How to sell candles on Etsy

Before you open the shop

Etsy is a marketplace, not a compliance backstop. You are the manufacturer of record for every candle you ship. That means three things need to exist on paper before the first listing goes live:

• A registered business identity. Sole trader in the UK, LLC or sole proprietor in the US, or the local equivalent. Etsy will ask.
• Product liability insurance. Most homeware policies start around £5m/$1m cover. Candles are a fire-adjacent product; do not skip this.
• Region-correct safety labels. CLP in the UK/EU, ASTM F2417 fire-safety wording plus Prop 65 (if you ship to California) in the US.

Etsy's real cost per sale

Etsy charges a $0.20 listing fee every four months per listing, a 6.5% transaction fee on the item price plus postage, a payment processing fee that varies by country (roughly 3% + a fixed per-order charge in most markets), and an Offsite Ads fee of 12–15% when a sale is attributed to Etsy's paid channels. These are the published rates on etsy.com/legal/fees and they change; treat them as the floor, not the ceiling.

The trap is postage. Etsy takes its transaction fee on the shipping charge too, so "free shipping" that you subsidise still gets taxed. Price the label into the candle, do not eat it silently.

The 10-point launch checklist

1. Business registered and trader identity on your listings and receipts.
2. Product liability insurance in force, with a copy of the certificate saved.
3. Region-correct safety labels for every SKU (CLP / ASTM / Prop 65 as applies).
4. Net weight declared on the candle, in the units your region requires.
5. Batch code on the base, matched to a batch record you can retrieve.
6. Cost per candle calculated with fragrance, packaging and postage in the number.
7. Recommended retail set inside your segment's market band, not below.
8. Two photographs: one lit, one unlit. Etsy's search rewards the lit shot.
9. Postage profile picked to the actual parcel weight, not guessed.
10. A refund and returns policy written in plain English on the listing.

Pricing floor: what an Etsy candle really needs to sell at

A 200g soy candle that costs £4.20 to make, packaged, with a £3.50 postage label, cannot be listed at £12 and survive Etsy's fees. Once the 6.5% transaction fee, payment processing and (if attributed) 15% Offsite Ads come out, contribution margin collapses. The Cost Calculator's Gift segment anchor sits between £16–£24 for that jar in the UK; that is the band you should be inside, not a flat cost-plus number.

After you list: the boring stuff that saves the shop

• Keep a batch record for every pour: wax lot, fragrance lot, wick, vessel, pour temp, cure date. If a jar cracks in a buyer's hallway, this is the evidence.
• Photograph the finished candle next to the label on a plain background. This becomes your "as-shipped" reference for any dispute.
• Do not blend without recording the load percentage. Fragrance load above the supplier's IFRA cap is the single most common cause of throw complaints and refunds.

This guide is a starting point, not legal advice. Rules change and your region may have additional obligations. Confirm current requirements with the source regulator before you list.