Selling CNC work on Etsy

Kinetic Carving has sold on Etsy for years, mostly digital files, and what follows is what has held up across algorithm changes rather than this season's trick. Etsy changes its fees and its rules regularly, so treat every figure here as something to confirm in your own Shop Manager.

How Etsy decides what to show

Two steps, and most sellers only think about the second.

1. Matching. Etsy first collects every listing whose title, tags, attributes and category match the words the buyer typed. If your listing does not contain the words, it is not in the race at all, however good it is.
2. Ranking. It then orders those matches by how likely each is to sell: how often the listing gets clicked when shown, how often a click becomes a sale, how recent the sales are, the shop's reviews and service record, and shipping price and speed for physical goods.

So the work divides neatly. Words get you into the results. Photos, price and reviews move you up them.

Finding the words buyers use

• Start with Etsy's own search bar. Type the start of a phrase and read the suggestions. Those are real searches, in the buyer's words, and they are free.
• Buyers search for occasions and recipients, not for processes. Almost nobody types "CNC". They type "farmhouse kitchen sign", "gift for dad who fishes", "personalised wedding gift". Describe the thing and who it is for.
• Long and specific beats short and broad. "Wood sign" has endless competition. "Lake house welcome sign personalised" has far less, and the person typing it is ready to buy.
• Keyword tools such as eRank and Marmalead estimate search volume and competition. They are useful once you have a catalogue, and not needed for the first ten listings.

Titles and tags

Spec At the time of writing (September 2026) a title can be up to 140 characters and a listing takes 13 tags of up to 20 characters each.

• Lead the title with the clearest description of the item. The first few words are what a buyer reads in the results grid, and on a phone they are all that shows.
• Write it for a person. A string of keywords separated by commas reads as spam to the buyer even when it matches the search.
• Use all 13 tags, and make them phrases. "wedding gift" is one tag. "wedding" alone wastes a slot.
• Do not spend tags repeating each other. Thirteen tags that are all variations on "wood sign" cover one search. Spread them across the item, the style, the occasion, the recipient and the room.
• Fill in every attribute. Colour, material, occasion, holiday. Attributes behave like extra tags and most sellers skip them.

Photos carry the ranking

Photos are not a search field, but the first photo decides whether a shown listing gets clicked, and click rate feeds ranking. A better first photo is often the highest value edit available.

1. First photo: the item, filling the frame, on a plain background, readable as a thumbnail the size of a postage stamp.
2. In place: on a wall or a table, so the buyer can picture it in their home.
3. Detail: the carving close up, lit from the side. See the photography notes under selling your work.
4. Scale: a hand, a doorway, a tape measure. Size surprises are the most common complaint.
5. Options: every wood, stain and size you offer, labelled.
6. A short video of the piece or the machine cutting it.

What the fees do to your price

Spec At the time of writing Etsy charges a 0.20 USD listing fee, a 6.5 percent transaction fee on the item price plus shipping, and a payment processing fee that varies by country. Confirm the current figures in Shop Manager, because they have changed before.

The practical point is that these come off the top, before your costs. Put them into your pricing as a cost line rather than discovering them at the end of the month. A price that works at a craft fair can lose money on Etsy.

Etsy Ads: the arithmetic first

Etsy Ads pay to place your listing higher in Etsy's own search. Whether that is worth it is not a matter of opinion. It depends on your margin.

That is why the same ROAS is a good result for one shop and a loss for another. A physical product seller and a file seller should not be taking each other's advice on ads.

Offsite Ads are a different thing

Offsite Ads are Etsy advertising your listings on Google and social platforms, and charging a fee only when one of those clicks becomes a sale.

Spec At the time of writing the fee is 15 percent of the order for shops under 10,000 USD in sales over the past twelve months, who may opt out, and 12 percent for shops at or above it, who may not.

Run the numbers against your margin. On a low margin physical product, a 12 to 15 percent fee on top of the normal fees can take most of the profit on that order. On a high margin product it is usually a sale you would not otherwise have had. If you can opt out and your margins are thin, opting out is reasonable.

Service is a ranking factor

• Ship when you said you would. Set processing times you can actually meet, including finish cure time. A late shipment costs you more than a longer quoted time does.
• Answer messages promptly. Saved replies for the five questions everyone asks make this painless.
• Reviews compound. A good unboxing, an accurate listing and a card in the box earn them. Asking politely once is fine; pestering is not.
• Describe honestly. Wood varies. Say so, show it, and the review that would have said "not like the picture" does not get written.

What gets shops shut down

A sensible order of work

1. List a small number of products you can make repeatedly and photograph well.
2. Write titles and tags from real search phrases, and fill in every attribute.
3. Get the first sales and reviews, from your own audience if you have one.
4. Improve the first photo on anything that gets views and no clicks, and the rest of the listing on anything that gets clicks and no sales.
5. Only then turn on ads, on the listings that already convert, with your break-even ROAS written down.
6. Build your own customer list the whole time, so Etsy is a channel and not the business. See selling your work.