Guides that rank & help.

What was already free, and what was not. eRank gives you a fee calculator, a keyword tool and a listing audit on a free plan that caps you at five searches a day. Alura gives away an Etsy fee calculator, a privacy policy generator and a shop name generator with no login at all. Sale Samurai, Marmalead, EtsyHunt and EverBee all gate their keyword and product research behind a subscription that starts between $7.99 and $19.99 a month. The calculators were always the honest part. The research tools were always the paywall.

So we built the calculators properly, and replaced the paywall with a method. All 22 tools run entirely in your browser. No account, no search cap, no daily limit, no API key, and nothing you type ever leaves your machine. The six calculators cover the full fee stack, profit, reverse pricing, ad ROI, break-even and offsite ads. The eight SEO tools cover tags, titles, shop names, listing scores, character limits, keyword research, alt text and descriptions. The six generators cover privacy, returns, shipping, your about section, shop announcements and buyer messages. Two planning tools cover the seasonal calendar and a marketplace fee comparison.

The fee stack is the part everyone gets wrong. Sellers describe Etsy fees as "about six and a half percent" and then cannot explain a thin payout. It is a $0.20 listing fee, a 6.5% transaction fee on the item plus the shipping you charged, a 3% plus $0.25 payment fee on the same base, a small regulatory operating fee, and — if you are enrolled — a 12% or 15% offsite ads fee on any sale Etsy decides it influenced. On a $24.99 candle with $4.95 shipping that is $3.85, or 12.9% of the order value. Switch offsite ads on and the same order costs $8.34, or 27.9%.

Shipping is the trap inside the trap. The transaction fee applies to the shipping you charged, not just the item. Offer free shipping and fold $5 into the price and the fee base rises. Charge it separately and your item price looks higher than a competitor who folded it in. Neither is universally right, which is why the calculator lets you change one field and watch the net payout move.

The keyword tools do not fake search volume. We could not ship real Etsy search-volume data without a paid API, and pretending otherwise would make the tools worse. Instead the keyword planner expands one seed phrase into a long-tail bank tagged by gift, craft, buyer, attribute, recipient and seasonal intent, and estimates difficulty from phrase length — four or more words is usually low competition. That is a method you can act on today, not a number you have to trust.

Listing SEO is fifteen checks, not a mystery. The checker tests your title against the 140-character limit and the 40-125 sweet spot, confirms you are using all thirteen tag slots, verifies every tag is within twenty characters, finds duplicates, measures how many tags start with the same word, and tests your description length. A listing that moves from 55 to 90 typically gains visibility in two to four weeks — not because of a secret, but because the search engine can finally tell what the product is.

Seasonality is the deadline nobody mentions. Etsy shoppers search "Christmas gift" from early October. A listing created in late November misses the window entirely, because Etsy needs weeks to index it and start ranking it. Christmas products must be live by the end of September. The seasonal calendar gives you the events, the listing date and the shipping deadline for every month.

Everything is interlinked. The keyword planner feeds the tag generator, the tag generator feeds the listing checker, the fee calculator feeds the profit calculator, the profit calculator feeds the pricing calculator. Run them in order and you have a listing that is priced, described, tagged, scored and scheduled. None of it costs anything, and none of it asks who you are.

The listing looked fine. A ceramic mug at $32 with $4.95 shipping, good photographs, thirteen tags, a description that answered every question. It sold steadily. The seller could not understand why the monthly deposit never grew.

The waterfall, line by line. Order value $36.95. Etsy fees: transaction $2.40, listing $0.20, payment processing $1.24, regulatory $0.18, onsite ads $0.35 — total $4.37. Costs: materials $7.50, labour one and a half hours at $18 an hour $27.00, packaging $1.20, postage $5.40 — total $41.10. Profit: minus $4.15. Margin: minus 11.2%. The mug was not a product. It was a donation with a shipping label.

The number that mattered was not the fee. Labour was the largest single cost at $27 — larger than materials and fees combined. The seller had priced as if their time were free, which is the most expensive assumption in handmade retail. Set the hourly rate at zero and every margin you calculate is fiction.

One change fixed it. The mug took ninety minutes because of the handle join and the second glaze pass. Streamlining the process to forty-five minutes cut labour to $13.50 and lifted contribution to $6.05. Break-even fell from impossible to sixteen units and $591 of monthly revenue. The difference between a failing shop and a working one was a process change, not a marketing budget.

Offsite ads were the hidden second blow. At the 15% tier the same order attracts an extra $5.54, taking total fees to $9.91 and the effective rate to 26.8%. A product that cannot survive its own offsite ad rate cannot survive as a business, because above $10,000 in annual sales the programme is mandatory.

What to do with your own catalogue. Run every listing through the profit calculator once, sort by margin, and you will find the three products that fund the shop and the twenty that quietly consume it. Then run the break-even calculator on the worst three. If contribution is negative, no amount of traffic helps — reprice, cut cost, or drop the product.

The short answer: On a $29.99 product + $4.99 shipping, Etsy takes $4.36 without offsite ads and $8.55 with offsite ads. Most sellers forget the $0.20 listing and $0.25 payment fee.

The math: Gross $34.98 → Transaction 6.5% = $2.27 • Payment 3% + $0.25 = $1.30 • Listing $0.20 • Offsite 12% (if enabled) = $4.20

What to do: Price with fees baked in. Use our Etsy Calculator to test $29.99 vs $34.99 — often raising price $5 beats absorbing fees. And disable offsite ads if your margin is <25%.

The part Etsy fee charts skip

A fee chart is a menu. Your profit is a story about one listing. Start with the price the buyer pays, then add the shipping you charged, because several Etsy fees are calculated on a base that can include shipping. Subtract what the item cost you, what you paid the carrier, the listing fee, the transaction percentage, the payment processing percentage plus the fixed cents, and offsite ads if that order was attributed to them. Offsite ads are the line that surprises people. They are not "a little marketing." On a thin-margin item they can be the entire profit, which is why the decision to stay in or opt out — when you are allowed to opt out — belongs in the calculator, not in a vibe.

Run the same listing three times. Once with offsite ads off. Once with them on. Once with a 10 percent discount you are considering for a sale. If the third version is negative, the sale is a donation to fees and you should discount a different SKU, or raise the everyday price so the sale price still clears costs. Sellers often do the opposite: they discount the already-cheap item because it converts, then wonder why the shop is busy and the account is flat.

Renewals and multi-quantity listings change the listing-fee math. A variation that never sells still occupied a listing. That is small money per item and real money across a messy catalog. Once a quarter, export your listings and kill the ones that have not sold and are not strategic. The fee you stop paying is a fee you do not have to "make back" with ads.

International orders add a second conversation: currency conversion, VAT the buyer sees, and shipping that is no longer a domestic stamp. Do not use a US-only worked example to price a listing you will ship to three continents. Put the actual label cost in the shipping-you-pay field. If you do not know it, you are guessing the largest variable on the order. Buy one test label. The number is worth more than another hour of scrolling seller forums.

Finally, separate "Etsy took this" from "I priced this badly." If your cost is $18 and you listed at $24 because a competitor did, no fee optimizer will save the order. The competitor may have a cheaper supplier, a lower return rate, or a loss-leader. Copying their price without copying their cost is not a strategy. The calculator's job is to make that difference impossible to ignore. Open it with your real cost, not a flattering one. If the margin you need is 30 percent after all fees and you cannot get there at a price the market will pay, the SKU does not belong in the shop. That is a useful answer. It is cheaper than a year of orders that each lose a dollar.

A checklist before you publish the listing

Write the numbers down in this order, and do not skip a line because it feels small. Buyer price. Shipping charged. Your product cost, including the last invoice from the supplier, not the one you remember. Packaging. The actual label cost for the zone you ship most. Listing fee and how often it renews. Transaction percentage. Payment processing percentage and the fixed fee. Offsite ads, yes or no. A return reserve, even if you hope it is zero. Only then look at profit and margin. If you cannot fill a line, you do not know that line — you are hoping. Hope is not a cost of goods.

Do the same listing in a second currency if you sell outside your home country, because a fee that is "about 3 percent" plus a conversion spread is not 3 percent. And compare the cleared amount to what the same hour of your time is worth. A listing that nets $4 and generates a message thread is not a $4 win. It is a job you priced at a rate you would not accept from a client. The Etsy calculator will not make that judgment for you. It will stop you from hiding the $4 inside a feeling that the shop is growing. Growth in orders is not growth in money until the fee stack is subtracted. Revisit the sheet when Etsy changes a rate, when your supplier does, and when a sale you are proud of still left the payout looking thin. That revisit is the whole habit. The math is not hard. Forgetting to do it is what makes the year expensive.

Formula: Wall area = 2*(L+W)*H. Subtract 21 sq ft per door, 15 per window. Multiply by coats, divide by 350, add 10% waste.

Example: 12×14 room, 8ft height, 1 door, 2 windows, 2 coats → (2*(12+14)*8 -51)*2 = 732 sq ft → 732/350=2.09 gal → +10% = 2.3 gal → buy 3 gallons.

Textured walls need +15%. Always buy 1 extra quart for touch-ups — it saves a second trip.

Why the gallon can still be wrong

Coverage numbers on the can — often around 350 to 400 square feet per gallon — are laboratory optimism. They assume a smooth, sealed, similar-color surface and a careful painter. A thirsty new drywall, a jump from deep red to white, or a textured ceiling will not hit that number. The honest way to buy paint is to compute the ideal gallons, add waste for the surface you actually have, then round up to a size you can return or keep for touch-ups. Running out on the last wall and buying a second can from a different batch is how a bedroom gets a visible stripe.

Doors and windows are not zero, and they are not the full opening either if you are painting the trim. Subtract the opening from the wall area, then add the trim back as its own small area if you are painting it. Ceiling paint is a separate product and a separate calculation: length times width, times coats, divided by coverage. People who only calculate walls and then "grab a gallon for the ceiling" are guessing the largest flat surface in the room.

Two coats is the default for a color change. One coat is a fantasy unless the new color is almost the old color and the surface is already sealed. Priming a stain, a patch, or a slick surface is not optional decoration. A primer that costs less than finish paint, used where it is needed, saves a third coat of the expensive can. Put primer in the shopping list as its own line. If you do not, you will either skip it or buy it at the worst possible store on the way home.

Measure in one unit system and stay there. Mixing a metric ceiling height with an imperial floor plan is how a small room becomes a paint emergency. Write length, width, height, openings and coats on a note before you open the calculator, the same way you would before you open a spreadsheet. The paint calculator will not know that the closet door is being painted too unless you tell it. Include it. Closets are where leftover optimism goes to die, one unpainted panel at a time, after the brushes are washed.

Buy the extra quart. The cost of a quart you keep for the scuff next year is less than the cost of a new gallon in a discontinued color. Label the lid with the room and the date. Future you, holding a roller at 9 p.m., will not remember whether the hallway was the eggshell or the satin.

Buying the paint, not just the gallons

Sheen is a decision, not a default. Flat hides defects and marks easily. Eggshell and satin wipe better and show roller lines if you rush. Semi-gloss on trim is normal; semi-gloss on a big wall will show every patch. If two rooms share a doorway, use the same sheen or the doorway will look like a material change even when the color name matches. Write the sheen next to the color code. "Agreeable Gray" without the sheen and the base is not a specification.

Check the can size against the number you calculated. A gallon is not four quarts at every register once you count the price break, and a five-gallon bucket is a bargain only if you will use it before it skins over. For a single bedroom, three gallons and a quart is often the honest buy: two for the walls, one for the ceiling or the second coat, a quart for trim and the inevitable touch-up. If the calculator says 2.3, buying two is how you end up at the store in paint clothes. Buying four "to be safe" is how a closet fills with the wrong base. Round up one purchase unit, not a whole extra project.

Open a can and box the paint — pour back and forth — if you bought more than one can of the same color. Batch variation is real. And protect the floor before you congratulate yourself on the math. The calculator saved a second trip. Drop cloths save the floor you were not planning to repaint. When the room is done, keep the labeled quart, the formula sticker, and a photo of the finished wall in the same note. Next year's scuff should take ten minutes, not a new research project.

At $0.18/kWh and 5 sun hours, a 6.5 kW system produces ~780 kWh/mo. That's $140/mo saved, $1,680/yr. Payback ~8.9 years without incentives, 6.2 years with 30% tax credit.

Over 25 years you net ~$27,000 after payback. Use our calculator to test your bill and sun hours — results change a lot by state.

A payback number is a scenario, not a promise

Solar marketing loves a single payback year. A single year is what you get when every input is kind: the bill you remember from August, the production the salesperson modeled at the top of the range, incentives that you qualify for, and a rate that never changes in the wrong direction. Change any one of those and the year moves. That is not a reason to skip solar. It is a reason to run the ugly version of the spreadsheet before you sign a 25-year loan.

Production is weather, tilt, shading and inverter reality, not the nameplate on the panel. A tree that shades the array from 2 p.m. is not a rounding error. Utility rates are politics and fuel as much as they are physics. If your payback only works when rates rise 5 percent every year forever, say that out loud and decide whether you believe it. If payback still works when rates stay flat and production is 15 percent below the brochure, you have a sturdier project.

Incentives change the cash, not the physics. A tax credit you cannot use this year is not cash in June. A rebate with a waitlist is not a rebate. Net metering rules decide whether the midday kilowatt-hour you export is worth the evening kilowatt-hour you import. In some places those are no longer the same price. A model that treats every kilowatt-hour as identical will flatter a system that exports a lot and buys a lot back. Ask the installer for the export rate they assumed. Write it down. If they cannot say, the payback slide is a drawing.

Batteries and an EV change the picture again, usually by adding cost first and flexibility second. A battery that only backs up a fridge for a night is a resilience purchase, not a financial one, and that is a legitimate reason to buy it — just do not let a salesperson book it as "it pays for itself" unless the time-of-use gap is wide enough to show the math. The solar, battery and EV bundle calculator and the simpler solar tool on the homepage are for that argument with yourself. Use your bill, not a national average. National averages do not pay your utility.

Get two more quotes after the first one feels exciting. Compare equipment, warranty labor versus warranty parts, and who is on the hook if the roof needs work in year eight. The cheapest cost per watt with a company that may not exist in year eight is not the cheapest system. Payback is a planning tool. The contract is the decision.

Questions worth asking before the site visit ends

Ask who owns the monitoring login, and what happens to it if you sell the house. Ask what the roof warranty requires — some roof warranties shrink or void if an array is mounted a certain way, and a solar warranty does not replace a roof warranty. Ask the production estimate in kilowatt-hours per year, not in dollars, so you can apply your own rate. Ask the degradation they assumed, often around half a percent to one percent a year, and whether the payback slide used year-one production for all twenty-five years. That shortcut flatters the later years.

Price the loan separately from the equipment. A low monthly payment on a long term can cost more than the system, and a "no money down" pitch is a loan with a smile. If you pay cash, your payback is about equipment, incentives and the bill you no longer pay. If you finance, your payback is about all of that minus interest. Those are different projects. Run both. If only the cash version looks good and you do not have the cash, you do not have a good project yet — you have a wish. Waiting a year, improving the attic insulation, and buying a smaller array is sometimes the higher-return sequence. Insulation is unglamorous and it lowers the system size you need. Run that number too, with the insulation calculator, before you let a roof full of panels be the first dollar you spend.

Keep the proposal PDF. Circle the assumptions. When the first year of bills comes in, compare them to the circle, not to your memory of the kitchen-table conversation. If production misses, you want the monitoring data and the contract's production guarantee, if one exists, while the installer still answers the phone. A calculator on a website will not enforce that. Your file folder will.

Every photo stores EXIF: GPS coordinates, iPhone model, timestamp. Upload that sunset photo and anyone can see your exact address.

Fix: Drag into Zelpura EXIF Remover → we redraw via canvas → metadata stripped → download clean JPG. 100% offline, nothing uploaded.

What to strip, and what conversion does not strip

EXIF is the notebook inside the file. It can hold the camera, the time, the lens, and — if location services were on — where you were standing. That is useful when you want to find the trip. It is a problem when the photo is of a home you are about to list, a child's face, a whiteboard from a client call, or a document you photographed because the scanner was upstairs. Stripping that notebook before you post, sell, or attach the file is a habit, like locking the door. It is not paranoia. It is the default you want, with an exception when you intentionally want the data kept.

A browser tool that redraws the image and lets you download the result does the important thing: the new file is a new file. It is not the original container with a few fields edited and the rest hoped away. That is why Zelpura's remover stays on your machine. The photo is not a lead for an upload site, and it is not training data you accidentally opted into because a button said "enhance." If a tool asks you to sign in before it will touch a private photo, close it. The signature is not required to run canvas code.

Know the limits. A screenshot of a map still shows the map. A photo of a house still shows the house. Metadata removal does not anonymize the pixels. If the picture itself identifies the place, blurring or cropping is the next tool, not a second pass of EXIF. Faces in a crowd photo, a license plate, a street sign in the reflection — those survive a perfect metadata wipe. Use the face blur tool when the pixels are the problem. Use EXIF removal when the hidden notebook is the problem. Many photos need both, in that order: blur, then export a clean file, so you are not uploading the unblurred original anywhere to do the blur.

Keep a copy of the original if you might need the location later for your own archive, and store that copy somewhere that is not a public album. The cleaned file is the one that goes to the listing, the client, the group chat with people you do not fully trust. Name them differently. "kitchen-clean.jpg" and "kitchen-original.jpg" in the same downloads folder, with the original never attached to an email, is a system you can keep. A system you cannot remember at 11 p.m. is not a system.

HEIC files add a format step before any of this if the recipient cannot open them. Convert locally, then strip, then send the JPG. Do not convert on a random website and call the metadata problem solved — you may have solved the format and created a copy of the private photo on someone else's disk. The HEIC converter and the EXIF remover are both on Zelpura for that sequence. Neither one needs your email address. That is the feature.

A small routine you can actually keep

Make a folder called Send and a folder called Keep. Anything that will leave your machine gets exported into Send only after it has been through the cleaner. Anything you might want location for later stays in Keep and never gets attached to a message. The routine fails when both files have the same name. They will not, if you add "-clean" every time, without thinking, the way you add a seatbelt. Thinking is what you skip when you are late.

Before a trip, turn location off for the camera if you do not need it, so the originals are already quieter. After a listing appointment, assume every interior photo has a window, a street, or a school in the background until you have looked. Blur that, then strip metadata, then upload. Marketplaces and social apps may recompress the file. That recompression often drops metadata, but do not rely on a platform's pipeline as your privacy tool. They can change it, and the original you uploaded may sit in their systems regardless. Clean first. Upload second.

If you are cleaning photos for someone else — a client, a relative, a small business — tell them what you removed and what you could not. "I stripped GPS and device data, and I blurred the house number. The storefront sign is still readable." That sentence is more professional than a silent download. It also stops them from assuming the file is anonymous when the pixels say otherwise. Privacy tools are precise. They are not magic, and the people who trust you deserve the distinction. Use the EXIF remover for the notebook inside the file. Use blur for the words and faces in the picture. Use HEIC conversion only when the format itself is the blocker. Three tools, one order, no account. That is the whole workflow.