What Printables Sell Best on Etsy? (Earn $10,000+ Per Year)

Etsy is a marketplace for handmade products where you can buy unique items. It has more than 90 million active buyers shopping on the platform, many of which are looking for printables.

I’ve been selling printables on Etsy since 2017, averaging over $10,000 per year in revenue from my shop, TheSwagElephant. I sell everything from bachelorette party scavenger hunts to editable program templates to printable holiday gifts.

My Etsy business is my favorite side hustle, and I love hearing the “cha-ching” notifications from my Etsy seller app as the sales come in when I’m doing other things.

Printables That Sell on Etsy

Here are five types of printables that sell best on Etsy. This is based on my experience as a seller and as a course owner (E-Printables side hustle course) seeing many of my students start their Etsy printable shops.

1. Seasonal Printables

Customers shop on Etsy to find specific items for holidays, events, and special occasions. You can think of a printable that fits almost every celebration or holiday throughout the year.

I find that my holiday printables sell really well starting around November 1st when holiday shopping picks up. I’ve sold printable teacher appreciation gifts and holiday sticker sets.

I’ve seen students sell printable family games for Halloween and Valentine’s Day.

It can be tough starting a printable shop selling seasonal items since once the holiday is over, you need to move on to creating printables for the next holiday.

The year goes by fast though, and then you’ll have a full inventory of seasonal items to sell year-round.

2. Fillable PDFs

Planners are always great to sell on Etsy, especially around the beginning of the new year and the start of the school year in the United States.

I noticed a few years ago that Etsy sellers started making their printable planners fillable. Instead of the customer printing out the pages and using a pen to fill them out, the customer would type into the planner on their computer.

I started to make some of my planner products fillable using programs like Adobe Acrobat DC or the free program PDF Escape.

This made my products more desirable to end customers because I could offer both printable and fillable versions of a product.

3. Products That Can Be Personalized

Customers look to Etsy for personalized products where the customer can enter their own details. You can certainly take the customer information at checkout and edit the product yourself and send it back to your customer.

However, that takes too much time and makes this side hustle less passive.

Passive income is the goal for most people when starting an Etsy printables business.

What many of us Etsy sellers do instead is create a template in a program like Canva or Google Docs and give our customers access to edit the printable when they buy.

You can imagine that a customer might want to edit a baby shower invitation with their event details or put their business name and logo in a printable themselves.

You can charge more for personalized printables and still keep it passive for you.

4. Business to Business (B2B) Templates

Customers that can use your products to make money are generally willing to pay more for those products. You’ll see many printables selling for $2 on Etsy, and that just doesn’t add up to big revenue numbers.

Digital products you create for business owners will typically cost more, which is great for an Etsy seller looking to maximize their average order value.

Items in this category include social media templates, business forms, and marketing materials.

When you sell in this category, it’s typically best to find a niche and think of a specific business owner when you create the product.

5. Bundles

If you can get customers to pay more per order, you’ll put yourself in the best position to earn $10,000 per year on Etsy, like me.

One way to do that is by creating bundled products. For example, I sell a bachelorette party game one-pager, but I also sell a bundle of 7 bachelorette party games.

I can charge more for the bundle, and I can encourage my potential customers to buy the bundle by pointing to it in my listing images and descriptions.

This strategy is how many digital product sellers are earning big revenue numbers selling on Etsy.

I have a free workshop where I give more ideas for bestselling printables on Etsy that you can check out for more information.

How I Earn $10,000 Per Year on Etsy

It all starts with picking the right products to sell on Etsy.

New sellers typically start with what products they want to make and not what products will give them the highest return on their time.

I have little time to myself since becoming a Mom, and I hate wasting my time.

That is why I do keyword research upfront before I even sit down to make a printable.

I’m a huge fan of using keyword research tools like eRank to find in-demand printables.

I teach this strategy to my students because I want them to find their bestsellers faster.

How to Make Printables

You may hear that you need to buy fancy design software, but that’s not true.

Most sellers are using the free graphic design tool, Canva, and absolutely love it.

Canva is “drag and drop” and super easy for a beginner to use.

Even more advanced and intermediate sellers go to Canva because it can often be faster to make printables.

And Canva is always improving its tool suite.

There are some rules on how to use the graphics and fonts appropriately in your printables, so definitely make sure you learn from someone who understands Canva’s terms of use.

Once you get going on Canva though, you can make a lot of printables quickly.

Bestselling Printables on Etsy Right Now

Some printables have been trending recently, such as:

• Digital planners
• SVGs
• Budgeting spreadsheets
• Printable kids games

I noticed printable kids’ games were trending more in recent years as families celebrated holidays at home.

Paying attention to what’s going on culturally in the United States is super important to jumping on bestselling trends.

Etsy also has customers worldwide, although we typically see customers buying printables in the UK, Canada, and Australia in addition to the United States.

Etsy sellers come from all over the world, however, as long as Etsy allows sales in that country. You can learn more about selling in your country in the Etsy seller handbook on their website.

How to Find Bestselling Printables on Etsy

You’ll notice when you search in the Etsy search bar some of the search results look different than others.

Some have badges that say things like “bestseller” and “popular now.”

Those tags are clues that customers really like a particular item.

I search Etsy at least monthly to get ideas of what is selling and stay on top of trends.

I write down items that interest me when I see those badges.

How Much Money Can I Make Selling Printables on Etsy?

I’ve earned around $10,000 per year selling printables on Etsy as a side hustle.

I have students, however, who have earned multiple five and even six-figure sums per year selling printables on Etsy.

If you want to earn big revenue numbers on Etsy, you absolutely have to understand keyword research and how to find in-demand products.

While you can DIY this on YouTube, I recommend you consider a course such as my own through my business, Gold City Ventures.

I’ve taken thousands of students through the process of starting Etsy printables businesses and have seen what works and what doesn’t.

That perspective has allowed me to fine-tune the curriculum to get you started selling on Etsy faster.

Take Sasha, who now is a six-figure business owner who was able to quit her accounting job to become a full-time entrepreneur. 

Or Jennifer, who sells in the wedding niche and is also now a full-time printable seller on Etsy.

Or Rachel, who earns six figures on Etsy selling in many different niches.

They all started with the E-Printables course, which provides everything you need to know and the secret sauce to starting up a business selling printables.

Read more student success stories here.

Starting Your Etsy Business Off Right

In summary, start thinking about what products sell best on Etsy and make those products.

Don’t just make the products you think might be a good idea.

Hoping your products sell on Etsy is never a good strategy.

Using data to decide what to make is a good strategy and separates the best Etsy sellers from the others.

Etsy stats in the intro paragraph are from Statistica