Redbubble

What is Redbubble?

Redbubble is a print-on-demand operation that invites artists to upload designs, photographs and graphics to illustrate products it sells. The site puts your art on t-shirts, hoodies, notebooks, stickers and posters — and a wide array of other products — and pays you a royalty on sales.

How it works

To upload and sell art through RedBubble, you first have to set up an account. Setting up an account is free — as it is with other print-on-demand sites. Once that’s set, the site suggests that you take a look at its artist templates before you start uploading art.

That’s because selling art on products is a bit unique. Unlike selling a poster or print, art that’s used to decorate coffee mugs and leggings needs to wrap around corners and fit into sometimes unfriendly places. So the site offers templates that help you fit your art onto challenging products like duffle bags, clocks and socks.

When you have perfected your image to fit on the products you want your art to decorate, that’s when you upload.

RedBubble review:

The amount you get paid with Redbubble will depend on the margin you choose to earn on your sales. The site will provide you with a base price for each item. You add your profit margin to create the price that the consumer will pay.

For instance, if a t-shirt’s base price is $18.50, you can add a $10 mark-up and the site will sell it for $28.50. Or, you could decide to accept a lower mark-up to sell at a lower price. RedBubble site says that the average artist earns a 17% commission.

Discounts

Know, however, that Redbubble offers volume discounts on sales. And, your profit can be impacted by these discounts. You still get the same percentage on the sale. If you set your royalty rate at 20%, for instance, you’ll still get 20%. But, if a t-shirt sells normally for $20, you’d get $4 per sale. If it’s sold at a discounted price for $18. You get $3.60.

Fees

In 2023, the site also instituted an account fee.

Account fees are only imposed on earnings. So if you earn nothing, you pay nothing. But once you earn even a few bucks, the account fee is imposed and it can be devastating shock to your pocketbook.

If you earn $2, for example, you’ll pay $1.30 to the platform, walking away with just 70 cents. On a $75 royalty, RedBubble’s account fee would sweep away $43, leaving you with just $32. Once you earn more than $500, the account fee caps out at $97 per month.

Payments

Sellers get paid on the 15th of the month for the previous month’s sales. However, RedBubble has a minimum $20 payout. So, if your balance is less than that, the payout will be delayed until you hit or exceed the threshold.

Complaints

Until Redbubble instituted the account fees, the only complaint we consistently saw about the site was that it can — and does — suspend artist accounts without warning. And, unfortunately, artists are rarely given an explanation when they’re suspended. When RedBubble answers these complaints, it almost always says the same thing: Here’s our suspension policy. If you don’t think it applies to you, file an appeal in the help center.

But, since the account fees were added, users have bigger things to complain about — like being robbed of most of their profits.

Recommendations

We used to love this site, but think that the account fees are over the top. You can sign up with Redbubble here, if you’d like. But you may want to consider other sites, such as Society6, which has a nearly identical structure to RedBubble without the big account fees.

Spoonflower is particularly well-suited to people with repeating designs. FineArtAmerica, which we see as particularly adept at turning your pictures into puzzles. And, Printful, which charges less for products but has you do more of the marketing. (Sign up with Printful here.)

What their sellers say (from TrustPilot):

Suspended one of my three artist accounts because I transferred one of the designs over to another account. This is fair enough. I appealed the decision following the instructions, and I also told them the emails to my other accounts. Instead of a reply they blanket banned all accounts! Not only am I an artist, I’m also a customer who recently bought 3 t-shirts from other artists. So now they lost and artist and a customer just because (now this is an assumption) the suspensions department didn’t like my face and couldn’t be bothered to flash me a quick email.

Redbubble suspended my account after two days of having it open. I am using vintage art that is public domain. I came up with my original headlines. only uploaded 8 art pieces and my account was suspended.

“Didn’t get a clear reason to why my account got deleted by them, contacted support and they sent me to their “specialists” that handle that stuff but haven’t heard from them in weeks. They also did’t answer any other mails about why it’s taking so long… Also, the products are under mediocre quality, but at an expensive price.

Additional reading

Nice comparison of competitor Society6 vs. RedBubble

Endorsement from artist/blogger Michael Essek

And another positive review from EmptyEasel

And from Fish of Gold

Updated 2/2/2023