The have zero listing fees for up to 250 items/month when payments are managed by eBay. Their sales fees are The listing fee for someone selling in the USA is .20 for a 4-month period, 5% selling fee (for the listed price of the item + shipping), and a processing fee of .25 + 3% of total product price (including shipping)..30/order + other fees which roughly add up to 13% of your total sale (including cost of artwork, taxes, and shipping costs).
20 Best Websites for Artists to Sell Work and Make Money
If you are wondering what are the best websites for artists to sell their work (paintings, sculptures, designs, diy creations, etc) or how to sell copies of your art on objects (mugs, posters, canvas, clothing, etc) WITHOUT having to spend time packing and shipping everything, then keep on reading!
Selling art online isn’t easy, specially since there are sooo many options to choose from. Shopify, WordPress, Etsy, Printify, Printful, Ecwid, Wix, Squarespace, and so many more.
It’s no wonder so many artists are confused about which option is the best one for them.
So in this post, I will highlight the most commonly used platforms for selling art and highlight some of their pros and cons so you can choose the best one for you.
And because I know that putting your artwork out in the online space is only the beginning, I will also give you some extra tips and tricks to help you grow an audience and make a profit.
Let’s get you out of that “starving artist mentality”.
Disclosure: Keep in mind that the following info is subject to change, so please do your own research and double check the selling fees, entry fees, membership costs, and the fine print of the platform that you decide to use so you don’t get any surprises once you start using that platform!
My Top 3 Recommended Platforms
Shopify
Best Personal Website
For artists that already have an audience. Free customizable templates. Shopify takes care of everything from marketing and payments to secure transactions and shipping.
Printful
Best Print-on-Demand Platform
Turn your digital designs into premium products. Printful has no upfront fees, no order minimums, & 343 premium products. Can be integrated with many ecommerce stores (e.g. Etsy, etc)
Online Gallery
Best Marketplace Gallery
Best gallery platform for beginner artists who still don’t have an audience. Easily setup your art page in minutes. Sell digital & physical products in your shop and their auctions for a small monthly fee.
Online Marketplaces
#1. FineArtAmerica
FineArtAmerica is the world’s largest marketplace with a huge audience. It allows you to sell both, your original work without a commission or digital prints of your art using their print-on-demand services to place your designs on tons of products like home decor, apparel, phone cases, tote bags, and coffee mugs, more.
You can start selling with a Free account which allows you to upload 25 items. If you want to become a member and create your own website, the cost is only $30/year.
Since this site is huge and many artists use this platform, your products will get lost in the crowd. So you must market yourself either through paid Facebook or Google ads, or social media to generate traffic.
Other than that, FineArtAmerica is probably one of the best sites to sell art online.
#2. Amazon Handmade
Amazon Handmade, another very well known platform (but pretty saturated as well), could be a great place to start selling your artwork if you already have an audience. However, keep in mind that Amazon has a pre-approval process.
If you are approved for their program, 15% of your sales will go towards your selling fees. However, Amazon Handmade doesn’t charge listing fees and will waive your Professional selling account fee of $39.99/month one month after your application is approved. So you only pay if you make a sale!
#3. Online Gallery
Online Gallery is a fast-growing online art gallery platform based in the Netherlands but with artists from all over the world. They have a secure payment and buyer protection system.
The thing I love the most about this platform is that they are commission-free! Meaning that you get to keep all of your profits when you make a sale.
For a very small monthly fee (packages vary from € 0,00 – € 8,99) Online Gallery allows you to exhibit your artwork on your very own online art page, offer your art on their online auctions, attract new customers with over 100,000 unique visitors per month, and possibly even get highlighted or promoted on their website or social media.
Their web pages are optimized for organic traffic so that your site and art can be found on Google easier.
They even have a referral program that allows you to refer other artists and get 30% off your monthly subscription payments. How awesome is that.
It’s cheaper, faster, and easier than hosting your own website!
#4. Artplode
Artplode is a huge online gallery marketplace that let’s buyers and sellers deal directly with each other. Sellers keep 100% of the sale price of their artwork, since NO COMMISSIONS are charged by Artplode.
But, there is a catch!
There is a one time listing fee of $60/item which allows you to keep your item listed for an unlimited amount of time. You also have the option of paying extra to have your art be included in one or more of Artplode’s featured categories.
The great thing about listing on Artplode is that it attracts buyers and collectors from all around the world. Your art can get more easily discovered since those buyers can browse by the country of origin of the artwork and the location of sellers as well as by categories, subject, style, price, size and more.
If you are planning on selling digital prints of your artwork through print-on- demand technology, then this site is NOT for you!
#5. Cafepress
If you are only interested in selling digital prints of your artwork on tshirts, mugs, shower curtains, tote bags, canvas, etc, then check out this site.
Cafepress allows you to open up your shop with no up-front costs. You can make money by selling your designs on 250+ products.
Choose one of the two options below depending on what type of fee works for your business.
Option A: Pay 10% commission or up to $10 maximum of your royalties (not total sales volume).
- If you earn a $40 royalties for the month, Cafepress deducts 10% ($4) and mails you a check for $36.
- If you earn a $400 royalties for the month, Cafepress deducts only $10 (not the full 10%, which would be $40). So you get a check for $390.
Option B: Save money by pre-paying. You can choose to prepay every month, every 3 months, every 6 months, or every year as follows.
- $6.95 per month
- $18.45 for 3 months ($6.15 a month)
- $34.95 for 6 months ($5.83 a month)
- $59.95 for 1 year (only $5 per month)
#6. Ebay
Even though eBay is a very well known marketplace platform, it is not used solely for selling artwork. However, there are tons of successful sellers and it is possible for you to sell your art through this platform.
You can sell your original artwork as well as your Print-on-Demand products since Printful and Printify integrate with eBay.
The have zero listing fees for up to 250 items/month when payments are managed by eBay. Their sales fees are
Print-On-Demand
#10. Printful
Printful is a print-on-demand service. So if you want to put your designs on a physical product like a t-shirt, mug, or tote bag, then check them out!
This company is the one I use for my print-on-demand items, and I LOVE THEM.
They have high-quality products and easily integrates with your e-commerce store like Shopify, Ebay, Etsy, Woocommerce, Wix, Squarespace, Edwid, Amazon, and more.
The nice thing about using Printful is that when someone places an order on your site, Printful automatically prints your design on the product that your customer chose, packs it, and ships it. This process is hands-off for you!
All you have to do is upload a design onto a Printful product. That’s it!
Just remember. you can’t just sell your products directly on Printful. You need to have a store setup somewhere (WordPress site, Shopify store, Etsy shop, etc)! Printful will only print your designs on one of their chosen premium products and fulfill your customers’ order when they make a purchase on your site.
.30/order + other fees which roughly add up to 13% of your total sale (including cost of artwork, taxes, and shipping costs).
And if you use Paypal for the transactions, you can also incur some extra charges of 2.9% of the payment, as well as a 30% transaction fee.
So keep all of those fees in mind when pricing your artwork. You can see their updated fees policy here.
#7. Etsy
Etsy is a popular platform in the USA that allows artists to sell their handmade artwork. It also integrates easily with Printful and Printify so you can sell your Print-on-Demand products with an almost hands-off approach.
Because Etsy has been around for quite some time, customers trust it and are inclined to purchase from it as long as they like what they see!
But in order to see significant sales in your shop, you have to constantly list new products and drive traffic to your own shop through social media or paid ads. Use good keywords in your product’s title and description if you want to drive organic traffic to your products.
Etsy’s fees vary depending on where you are located at, so I am only going to list the standard fees as it pertains to the USA. For more info on their fees check out this page.
The listing fee for someone selling in the USA is
Your Own Website
#11. WordPress
Guess what? I also own a WordPress site in which I sell online courses and could potentially also sell physical products with the WooCommerce plugin.
WordPress is free and one of the world’s biggest blogging platforms.
Well written blog articles can drive organic traffic to your site without the need to have social media presence. At the same time, you can sell physical items like artwork (or anything else that you want to sell).
However, there is a steep learning curve when it comes to using WordPress. Selling physical items will require you to install several plugins like WooCommerce and integrate it correctly with a payment processor. All these integrations and manual adjustments can cause big headaches to someone who has no technical skills.
You are responsible for doing the updates, maintenance, and fixing any errors that happen on your site, unlike having a Shopify shop where Shopify takes care of all the updates and fixing all the errors themselves.
Plus you have to pay for the hosting for your site and for a building tool that will allow you to design your site without coding experience.
It’s a great platform but not the best for beginners!
#12. Squarespace
Squarespace is a content management system (similar to Shopify) that allows you to create a website with ecommerce capabilities. You can sell products, blog, register a custom domain name for your site, and track analytics from the same platform. Their templates are lovely and easily customizable to suit all your needs.
Even though the sales tools from Squarespace are less advanced than Shopify’s tools, Squarespace is more affordable!
#13. Shopify
I honestly believe that Shopify is one of the best platforms to sell art online for any artist that already has a following on social media but has no technical skills.
Shopify will make selling art online a breeze!
Their templates are beautiful and easily customizable. You can get your store started in just minutes without any experience at all. They even have videos and articles that explain how to do most of the setup and customizations that you need.
Their stores allow you to track the analytics from within the same platform, so you can easily see where your traffic and customers are coming from and therefore focus your efforts on what will make the most impact on your sales!
Integrating your shop with social media is pretty easy as well!
You can even purchase your mailing labels at a discounted price right from your shop. And Shopify will automatically notify your customers when an order has shipped!
How awesome is that.
I sell mixed media embellishments using a Shopify store, and let me tell you that I LOVE IT! I truly believe that their monthly subscription price is so worth it!
Shopify even has an email marketing app that allows you to send up to 10,000 emails/month to your customers (right from your shop) FOR FREE!
This email marketing service alone makes my Shopify subscription worth it!
Shopify makes selling sooo easy and effective for beginners!
Just remember that you will have to drive your own traffic to your site. This platform is not a marketplace (like Etsy) that brings in it’s own traffic.
— FREE TRIAL — Build your art business using a 14 day FREE trial of Shopify, the platform with all the ecommerce features that you need to start running and growing your business.
.20 for a 4-month period, 5% selling fee (for the listed price of the item + shipping), and a processing fee of .25 + 3% of total product price (including shipping).
#8. Redbubble
Redbubble is a marketplace that also allows you to sell print-on-demand products. It is easy and free to use.
Redbubble is well known, therefore has tons of visitors coming to it’s site. To stand out in the crowd, make your products unique and target a specific niche.
#9. Saatchi Art
Saatchi Art is an online art gallery used by many emerging and established artists to sell their artwork.
If you want to sell your artwork on this website, you will have to go through a submission process. Their 35% commission is pretty high, however, since it is one of the world’s leading online art galleries, your artwork will be visible to many interested customers.
Saatchi Art handles the shipping. The artist must take care of the packaging.
Want Art?
With UK Commissionable Artists in every discipline there’ll be someone who specialises in and can undertake your art commission to create exactly what you are looking for!
- Abstract Painting to match the colours of a room in your home.
- A Portrait to capture a lasting memory of family members or loved one’s.
- A Landscape or Citycape of a place that means a lot to you.
- Pet Portrait from a photograph.
- In the style of something you’ve seen in a gallery or online.
- A collection of Paintings on a common theme.
- A Mural or themed wall.
- Not just Pictures and Paintings. Ceramic, Glass, Sculpture, Digital and Conceptual Artists are all registered on MyArtBrief.com
The list is endless and with no gallery markup fees to pay, we make art commissioning affordable for everyone!
Create Your Art Brief
Start your art commission by creating a Brief from scratch by selecting simple options, click the ‘Find Artists’ button and you’ll be shown all Artists with matching skills for you to choose from. You can submit to all matching Artists or view their Profiles and only submit to specific Artists.
Alternatively, view all of our Artists work from our ‘Inspiration’ page, find an Artist or specific Artwork you like and submit your Brief directly to the Artist. If you choose the ‘Create Similar Brief’ button on a piece of Art, the Brief will be created for you and linked to the correct Artist and you simply need to update the description section with your requirements.
There are no fees for this service so there really is no reason for you not to give commissioning a piece of art a go!
Commissionable Artists matching your Brief will be notified of your submission and may start an online Conversation with you to query any parts of your Brief before submitting a Quote and Schedule for what you require. When an Artist submits a Quote and Schedule, you’ll receive an automated email and you can link directly to it from your Notification list at the top of the page.
Choosing Your Artist
If you submitted to multiple Artists you may receive varying Quotes and Schedules to complete your Brief.
You could receive Quotes from self-taught Amateur Artists or Art Students for a really low fee to Quotes from Professional Full Time Artists who complete work to the highest standards for a higher fee.
Artist Profiles are available for you to view so you can read about them and see previous examples of their work in their Profile Galleries. You will also be able to see Reviews from previous Briefs they have undertaken on MyArtBrief.com.
You can start an online Conversation with the Artists regarding their Quote and Schedule and they will be notified at the same time you submit your query. Likewise, we will inform you when they respond via the site.
When you have found an Artist you are happy to work with based on all the information provided you can accept their Quote, make payment to MyArtBrief Ltd and the Artist will begin completing the Brief to the agreed Schedule. Your art commission is underway!
