How to Make Money on Redbubble

If you have an eye for designs and the technical skills to create art, you may have considered creating a side hustle on Redbubble. This platform is one of the leading print-on-demand or POD companies, but how do you make money on Redbubble?

Here we’ll delve into this topic in more detail to help you set up your new side hustle or online business.

How Does Redbubble Work?

Redbubble is an Australian company that has been around since 2006. It’s a global platform where artists can upload their designs and have them printed on various merchandise products like t-shirts, mugs, tote bags, and much more.

Essentially, this means you can be creative with your designs, but you won’t be responsible for manufacturing or shipping your merchandise to your customers. You simply need to create and upload your designs on the Redbubble marketplace, and you won’t need to worry about logistics. 

Related reading: Redbubble vs. Etsy

What Can You Sell From Your Redbubble Store?

At this time, Redbubble has more than 70 different products that your designs and art can be printed on. You can have your favorite designs on apparel, phone cases, stickers, coffee mugs, backpacks, wall art, stationery, and decorations such as pillows or blankets. 

How to Make Money on Redbubble

Creating your online presence can be difficult if you want to sell your artwork or designs, but Redbubble aims to simplify the process. A few points can help you get off on the right foot. 

1. Create Your Account

Once you’re ready to start, you must visit the Redbubble website to create your account. You’ll need your name, address, and email address.

At this stage, you can add your designs, add an avatar (such as a logo or profile picture), add your cover image, and social links. Redbubble also allows you to create a bio.

Once you complete these details, there’s a payment details section, which will officially open your online store. 

Don’t worry too much if you’re unsure about some of your account’s finer details, as you can go back to optimize your Redbubble shop later. 

2. Create Your Designs

This is the crux of Redbubble, as your designs are essentially your product to sell. If you already have some digital art, you can upload it to your Redbubble store. If not, you can create designs with whichever digital design tools or software you prefer. However, Redbubble does allow you to upload hand-drawn art via digital scanning software.

Your art can be placed on the entire Redbubble catalog, but remember that a niche approach works best. Redbubble is highly competitive, so it is better to focus on a particular target audience rather than taking a shotgun approach with all kinds of different style designs.

3. Create Product Listings

Once you’ve uploaded your designs, you’ll need to create your product listings. This includes the title, tags, and description, but you need to choose your words carefully. Remember that a strong description and the right title and tags can make the difference between a steady stream of sales and waiting to make one sale. 

Be specific with your tags and keywords, but don’t spam. Try to include one or two strong keywords or phrases naturally within your description. You can add up to 15 tags and add a thank you message for those who view and/or purchase your products. Be specific with your tags, so your targeted audience can easily find your designs.

The final stage of creating your listing is to select the default shop view and which products you want to upload the designs to. This lets Redbubble know which print-on-demand products will be displayed with your designs for visitors of your shop. This is crucial if you’re developing a theme for your store and brand. 

4. Promote Your Products

Although Redbubble receives millions of visitors to the site, this doesn’t mean you won’t need to do some promotion for your designs and store. Fortunately, there are several ways that you can use to market your items in addition to using SEO in your listings. 

Social Media Marketing

One of the most effective ways to get customers and make money on Redbubble is social media promotion of your store. You can share images of your designs and products on social media platforms like Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram.

If you have a good following on these platforms, be sure to encourage them to share with their friends to really get the word out.

Research Trends and Create Products Accordingly

Researching the current trends to develop your niche is a great way to make money on Redbubble and other print on demand platforms. While selling general designs may be a good way to make a little cash, if you want to make serious sales, you should aim to find a unique Redbubble niche.

This could be anything from targeting a particular audience, such as pet lovers, or designing competitive products specifically for women. In addition to being at the cutting edge, creating trending designs can also be advantageous. 

You can use tools such as Google Trends to see what is currently popular and when designing your work around the latest trends. There’s also a handy search bar feature on Redbubble that allows you to click and find trending searches.

Promote Products from Your Blog

If you already have a blog or website, be sure to cross-promote and add products to your blog. Redbubble has a script generator that can help you to do this. This provides a general view, where you won’t be able to control which products are displayed. However, you can grab an image and the Redbubble page link to create a product promotion for specific items yourself.

5. Keep Adding New Products

Although being exclusive may seem great in principle, the reality is that volume will help keep you relevant to your target audience. Redbubble suggests designers load new designs each month to maintain traffic flow.

If you can create something fresh each month, it will ensure that your shop continues to look exciting and active. It will also encourage customers to check back to view the latest designs regularly. 

Redbubble Fees

Redbubble has a base price for each item, keeping the entire base for each product. However, you can mark up your items to create your own profit margin. As a default, Redbubble adds 20% as an artist’s margin to the products, but you can adjust this according to your preferences and requirements.

So, you need to remember that with Redbubble, you won’t see most of the profits from your sales. But, Redbubble will handle all production and fulfillment. Redbubble is transparent about pricing and what percentage you’ll make with each sale.

As an example, there’s an $18 base price for t-shirts. If you want a 50% markup, your design would have a $27 price tag, and you’d earn $9 with each sale. 

It’s worth noting that there’s a fine line between making a healthy profit and being uncompetitive. Although you may want to make $20 per t-shirt, your potential customers would need to pay $38, which means they’re likely to look at other sellers.

So, you’ll need to perform some research on your competition to look at the typical prices and ensure that your prices are competitive. While you don’t want to get into a race to the bottom, you don’t want to price yourself out of the market.

A good guide is to initially look at a 20% to 30% markup and then slowly test different margins and assess the impact on your sales on Redbubble. Bear in mind that there’s zero risk with Redbubble since you don’t need to pay for inventory and just need to upload your images. While you’ll only get paid when you make a sale, if you don’t sell, you won’t incur Redbubble costs. 

Redbubble’s monthly payment cycle begins on the 15th of each month, but there’s a minimum payout of $20/£20/€20. If you’ve reached this minimum in a payment cycle, you’ll receive the full account balance to your bank account or PayPal. For those who don’t reach the threshold, providing your earnings are over $2/£2/€2, you’ll receive a payout each December.

While Redbubble allows you to have multiple accounts to target different niches,  you cannot combine multiple accounts to reach the minimum payout. You’ll need to hit the minimum payout threshold for each one. However, you can check your financial reports and earnings via the Artist’s Dashboard to keep track.

Do People Really Earn Money on Redbubble?

Although it’s easy to get started as a Redbubble seller, it is not the easiest online marketplace to sell your designs and make money. However, Redbubble remains a popular platform for designers and customers. 

There are two types of people looking to make money on Redbubble:

1. Designers
2. Artists

Artists have special skills to create unique art that can be in its own niche, but this may not be a good fit for Redbubble. Since Redbubble takes a hefty percentage and you’ll want to make a high margin on each product, you may price yourself out of the typical Redbubble customer niche.

Designers create original work inspired by art, designs, and media. If you only have a few designs that are below average, you’re likely to struggle to get a few sales each month. This typically applies to beginners just learning to optimize SEO on the site and improve their design skills. 

However, many designers have a massive catalog with decent art in low-competition niches. These people can expect to make 10 to 50 sales each month, Depending on your margin, this could add up to $100 or more per month. 

If you want to make a full-time income on Redbubble, you’ll need to have designs that will dominate the competitive niches. You’ll need to be on the first page of the Redbubble search to make daily sales. 

How Much Can You Make on Redbubble?

As we just discussed, the specific figures of how much you can make on Redbubble depends on your niche, your designs, your pricing, and visibility. Your earnings could vary from nothing to hundreds of dollars each month. 

Pros of Selling Your Work on Redbubble

• No Initial Start-Up Costs: Start-up costs are usually the common barrier to entry for many entrepreneurs, but you won’t need to contribute a penny to sell on Redbubble. You can simply upload your designs, and Redbubble will handle all production and fulfillment. 
• No Need to Handle Inventory: Another barrier to entry for small businesses is space and logistics for inventory. Again, Redbubble handles all of this for you.
• Large Global Audience: Redbubble receives millions of visitors to the platform each year, so you can access a massive global audience. 
• Potential for Passive Income: There are very few businesses that offer a genuine opportunity for passive income, but Redbubble does have this potential. If you have some great designs, you can “set and forget.”
• Monetize Your Hobby: If you enjoy creating art and designs, Redbubble can be a great way to monetize your hobby.
• You Can Outsource the Design Work: Even if you’re not especially creative, you can outsource the actual design work and, providing you own the rights to the design, create your Redbubble portfolio from there.

Cons of Selling on Redbubble

• Popular Products Do Tend to Get Copied: While imitation can be flattering, it can also be extremely frustrating if you’ve created a popular item. You may find that your unique but popular design starts appearing in other portfolios with the slightest differences. 
• Highly Competitive: Redbubble is one of the leading print-on-demand marketplaces, but this means there’s a lot of competition. You must do your research carefully to find the perfect niche for you. 
• Limited Income Potential: Since Redbubble takes the base price for each item, you’re somewhat limited in your income potential. While you can set your margin at any percentage, you can quickly become uncompetitive. 

How to Make Money on Redbubble: Final Thoughts

Redbubble makes it easy to get started and offer your art or designs on merchandise. You can quickly create your Redbubble account and start uploading your work. Once you’ve set up your listings and set your commission, you can start selling. However, since the barrier to entry is so low, the competition on the platform is fierce. 

As with most enterprises, you’ll need to be consistent to make money on Redbubble. Once you create your brand within your niche, you should try to regularly upload new designs. This can be disheartening in the first few weeks as you may see no sales at all. But, if you’ve got new designs several times a week, you should start seeing results after a few months.