 20p;
- a regulatory operating fee of 0.32%;
- and VAT on those fees if you are not VAT-registered.
On top of that, Offsite Ads charge 12% to 15% of an order when the buyer arrived through one of Etsy’s ads on another site. Shops below a revenue threshold can opt out; above it they cannot. Fees differ by country, so check the figures for yours in Etsy’s fee schedule.
About £7 in fees, or £8 with VAT on them, before any ad. If the sale came through Offsite Ads, add another £7 to £9. Worth it for a buyer Etsy found you. Harder to justify for a regular customer you sent there yourself.
3 · The limits
Where Etsy does not fit
Fresh cakes and local orders
Etsy allows shelf-stable food, such as cookies, brownies and dry bakes, but perishable food that needs refrigeration does not belong there. That rules out most celebration cakes. Etsy also has no built-in local collection or delivery: you can offer it, but if a buyer outside your area orders, you have to deliver or refund. For a baker taking custom cakes for collection, Etsy mostly does not fit.
Customers who already know you
A buyer who found you on Instagram and then orders through Etsy costs you the full fee for a sale you made yourself. Etsy also owns the relationship: what you can send that buyer afterwards is limited by Etsy’s rules, not yours.
Orders that start as a conversation
A commission often starts with a question rather than a listing: “could you do one like this, but bigger?” Etsy can handle it through a custom request and a private listing, but that is a workflow built around a shop, not around the chat where the question was asked.
4 · Using both
Running Etsy and your own link side by side, within the rules
This is the part that catches people out. Etsy does not allow you to use Etsy to send shoppers somewhere else to buy. That covers messages, listings and your shop pages, and Etsy’s rules name QR codes as well. A buyer who contacted you on Etsy should be sold to on Etsy. Moving that sale elsewhere counts as fee avoidance, and it can cost you the shop.
What is fine, and what most makers actually do:
- Keep the two audiences apart. Etsy for buyers who find you on Etsy. Your own link for the people who come through your Instagram, your Facebook page, your market stall and word of mouth.
- Put your own link where Etsy is not. Your social bios, your printed cards at a market, your WhatsApp replies. The Instagram guide covers where it goes.
- Use the same order details in both. Whatever you ask for in an Etsy personalisation box, ask for on your own form too. The nine details every order needs apply either way.
5 · Side by side
Etsy against your own order link
| Etsy | Your own order link | |
|---|---|---|
| Who finds you | Strangers searching Etsy | People you send there |
| Fees per sale | About 11% in the UK, more with Offsite Ads | None per order |
| Takes payment | Yes | Depends on the tool; ours does not |
| Custom requests | Request, then a private listing | The order form is the request |
| Fresh cakes, local collection | Mostly not a fit | Yes |
| The customer relationship | Etsy’s, under Etsy’s rules | Yours |
| Cost to run | Fees per listing and sale | Free, or a monthly fee |
6 · Choosing
Which fits you
- You make gifts or crafts and want new customers: Etsy, and a link for the regulars it brings back to you through your social pages.
- You bake fresh cakes for local collection: your own link. Etsy is the wrong shape for perishable, local orders.
- Most of your orders already come from Instagram or WhatsApp: your own link. Paying a marketplace fee on customers you found yourself is the expensive way round.
- You are not sure which tool to use for the link: we compared six order form apps, including free ones.
7 · About ours
Where Rapid Cart fits
This section is about our tool. Everything above applies whichever link you use.
- Sign up and you have an order page at an address like rapidcart.co/o/your-name, for your bio, your WhatsApp replies and your market table. Not for your Etsy shop, for the reasons above.
- Customers describe what they want and add the date, collection or delivery, a budget and their details. You accept, decline or mark it ready, and they are told automatically.
- It charges nothing per order and takes no cut. It also takes no payment: you agree that with the customer as you do now.
Fourteen days free with no card, then plans from €4 a month.
Something about Etsy changed since we checked? We would genuinely like to hear it: info@rapidcart.co
Why “ingredients times two” pays you nothing for the afternoon, the four costs a fair price has to cover, and a worked example from flour to a per-cupcake price.