Minted

Minted Review:

Minted has an interesting proposition for artists. It challenges them to enter greeting card design challenges, where they can win as much as $3,500 for first-place. If you win any prize — not just the top prize — you also get a free store on Minted where you can sell this design and others.

Winning is everything

If you happen to be a first- or even second-place winner, this can be a good deal. You get both a generous upfront payment and royalties of 3% to 6% on every future sale.

But you’re not guaranteed a generous prize. In fact, you could win as little as $100. And Minted sneaks an unpleasant surprise in the terms of entering these contests: If you win, you’re barred from selling this design anywhere else.

Exclusivity

Naturally Minted promises you’ll get royalties on any products you sell on its site. But it can’t guarantee sales.

Other print-on-demand and design shops don’t guarantee that you’ll sell products either. But they also don’t demand exclusivity. Sell elsewhere and you can sell anywhere. Sell on Minted after winning a design contest, and you’re barred from selling with other print-on-demand sites, such as Zazzle, Society6 and FineArtAmerica

Minted justifies the policy by saying that it takes risk by providing upfront payments to winners. But you have no control over the size of the payment you’ll receive when you enter a Minted contest. The amount you get upfront depends on where you place in the competition. So, entering a contest here is taking a big risk.

Pay

In addition, Minted is slow to pay artists. The site pays commissions once monthly, 45 days after the calendar month in which the sale occurred. In other words, if you made a sale on January 1, you wouldn’t see a royalty payment for that sale until mid March.

Commission payments are also net of discounts and returns.

Recommendations:

Although Minted clearly does brisk sales, we give this just an average Husl$core because of the site’s rights grab.

We recommend almost all of the other print on demand shops, including Zazzle, Society6, RedBubble and FineArtAmerica. If you have crafts to sell, we also like Etsy.

What their designers say: (From Glassdoor)

Several designs of mine appear on Minted, but I’ve yet to be paid for my design sales. I have still not been paid for sales that I made in June, and was told I would be paid within 90 days of the quarter the design was posted for sale online. In the freelance world for designers, this is really not acceptable. Read the fine print when entering a competition, and be wary of this company.

A lawyer, who specializes in Art law, also wrote this blog post about what you give up by signing with Minted.