What does Pinpoint charge partners?
Pinpoint is ultimately built on the contracts with and trust of our partners. All partners enter the same agreement. Every item sold has a fixed service fee of $2.50, and partners can price their items at any amount they desire, with final approval by Pinpoint to ensure buyer fairness and satisfaction. Partners receive all profit after the mandatory payment transaction fees and our service fee. Pinpoint does not currently charge our partner artists any fees for long or short term storage of inventory being sold through Pinpoint.
This $2.50 is used to pay for, in rough order of importance:
Digital Services
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Website hosting fees.
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Domain name fees.
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Email service fees.
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Financial tracking services.
Professional Services
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As needed, tax and legal consultation to ensure protection for all parties.
Labor Compensation
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Management of physical inventory.
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Fulfillment services.
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Customer service.
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Website and custom digital inventory development.
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Partner relations and ad-hoc assistance.
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Community management.
As a Partner, why choose Pinpoint?
Pinpoint is most beneficial to those who operate outside the US and are looking to enter the US market. By entrusting us with domestic fulfillment, buyers pay less in shipping, and there are additional opportunities for revenue through site traffic and promotions.
For both a US domestic partner and international partner, Pinpoint covers inventory management, order fulfillment, customer service, community marketing, and storefront development.
Traditionally, partners would need to rely on other services, such as Shopify, Big Cartel, Etsy, etc. These services are reliable and good choices – but they do not provide physical inventory management, international to domestic proxying, fulfillment services, or hands-off storefront development.
Pinpoint doesn't eliminate all the complications of selling online, but our goal is to simplify the process for our partners and provide enough value not present in other services to justify the contracted rate.
How does Pinpoint compare?
Here's a quick comparison of what's included on Pinpoint versus Etsy, Big Cartel, and a custom Shopify site. Figures are the standard US rates as of September 2026.
What You Pay
|
Pinpoint |
Etsy |
Big Cartel |
Shopify |
|
|---|---|---|---|---|
|
Monthly fee |
None |
None |
Free for up to 5 products, otherwise $15 or $30/month |
$39/month, or $29/month billed yearly |
|
Listing fee |
None |
$0.20 per listing, renewed every 4 months or when it sells |
None |
None |
|
Fee per sale |
Flat $2.50 per item |
6.5% of the sale, including shipping |
None |
None with Shopify Payments, 2% with any other payment provider |
|
Payment processing |
Standard card fees |
3% + $0.25 |
Stripe 2.9% + $0.30, or PayPal 2.99% + $0.49 |
2.9% + $0.30 with Shopify Payments |
|
Advertising fees |
None |
12–15% on sales from Etsy's offsite ads (required once a shop passes $10,000 a year) |
None |
None |
|
Storage fees |
None |
Not applicable |
Not applicable |
Not applicable |
What's Included
|
Pinpoint |
Etsy |
Big Cartel |
Shopify |
|
|---|---|---|---|---|
|
Storage for your physical stock |
✅ |
❌ |
❌ |
❌ |
|
Packing and shipping done for you |
✅ |
❌ |
❌ |
❌ |
|
Customer service handled for you |
✅ |
❌ |
❌ |
❌ |
|
US fulfillment for international artists |
✅ |
❌ |
❌ |
❌ |
|
Storefront set up and maintained for you |
✅ |
❌ |
❌ |
❌ |
|
Shoppers browsing other artists' work |
✅ |
✅ |
❌ |
❌ |
|
Your own standalone shop and domain |
❌ |
❌ |
✅ |
✅ |
What would I take home?
To help visualize, here's an estimate of what you'd keep from a single item sold. For Etsy, Big Cartel, and Shopify, this includes the costs of running your own shop and platform fees. See How we estimated this below for details!
|
Item price |
Pinpoint |
Etsy |
Big Cartel or Shopify* |
|---|---|---|---|
|
$10 |
$6.91 |
$4.10 |
$4.91 |
|
$20 |
$16.62 |
$13.15 |
$14.62 |
|
$35 |
$31.18 |
$26.73 |
$29.19 |
|
$60 |
$55.46 |
$49.35 |
$53.46 |
|
$100 |
$94.30 |
$85.55 |
$92.30 |
*Before their monthly plan fee and shop upkeep - see the monthly examples below.
And here's what a whole month could look like, including monthly plan fees and shop upkeep:
|
Example month |
Pinpoint |
Etsy |
Big Cartel |
Shopify |
|---|---|---|---|---|
|
10 items at $20 ($200 in sales) |
$166.20 |
$101.50 |
$101.20 |
$77.20 |
|
30 items at $35 ($1,050 in sales) |
$935.55 |
$771.75 |
$830.55 |
$806.55 |
How we estimated this
Started from each platform's fees, then added the costs from running your own shop. Pinpoint covers these for you!
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Platform and card fees: the standard US rates listed above. For Pinpoint, we have a card fee of 2.9% + $0.30 per order.
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Packaging: about $0.75 per order for a padded mailer, card, tape, and a label.
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Your time per order: about 15 minutes at best - 10 minutes to pack, label, and drop off. An estimate of 5 more minutes of customer messages for the occasional issue, averaged across all orders. At $15 per hour, it's about $3.75 per order.
-
Shop upkeep: about 2 hours a month minimum for keeping your shop up to date, about $30 every month.
Additional costs not counted
-
The cost of sending your stock to Pinpoint.
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For international partners selling on their own, the cost of shipping each order to the US individually - which often means higher prices for buyers and fewer sales.
-
For Big Cartel and Shopify, the work of bringing in your own visitors, since there's no marketplace of shoppers built in.
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Etsy's 6.5% transaction fee also applies to any shipping you charge.