The Truth About Making Money on Redbubble

A lot of artists want to jump into the Redbubble bandwagon, but most of them don’t know the truth about making money on Redbubble.

As an Artist, it is difficult to make money, so the easier option is to start a print-on-demand store, and starting a brand new store is extremely fun.

However, the process of building your own print-on-demand website can also be very tough and costly.

The good news is that there are platforms that help creatives with low-risk ways to create a new income stream without having to start everything from scratch.

Redbubble is one of them, which helps you easily monetize your art and make more money by easily starting your own store on their platform.

In this article, you are going to learn the truth about making money on Redbubble, but before then, what is Redbubble?

What Is Redbubble?

Redbubble is a well-known online print-on-demand marketplace for independent artists.

Founded in 2006 in Melbourne, Australia by Peter Styles, and Paul Vanzella, the company offers a service for independent artists to design and sell products.

Basically, artists can place their designs on a range of 60+ products on the Redbubble platform, including t-shirts, mugs, and coasters.

One sweet thing about Redbubble is that the company makes it free for artists who hold the copyrights to their work to easily decide their own prices, as well as the Redbubble products they want their designs to be on.

Basically, when you get your first order on Redbubble, the platform sends the order to a third-party printer that is located near your customer and they get started.

Due to the fact that the order printing is done by different third-party companies depending on your customer’s location, the order may arrive in different packaging designs and on different days according to Redbubble.

Making Money on Redbubble

Making money on Redbubble actually sounds easy but working it out is difficult.

Getting noticed on Redbubble is the most important aspect of making money on Redbuble because this means, you are getting enough exposure and more authority in your selected niche and you are getting enough sales from your customers.

Actually, there are a few ways you can get noticed, rank better and make more sales on Redbubble.

Focusing on your niche and identifying the words and phrases that people would search for is the key strategy for selling your artwork on Redbubble.

So for you to actually make enough money on Redbubble, you need to know how to find niches on Recbubble, it will help you discover low competitive but high volume Redbubble keywords that sell.

Another thing is how much profit you earn after successfully making sales on Redbubble, and this solely depends on how Redbubble pricing work.

How Does Redbubble Pricing Work

The truth about making money on Redbubble as an artist can be an average margin of 17% of the retail price; artists may earn about 10 to 30% which solely depends on the figure they place as their markup.

Below is the model for pricing given by Redbubble:

BASE PRICE + ARTIST MARGIN = RETAIL PRICE

Base Price

According to Redbubble, the base price simply means the main price of the product you are adding your design on. This price covers Redbubble’s service fee and the cost of manufacturing the product in question.

Redbubble has a fixed basic price for each product, this price varies depending on the product, delivery address, and also taking into account production, material costs, and taxes applicable to various artists’ production and delivery countries.

In nutshell, the total price solely depends on the delivery address.

Artist Margin

The artist margin is basically the profit an artist earns from selling a product. The markup is calculated by the percentage of the base price, and the margin is the actual monetary value which is usually in USD and the default percentage is 20%.

NOTE: Markup on Redbubble is another name for artist royalty. As an artist, you are able to set up artist margins (markup) on all your products.

However, according to Redbubble, an artist may earn an average margin of 17% depending on the kind of product they are selling.

Below is the model for the artist’s margin given by Redbubble:

BASE PRICE x MARKUP = ARTIST PRICE

Retail Price

The retail price is the price a customer is paying for your products. The retail price is basically the sum of the base price & artist margin.

For instance, Large framed art prints selling in USDs have a base price of $125.00.

As an artist, you set up the markup for large framed art prints as a 20% markup. The monetary value in a 20% markup of the $125 base price means the artist is getting a margin of $25.00.

$125 base price + $25 artist margin is equal to $150 retail price.

As a beginner, you should set up the artist margin of all the products you are selling (excluding stickers) between 15% to 17%. Then after making a few sales, you need to increase the margin of the products by 20% to 25%.

Getting Paid on Redbubble

Redbubble has a payment cycle that starts on the 15^th of every month. This means that every artist on Redbubble including you get paid the total earnings on that day.

However, Redbubble has a payment threshold and if your earnings are not up to that threshold, you won’t be paid. Although their payment threshold might be complicated, below is Redbubble’s explanation:

“As of May 2019, we are paying artists whose earnings have reached $20, €20, or £20 on the 15th of every month. If your earnings have not reached $20, they will accumulate until reaching $20 and you will be paid on the following payment cycle. If your earnings don’t reach $20 you will be paid once per year in January, as long as you reach at least $2, €2, or £2″