Etsy and Bear Grips Pro Shops solve different problems for a seller of custom apparel. Etsy is a marketplace with millions of shoppers already searching, in exchange for a cut of every sale and a listing the seller does not fully control. Bear Grips Pro Shops is a branded storefront a vendor owns under their own name, with a fixed catalog price and free shipping folded in, in exchange for the vendor bringing their own audience instead of relying on marketplace search. Here is what each actually gets a seller in 2026.
| Category | Etsy | Bear Grips Pro Shops |
|---|---|---|
| Storefront | A shop page inside the Etsy marketplace, shared branding | A branded shop under the vendor's own name and URL |
| Search traffic | Built-in Etsy shopper search, shared with millions of other listings | None built in, vendor drives their own traffic |
| Listing fee | $0.20 per item, every 4 months | None |
| Transaction fee | 6.5% of item price plus shipping | None, fixed catalog price |
| Order minimum | None | None |
| Shipping to buyer | Set by the seller, often passed to the buyer | Free, included in the item price |
On Etsy, the buyer's account, order history, and repeat-purchase relationship belong to Etsy, not the individual shop. A seller can message a past buyer through Etsy's system but does not own an independent customer list to email or retarget outside the platform. On Bear Grips Pro Shops, the storefront is the vendor's own branded checkout, which means the sales history and repeat-buyer relationship sit under the vendor's brand, not a shared marketplace. That matters most for a business already sending traffic somewhere (an email list, social following, a physical location) that wants that traffic landing on their own brand.
Bear Grips Pro Shops: Custom Apparel for Your Team. No Minimums. Free Shipping.Etsy's $0.20 listing fee, 6.5% transaction fee, and roughly 3% plus $0.25 payment processing fee apply on every sale, and Offsite Ads adds 12-15% more when it applies. Bear Grips Pro Shops charges none of that. Tees run from $19.88 VIP base, hoodies from $36.88, with free US shipping built into the price and no fee taken out of what the vendor charges above that base. See the full fee breakdown for the line-by-line math on a sample order.
Every Bear Grips Pro Shops signup, free or paid, comes with a unique affiliate code alongside the shop itself. Referring another vendor pays 10% of that vendor's subscription for as long as they stay subscribed, plus $1 for every unit the referred vendor sells, paid out bi-weekly. Etsy has no comparable built-in referral program for shop owners.
Etsy fits a seller who is starting from zero audience and needs marketplace search to find first buyers, and is comfortable trading fee percentage for that discovery. Bear Grips Pro Shops fits a business, gym, studio, or creator that already has somewhere to send traffic (an email list, a following, a customer base) and wants to keep the full margin above a fixed cost instead of paying a marketplace cut on every order. See the best Etsy alternatives roundup for how other options compare.
Branded storefront, fixed catalog price, free shipping, and a built-in affiliate program. Free plan to start.
Start FreeNo. Bear Grips Pro Shops is an independent apparel platform with its own storefront, catalog, and printing process, unrelated to Etsy.
Etsy takes a listing fee, a 6.5% transaction fee, and a payment processing fee out of every sale. Bear Grips Pro Shops charges none of those on top of its fixed catalog price, though it does not include Etsy's built-in shopper search traffic.
Yes. There is no exclusivity requirement. Many sellers test both while deciding which converts better for their audience.
Yes. The Free plan is $0/mo with 3 live products at a higher per-item base price, with no listing or transaction fee at any tier.
Bear Grips Pro Shops