Etsy tag checker
Paste your tags and see instantly whether they pass Etsy's rules: 13 tags, 20 characters each, no duplicates, no rejected characters — plus the single-word tags that are quietly wasting slots.
Results appear here as you type.
Etsy's tag rules, in one place
Etsy gives every listing the same budget: 13 tags, each up to 20 characters. Tags can contain letters, numbers, spaces, hyphens, apostrophes and the ™ © ® symbols — anything else (commas inside a tag, slashes, emoji, ampersands) is rejected when you save. Tags are matched alongside your title, so a phrase in either one can bring a listing into search.
Those are the hard rules. The soft rules are what separate a listing that gets found from one that doesn't:
- Use all 13. An empty slot is a search your listing can never appear in. In our shop audits, "fewer than 13 tags" is the single most common issue, and it is the cheapest to fix.
- Write phrases, not words. Etsy matches tags against shopper searches word by word and as whole phrases. "wall art" matches "boho wall art" and "wall art for bedroom"; the lone word "art" is too broad to rank for anything.
- Don't repeat yourself. Duplicates, plurals of the same tag ("mug", "mugs") and pure case variants are the same tag to Etsy. Each one costs a slot.
- Don't just copy the title. Your top two or three phrases belong in both places. The other ten tags should cover what the title can't: synonyms, materials, styles, occasions, who it's for.
- Skip what attributes already cover. Colour, holiday and size are better set as attributes, which power the search filters. A tag saying "blue" does far less than the Primary colour attribute set to blue.
How to fill 13 tags without padding
Sellers who stall at eight or nine tags usually run out of ways to say the same thing. Instead, think in angles. For a pressed-flower frame, a full set might look like this:
| Angle | Example tags |
|---|---|
| What it is | pressed flower art, dried flower frame, botanical wall art |
| Style | cottagecore decor, boho wall art, farmhouse decor |
| Who it's for / occasion | housewarming gift, mothers day gift, nature lover gift |
| Material / how it's made | real dried flowers, handmade frame, preserved flowers |
| Alternative name | floral wall hanging |
Every tag is two or three words, none repeats another, and together they cover five different ways a shopper might search. Run that set through the checker above and it comes back clean.
Tags over 20 characters
Etsy's editor blocks long tags, but sellers importing from a spreadsheet or a listing tool often hit the limit. The fix is almost always to split: "personalized christmas stocking" (31 characters) becomes "personalized stocking" and "christmas stocking" — two tags that together match more searches than the long one would have.
What this checker does not do
It doesn't know your market. It can tell you a tag is a single word, but not whether "macrame" alone is a strong tag in your category (it isn't, usually). For that, look at the titles of the listings already ranking for your phrase and borrow their vocabulary. And tags are only one of six signals: if your title is a keyword chain or your description buries the focus keyword, clean tags won't rescue it. Our title checker covers the next piece, and the search visibility guide walks through all six.
Check every listing's tags at once
The free shop audit reads your public shop and flags short tag sets, single-word tags and duplicates across every active listing — then the rewrite tool writes a clean 13 for you.
Questions sellers ask
How many tags can you use on Etsy?
Exactly 13 per listing. Each tag can be up to 20 characters and may contain letters, numbers, spaces, hyphens, apostrophes and the ™ © ® symbols. Using fewer than 13 is the most common tag mistake we see in audits.
Should Etsy tags be single words or phrases?
Phrases. A multi-word tag like "boho wall art" matches searches for "boho wall art", "wall art" and "boho art", while the single word "art" matches almost nothing specific. Aim for 2–3 word phrases that a shopper would actually type.
Do I need to repeat my title in my tags?
Your two or three most important phrases should appear in both title and tags, because Etsy reads both. Beyond that, use tags for synonyms, materials, styles, occasions and recipients that the title has no room for.
Are duplicate tags bad?
A duplicate gives you nothing: Etsy matches the same searches either way, and you have spent one of 13 slots on it. Case and plurals barely matter to Etsy's matching, so "Mug" and "mug" count as the same tag.
Does this tag checker send my tags anywhere?
No. Everything runs in your browser. Nothing is uploaded or stored.