Post before the rush, not during it
Christmas, Mother's Day and Black Friday each need the listing live and the posts going weeks before the day itself, and it is easy to remember them the week they land. I built one workbook that works those dates out from the year you type, shows what is due now, and keeps a log of what you posted and what it brought in.
The question
this build answers
How do I plan my Etsy shop's social posts around Christmas, Mother's Day and the other busy dates without missing them?
From the first trigger
to the finished job.
The working version, step by step.
Type the year once
I put 27 shopping dates for the UK, US, Canada and Australia on the Key dates tab. Easter, Mothering Sunday, Mother's and Father's Day, Thanksgiving, Black Friday, Cyber Monday and Small Business Saturday are worked out by formula, so next year's file is this file with a new number in one cell.
See what is due now
Each date carries a lead time for listings and one for posts, and a status that reads later, listings should be live, posting window or past. I made every lead time a blue cell, so you can change it to suit how long you take to make things.
Plan the month, finish the week
The weekly planner gives each of the 52 weeks three post slots and names the key date that week carries. Etsy's own handbook advice is to plan the month, finalise each post the week before and leave a slot free, and I laid the sheet out that way.
Log every post
I give each post one line with its date, the platform it went on, what kind of post it was and where it stands. Once it is up, mark it posted. A few days later, copy the reach, engagements, clicks and orders across from the platform's insights.
Keep a balance
The planner counts the log each week. A week of nothing but product and offer posts gets flagged, and so does a week under the target you set, while there is still time to add a post.
Read the month back
The monthly review adds up posts by type, reach, engagement rate, clicks, orders and order value. It also totals the fee saving from Share & Save on the orders your own shop links brought in.
The calendar, instant download
Etsy seller content calendar: 27 key dates with listing and posting deadlines, a post tracker and 96 post ideas
You get one Excel workbook that also imports into Google Sheets, plus a README and a sources file. It is an instant download with nothing to install. If a date or a formula looks wrong, message me from the order and I will check it the same day.
Open the calendar on EtsyChecked by recalculating it
Before listing it, I recalculated all 1,736 formulas across the eight tabs with a formula engine outside Excel, and none returned an error.
I typed a sample month into a copy and checked 138 values against my own working: weekly counts, flags, monthly totals and the key dates. Then I set the year to each of 2026 to 2030 and compared the movable dates with the calendar algorithm, and every one matched.
Where the rules come from
The posting cadence, the content balance and the Share & Save saving come from Etsy's Seller Handbook article on editorial calendars, which I read on 18 September 2026.
The lead times are the midpoints of EtsyOptima's published selling-events guide, and I checked the fourth-quarter dates against eRank's 2026 holiday calendar. The Sources tab names each one.
What it leaves out
It does not post for you. If you use a scheduler such as Buffer, this is the plan that feeds it.
It holds no post templates or graphics, only the plan, the ideas and the numbers. Hanukkah follows a lunar calendar, so I left its date as the one cell you type in each year.
Before you spend anything
The fit matters.
Who should not buy this
If you want a tool that publishes your posts, this is not it.
If you sell services or run an agency, the 96 ideas are written for a shop that sells products and they will not fit.
Yours to keep
What lands
on your desk.
- An eight-tab Excel workbook that opens in Numbers and LibreOffice and imports into Google Sheets
- 27 key dates with listing and posting deadlines, a post log, a 52-week planner and a monthly review
- 96 post ideas in eight types with a caption starter each, and a hashtag builder
- A README and a sources file naming every rule and where it came from
See the work
Open the proof.
Published case studies of running systems. Each links to the thing itself.
A few useful
answers.
Does it work in Google Sheets?
Import it through File, Import, Upload. Every formula in it uses a function Google Sheets supports, and I checked the results on a filled sample copy before I listed it.
Will it work next year?
It does, because every date is a formula. Change the year in one cell and they all move with it, Easter included.
Does it post to Instagram for me?
It posts nothing. It plans and tracks your posts, and publishing stays with you or your scheduling tool.
What is Share & Save?
It is Etsy's programme for links you share yourself. When a sale comes through your own trackable shop link, Etsy takes 4% of the order total off your bill, and the monthly review adds that saving up.
A little further down
the same path.
Related builds for the rest of your business.
Opening an Etsy shop and getting its listings found
Read the build ↗
Setting a yearly sales goal for an Etsy shop and checking it each month
Read the build ↗
Planning craft fairs and markets, and working out which ones pay
Read the build ↗
Getting a custom banner, logo and brand board for an Etsy shop
Read the build ↗
Scoring every Etsy listing against Etsy's own search rules
Read the build ↗
Pricing an Etsy listing from what you actually keep
Read the build ↗Make this work for you
Your tools.
Your working version.
Want this built and handed over working? Tell me what your version needs to do. One line is enough to start.
Start a brief