Society6, a Print-On-Demand (POD) website, recently introduced three tiers of artist plans for anyone wanting to sell their work on the website after November 30, 2023. The lowest tier is free and allows you to list up to ten artworks; the other two tiers are paid and allow more artwork to be uploaded. They're not the only POD company to change their payment structure or introduce fees for artists. Redbubble, Tee Public, and Spoonflower have also made changes this year. I thought I'd share my experience with Society6 as it might be useful for other artists and shoppers who wonder about the best way to support artists.
A Little History
I started my shop on Society6 in 2019 without any real goals. I had stacks of these abstract paintings I'd made and thought maybe I could try and sell art prints of them. The appeal of print-on-demand is that you as the artist can upload your art and someone else will take care of everything else: having the items manufactured, shipping the finished product, and handling any returns. They provide some marketing for their website, but not usually for you specifically. These sites attract thousands of artists. (Society6 claims 450,000+, while Redbubble claims 800,000.) The likelihood of your art being featured by these companies is slim to say the least. Nevertheless, if you're new to selling your work, it's very appealing to be able to hand off the business aspects to someone else.
Here's my very first listing on Society6!
It was exciting to see my work for the first time in a new way, wrapped around a pillow, a sticker, or an iPad cover.
Customer Support
A lot of people want to support artists (yay!), but is buying something on a print-on-demand site helping artists? The short answer is yes. It may not help every artist, and it doesn't help them all in the same way or to the same degree, but these websites do have some positive features for artists:
- These sites help artists by giving them time to create without worrying about any business details.
- They let them experiment in a low-risk way, gain confidence, learn which of their pieces resonate most with customers, and hone their individual style.
- They might learn more about copyright and trademark laws as there are typically restrictions in place as to what can or cannot be uploaded.
- A few artists may get discovered by magazine editors, retailers, art agents, and others on these platforms, as they're essentially an online portfolio of your work.
In sum, it's not too surprising that POD websites are often an artist's first step in selling their work.
That said, let's talk about money! There are some artists who do extremely well on these sites, particularly those who started when the sites were new and have been able to build up a large following. But for the majority, the financial support from these websites can be very small. Let's look at a quick example with socks (because for some reason I sold a lot of those on Society6!). The painted design "Go Deep Blue" pictured here was my second most popular design in terms of sales, which was surprising to me!
Customer Cost:
One pair of socks costs $20.00* (as of November 2023)
U.S. Customer pays shipping of $5.50
Total cost to customer is $25.50
*One pair of socks was $14 in November of 2022 and $16 in May 2023.
Artist Commission:
There's a 10% commission to the artist on the price before shipping. (With the new set-up, you can't change this percentage unless are in the $12.99/month tier.)
So 10% of $20.00 means that's $2.00 to the artist.
But wait!
Society6 gives the 10% commission on what it labels "the base price" of an item, which is less than what the customer pays. For socks, it's $18.18.
So the artist commission would be $1.82?
It was, but then this year Society6 started charging artists a "shipping fee" on sales to offset the shipping that customers pay. That fee varies by product. For socks, it's 40 cents.
So now the artist earns $1.42 from your sale of $20 (or $25.50 to be exact).
If you're an artist on the free plan with 10 designs, you'd be able to keep the entire $1.42. Woo hoo! But if you're on the next tier up, $4.99 a month, then you would actually owe Society6 money if this was your only sale.
In contrast, if you purchased the $20 socks from a gallery or retail store, the artist would likely receive closer to $10. And yes, the artist would've need to pay to have that product made (or buy the supplies if they made them), but they would have definitely come out ahead financially. (As an artist selling directly to the gallery or through their shop, they would've been able to set their own price for the socks, so they were in control of how much profit they earned.)
While sales of any size are wonderful, if you can buy directly from the artist on their own website, from their Etsy shop, at an art/craft show, or through a gallery or retail shop, then much more of your money will go to the artist.
What's Your (Artist) Plan?
My current plan is to remove my designs from Society6 by the end of November. (You have until November 30th before Society6 transfers your account to the free tier and deletes all designs but ten.) I may keep one or two designs there just to keep my free account active, as it's unclear whether Society6 will allow someone else to take over your shop name or not.
Financially, it doesn't make sense for me to pay for this account given the hours it takes to upload designs and the small amount of sales I make. (One month I made 69 cents! You need to have at least $1 to withdraw the money from PayPal.) It's a little sad, the same kind of feeling I have when I'm giving away a favorite sweater that's too small. It's not the right fit for me, but that doesn't mean it won't work beautifully for someone else!
One factor in my decision was that my illustration style is still evolving. I'd already been debating what to do with my older work online, but this made it easy. If I share some of those early pieces again, it will be on my own website.
Another factor is that I'm also on Spoonflower, which is another POD website focused on fabric and a limited amount of home decor (pillows, sheets, tea towels, tablecloths). They require you to purchase a swatch of your work before listing it for sale, so I'm essentially paying a fee to be there. My current goal is to continue to learn more about repeating patterns and further develop my illustration style. There's no reason you can't be on multiple POD sites (lots of people do it), but I've been feeling like I was spread a little thin. I like the community at Spoonflower and feel I've learned a lot from their free webinars and the regular design challenges. For now this is a better fit.
This doesn't mean I won't reconsider Society6 (or any of the other POD sites) at some point. Who knows that the future will bring? In the meantime, I've analyzed my sales data and it's been very helpful to see which items and designs I might want to sell directly myself in the future. I never would've guessed that I would sell a few shower curtains with my work! In fact, I've sold more shower curtains than art prints on Society6. And that honestly, has been the best thing about my POD experience: it's expanded my view of what is possible.
Resources
You might also enjoy the blog posts from two designers who have done very well on Society6. I thought they both had smart advice for other artists:
- "My Thoughts on the New Society6 Tiered Plan Updates" by Cat Coquilette
- "Why I'm Closing my Society6 Shop" by Liz Kohler Brown