Etsy's CEO Chad Dickerson recently announced a big company milestone.
Last year, the company's community generated more than $525 million in sales. This year the community is on track to crush that number.
It's already passed $500 million in sales.
That figure also gives you an idea of what Etsy is making. Etsy takes a 3.5% cut of every sale and 20 cents for every posted item.
Since February, Etsy's also started processing payments for some of its shops through a program called Direct Checkout. On payments, it takes a 3% cut plus 25 cents per transaction. Since February, it's processed $50 million in payments.
That means Etsy has generated more than $20 million this year, and the holiday season hasn't even struck yet.
On Thursday, it announced a new gift-card program which will require Etsy shop owners to sign up for Direct Checkout, and it's also offering free payment-processing through the end of September to encourage its use. That may hit transaction fees in the short term, but in the long term, if more Etsy shop owners adopt Direct Checkout, it will substantially increase the money Etsy makes from each sale. (Etsy says Direct Checkout benefits shop owners because customers spend more on average when the feature is enabled.)
Brooklyn-based Etsy has more than 300 employees, 800,000 active merchants and more than 40 million monthly visitors.
