If you’re based in the UK and wanting to sell crafts online, you may have heard of the British marketplace Folksy and wondered if it would make a better place to sell your items than Etsy, which is becoming something of an oversaturated market place.
Of course, everyone knows Etsy, but is Folksy any better? Or should you just stick with Etsy?
What is Folksy?
Folksy is a UK-based maker site that allows users to buy and sell handmade goods and craft supplies. The platform was founded in Sheffield, Yorkshire, in 2008.
What is Etsy?
Etsy is a marketplace for independent makers headquartered in Brooklyn, NYC. It is intended as a place to buy and sell handmade and vintage goods (these are defined as items that are older than 20 years).
What Are the Pros of Folksy?
British Based
If you want to know that you are supporting local makers in the UK, and want to support the British economy, Folksy can be a great place to look.
It’s also more environmentally sustainable, as it ensures that products aren’t shipped too far away, for a high carbon footprint.
Lower Selling Fees
It appears that it costs less to sell on Folksy than it does on Etsy.
As of 2026, Folksy charges sellers a £0.18 listing fee, as well as 6% (plus VAT) commission.
The site also allows a premium membership tier called Folksy Plus, which charges users £7.50 a month (or £75 if paid annually, which works out at £5 a month). This gives sellers unlimited listings, eliminating selling fees per item.
On the other hand, Etsy charges a £0.15 selling fee to UK residents, plus a 6.5% selling fee. It’s worth mentioning that this fee is applied to the cost of the item after shipping.
There is then a separate payment processing fee of £0.20 plus 4%, as well as mandatory off-site advertising fees of 12% on referred sales once you get over a $10,000 (USD) threshold in the last 365 days. Below this threshold, you pay a 15% fee but can opt out.
Even though this limit is set is US dollars, it still applies to UK Etsy sellers.
Lower Competition
In the UK, there are approximately 13,000 sellers on Folksy. Compare that with the 220,000 sellers that Etsy is thought to have!
The lower numbers mean that your chances of standing out on Folksy are higher, in spite of the fact that it has a lower user base.
Fewer Mass Produced Items
Etsy is a bit infamous at this point for allowing ‘production partners’, which means that sellers can offer items made by third-parties such as print-on-demand (POD) platforms.
Whilst some may argue that there is nothing wrong with this if the seller has designed the item themselves, it does take away from the ‘handmade’ appeal of the platform.
Folksy, on the other hand, explicitly prohibits the sale of mass produced goods. However, your items are allowed to be printed by third parties; they don’t have to be physically made by you from start to finish.
What Folksy is trying to avoid is a scenario like this; you apply generic text or art to a generic print-on-demand t-shirt from a marketplace like Gelato or Printful.
Using AI artwork is also banned.
What Are the Pros of Etsy?
International Market
Increv says that Etsy gets 450 million visitors each month from around the world. Apparently, the site has 86.6 million active buyers and 8.1 million sellers in all countries.
If you are willing to ship to other countries, you can tap into this high global volume.
High Traffic
If you don’t want to deal with the hassle of individual shipping and limit your settings to the UK only, you can still benefit from Etsy’s higher reach.
Even within the UK alone, Etsy has more users than Folksy. The UK makes up just over 9% of Etsy’s global user base, making it the biggest non-US market, alongside Canada.
However, there are about 151,000 monthly visitors to Folksy, compared with millions on Etsy UK. However, as we saw earlier, you are competing with fewer sellers.
Which One Should I Use If I’m in the UK?
If you want to support makers in the UK, want to access lower competition and seller fees, and wish to avoid mass produced items, Folksy is your best bet.
On the other hand, if you want to reach an international audience and you may eventually sell at a high volume, you are probably better sticking with Etsy.