One of the easiest ways to make money with your creative passion is selling prints of your artwork on the web. Selling art prints can be very profitable, if you choose the right platform and pay attention to a couple of benchmarks. Now, how can you sell your own art prints online—and where? In this post, I’ve listed the seven best platforms for selling art prints and there’s even an option to sell your prints completely free—without paying fees or sharing your profit! Read on to find out more.
If you are dreaming about turning your art into a career, there’s no way around selling your own art prints online. (◕ᴗ◕)
That’s a fantastic thing, because selling prints is both profitable and straightforward.
Nowadays, in the digital age, you as the creative, can sell directly to your customers—without needing a middleman like an art gallery or an agent.
In fact, it has never been easier for artists to sell directly, with more and more art selling platforms popping up on the web.
In my recent posts, I’ve already showed you how you can display your art prints for sale and sell art prints from home. If you are not quite sure how to go about those two things, read the posts after reading this one. (>ᴗ<)
Because, in this post, I’m going to give you the best platforms where you can sell your art prints online—even for free.
So, without further ado, let’s get into it:
Is selling art prints profitable?
Before we come to the best platforms to sell your art prints online, let’s look quickly into the profitability of art print sales.
Statistics prove that selling art prints has never been as profitable as in recent years.
In 2023, the art print sales segment saw a staggering 107% increase in auction activity compared to the preceding half-decade. This phenomenon underscores the print market’s increasing investment appeal and its emergence as a high-value sector within the art market, as MyArtBroker notes.
In other words, it has never been a better time to start selling your own art prints or even start your own art business.
- Grab your FREE Art Business Startup Checklist
How can you sell your art prints online free?
Well, there’s actually no online marketplace that allows you to sell your art prints completely free. At least no one that I know of.
But there’s another option that allows you to sell your art prints without paying sales fees and without sharing your profits: your own artist website.
That’s why I cannot emphasize enough how important it is to build a website for your art. It comes with so many advantages.
If you make an artist website with WordPress, the only fee you’ll have to pay is the hosting that you can get for a couple of dollars per month.
→ Best Web Hosting For Artists With WordPress Sites
In case you don’t want to use WordPress because it’s more time-consuming, you can use another website builder for artists. Those website builders usually cost a bit more than WordPress, but they make building your own website super-easy.
Popular website builders for artists are Squarespace, Wix, and Weebly.
For more information, check out my rundown of the best website builders for artists.
When you want to sell art prints through your own website, it’s important to learn about SEO to make your site show up in search engines. Because how else would potential buyers be able to find your art?
SEO stands for search engine optimization and means including relevant keywords in your artwork descriptions to improve visibility in the search engine results.
Lucky you, I got you covered with my post on how to find the best keywords for your art (ᴖᴥᴖ)
… and some more tips for your artist website, if you are interested:
What is the best platform to sell art prints?
With the above said, let’s come to the best platform to sell your own art prints online.
There’s a range of online art selling platforms that cater to different artistic styles and audiences. The best platform for you depends on the art you create and on your specific target market.
Knowing who is interested in buying your art and what kind of prints they are primarily looking for is essential to sell your work.
Where does your target audience hang out? Are they looking for small or large art prints, home or office décor, framed or unframed prints?
Here are some posts to help you along the way:
7 Best platforms to sell your own art prints online
With the above being said, we’re ready to dive into the seven best platforms for selling your own art prints on the web.
Here we go:
1. Etsy
Etsy is the largest online marketplace for all things art. It’s a well-established platform with a huge customer base in place.
Over the years, Etsy has become the go-to place for artists to sell prints and other art products, including printables and downloads of digital artwork.
- Grab Your Free Best Selling Printables eGuide
Etsy attracts a global audience, which is a good prerequisite to gain exposure for your art and generate sales. On the flipside, there are lots of other creatives competing for eyeballs.
Nevertheless, I recommend giving Etsy a try, for a number of reasons: first of all, creating an account on Etsy is completely free. It’s super-easy to set up a shop, even for beginners.
Secondly, fees are very reasonable and probably belong to the lowest in the market. For each item you list for sale on the platform, you’ll have to pay UD$0.20. When you make a sale, there’ll be a transaction fee of 6.5%.
Lastly, Etsy allows you to integrate print-on-demand providers like Printful and Printify that will handle the order for you. Once someone purchases your art print, those providers will take of printing, packaging and shipping your print, without you having to do anything. Super-practical.
2. Saatchi Art
Saatchi Art is my second favorite for selling art prints online. Saatchi is an online art gallery that has a community of art collectors from more than 140 countries.
The platform is one of the largest in the market: it has around 12 million monthly page views and more than 2 million monthly visits. Offering your art prints on such a reputable platform is definitely helpful to connect with art connoisseurs worldwide.
Pretty much like on Etsy, there’s also lots of competition on Saatchi. However, the platform really wants artists to succeed and provides them with a free guide from A to Z to start selling. It includes an entire chapter on selling art prints on the platform to help you get your print shop up and running perfectly!
Creating an account on Saatchi is free. The company will handle the shipping for you, you’ll only have to pay for packaging. Apart from that, there are no listing or processing fees. However, Saatchi will keep 40% of the sales price of any artwork sold.
3. RedBubble
RedBubble is an online marketplace that offers print-on-demand services, meaning artists can sell their designs on a variety of products, including prints.
This may be particularly interesting for artists who want to sell their own art prints online without the hassle of attending to production, packaging, and delivery. The platform handles all aspects of the order fulfillment, while offering a wide range of print types.
You can sell your art on photographic prints, metal prints, canvas prints, mounted prints, framed prints, and more. All you need to do as the artist is select the product and upload your design.
RedBubble is a popular print-on-demand provider among artists. Rightly so, because in 2023, Redbubble had more than 5 million customers, buying 4.8 million different designs, from 650.000 artists registered on the platform.
These are some very good reasons to start selling your art prints on RedBubble. The platform is easy to use and creating an account is free.
Selling your art prints on RedBubble works as follows: the platform sets base prices, and you as the artist determine the markup. That means you can set the sales price for your prints and thus control your profit margin.
When a sale is made, you’ll pay a flat fee to RedBubble based on your monthly earnings. If you don’t sell anything, you don’t pay any fee. Fair enough, I think. (ᴖᴥᴖ)
4. Fine Art America
Fine Art America is a print-on demand platform similar to RedBubble. When you register a free account on the platform, you’ll become part of a large online community consisting of art buyers and sellers from all around the world.
As a creative, you can sell your original art or prints of your work. Once you’ve uploaded a digital image of your artwork, you can sell it on canvas prints, framed prints, metal prints, acrylic prints, wood prints, art prints, posters, and more.
Fine Art America prides itself to be the largest custom framing company in the world. They offer a wide range of frames and mats in a variety of colors and materials. Every print is hand-crafted at one of their 14 global fulfillment centers and shipped directly to the buyer, with a 30-day money-back guarantee.
Very much like on RedBubble, you select the print type and size you want to sell your art on and set your own price. Depending on the type of print ordered, Fine Art America will take care of printing, framing, matting, stretching, packaging, shipping, insurance, payment processing, and customer service.
Can it get any better? I don’t know, see for yourself. (>ᴗ<)
5. Society6
Society6 is another popular print-on-demand provider for artists to sell their own art prints online.
The platform has perhaps some of the largest print offers that you can find on a single platform: there’s everything from photographic and canvas prints, acrylic prints, metal prints, wooden prints, to mini art and poster prints—and all of that is available either framed or unframed!
The good thing is that you can set your custom markup on art prints, ranging from 10% to 999%. That means if you have customers who are willing to pay more for your art, you can earn higher profits on Society6.
There’s a free plan available that gives you access to the most needed tools and features. If you want more advanced selling features, you can upgrade to the basic plan for US$4.99 a month, which is still pretty affordable.
A downside of Society6 is that the platform doesn’t have an as interactive community as RedBubble, meaning your print offer won’t get as much as attention.
Hence, if you want to generate profitable art print sales on Society6, you’ll have to promote your offerings somewhere else, e.g. on social media sites like Instagram or Facebook.
However, Society6 provides its sellers with a helpful guide on how to optimize your product descriptions for SEO to make them get found in search engines.
For more tips on search engine optimization for artists, check out my post on SEO Works For Artists — And Here’s How To Do It.
6. Zazzle
Zazzle is a print-on-demand platform for artists that stands out from the competition through its buyer-focused customization options. Its unique features allow artists to offer a variety of designs that customers can choose from to personalize the product they want to buy.
There are two ways of selling your own art prints on Zazzle: the Creator Program is for artists wanting to sell digital products—just like on the PoD platforms we talked about above.
You upload a digital file of your artwork and select the type of art print. When someone purchases your print, Zazzle will take care of manufacturing, shipping, and customer service.
However, you can also join Zazzle’s Maker Platform, which is tailored to traditional artists. In this case, you craft the item yourself and ‘only’ sell it through Zazzle. At the same time, you’ll be responsible for shipping it to the customer yourself.
But also as a digital artist, you can sell products through the Maker Platform, for example hand-signed or hand-embellished art prints.
Just like on Society6, you can set your own royalty rate on the art prints you want to sell through the platform. Zazzle will keep a portion of the base price; you can set your markup up to 99% and thus determine how much you earn.
Creating an account and opening a shop on Zazzle is completely free. You can upload as many designs as you wish. You only pay, when you make a sale!
7. Artfinder
Artfinder is an online art marketplace that strives to provide a fair and sustainable business hub for artists. Its mission is to make original art affordable to anyone, while “eliminating the starving artist syndrome.”
→ How To Stop Being A Starving Artist [*From Broke To Abundant*]
Artfinder has achieved high acclaim in the art community for supporting artists and helping them connect with buyers interested in the particular type of art they create. In fact, the platform has a global audience of more than 500,000 art lovers!
In order to sell your own art prints on the platform, you will have to undergo an application process. You’ll have to submit 4 to 6 examples of your work and a link to your portfolio for review. Your chances of getting accepted will improve if you have an interesting story to tell.
→ How Storytelling Can Improve Art: 12 Hands-On Tips From An Artist
Artfinder welcomes original pieces and art prints with a maximum run of 250 prints, preferably smaller limited or single edition prints.
As opposed to the above platforms, Artfinder does not have a print-on-demand service. When selling on Artfinder, you as the artist have to make sure to print and ship the artwork yourself. That means you should already have a print ready, when you list your art for sale on the platform. (ᴖᴥᴖ)
Signing up to Artfinder and displaying your offering is free. When you make a sale, the company will deduct a commission of 40% or 45%, depending on your Seller Plan subscription. Artfinder emphasize that they reinvest all of the commission into marketing and artist promotion.
As a matter of fact, the site runs promotions and surveys to help creatives with art sales. It also provides detailed performance stats and insights to help you grow your business.
∗∗∗
I hope this post helped you decide where to sell your own art prints online! If you’re not sure where to get started, it can be a good idea to try several platforms—after all, they are free to sign up and start selling. Over time, you’ll see which platform works best for you and you can focus your efforts on that site, aiming to make your art sales as profitable as possible!
Are you already selling your own art prints online? Feel free to share your experiences and tips in the comments. I’d love to hear from you! Also make sure to sign up for my email list below so you don’t miss out on new blog posts and other cool stuff. ♥
