Etsy announced its 3rd-quarter 2025 financials on Wednesday and named a new CEO as Josh Silverman hands over the reins, though he will remain an employee for another year. When excluding Reverb from the prior-year period (which Etsy sold in June), consolidated GMS (gross merchandise sales on Etsy and DePop) was up 0.9% year-over-year and 0.1% on a currency-neutral basis, and revenue was up 6.1% year-over-year.
Marketplaces are able to grow revenue even when sales are flat by taking more fees from sellers. In Etsy’s case, it said its growth in revenue in Q3 was primarily driven by “continued strong Etsy and Depop on-site ads performance” (Etsy charges sellers to advertise their listings).
Sales on the Etsy marketplace were down 2.4% in the third-quarter of 2025, year-over-year – and were down 3.2% on a currency-neutral basis. GMS per active buyer on a trailing twelve month basis was $121, down 1.6% year-over-year. It appears Etsy did not break out revenue by marketplace (Etsy versus Depop).
The number of active sellers on the Etsy marketplace was down 10.9% in the third quarter to 5.5 million, but was up modestly on a sequential basis, “consistent with the expected impact of the seller set-up fee implemented in April 2024.” The percentage of total active sellers with a sale increased year-over-year in the third quarter.
The number of active buyers on the Etsy marketplace totaled 86.6 million, down 5% year-over-year, and down 0.8% sequentially.
“We reactivated 6.6 million buyers in the quarter, a 3.8% increase from the number of buyers reactivated in the prior year, and up 0.8% sequentially. During the quarter, Etsy acquired 4.8 million new buyers, and our trailing twelve month count of habitual buyers was 6.0 million at quarter end.”
Etsy CEO Josh Silverman is stepping down as CEO on December 31, 2025, and will serve as Executive Chair through December 31, 2026. Etsy’s current President and Chief Growth Officer, Kruti Patel Goyal, will become CEO and will join Etsy’s Board of Directors effective January 1, 2026.
This was clearly a planned succession, and we had speculated in August that Silverman was readying to depart Etsy when he joined Instacart’s Board of Directors. As we noted in the August 25 editorial (available to email subscribers), December will mark a year since Kruti Patel Goyal took on some of Silverman’s responsibilities as President.
Fred Wilson, who has served as the Chair of Etsy’s Board since 2017, will step down as Chairman, but will continue to serve on Etsy’s Board.
Silverman earned $17.9 million in total compensation in 2024 (including a salary of $660,000), 84 times the median compensation of all of its employees ($214,827, not including the CEO). He will remain an employee of Etsy and will receive an annual base salary of $420,000 during the Executive Chair Term, ending at the end of 2026. He will also receive an $8 million equity award.
Patel Goyal will receive a base salary of $700,000 per year and will receive a promotion equity award with a fair value of $16 million, according to an SEC filing on Wednesday.
In the press release announcing the CEO transition, Patel Goyal was quoted: “I’m honored and excited to step into the CEO role at Etsy at such a pivotal time. As customer needs continue to evolve, Etsy will too – but we’ll do it in a way that stays true to who we are, leaning into what makes us different: human connection, our sellers’ creativity, and a distinctly personal shopping experience. I believe that we have been on the right track this year in our efforts to return our core marketplace to GMS growth and deliver value to our community and our shareholders.”
