How to sell art online: where to sell art prints and what it costs

How to sell art online: where to sell art prints today

Selling art online comes down to two choices: what you sell, and where shoppers find it. You can sell originals, prints of your originals, digital downloads or a mix. Prints let you sell the same image many times, at a lower price than the original.

There are three kinds of places to sell art prints. Marketplaces such as Etsy and eBay already have shoppers searching for art, and they take a cut of each sale. Print-on-demand marketplaces such as Redbubble and INPRNT also print and ship each order, and pay you a share. Own-store builders such as Shopify, Squarespace and Big Cartel give you a shop under your own name with lower fees per sale, but no built-in traffic.

You can also combine them: one marketplace to find new buyers, and one own store for people who already know your work and come back.

How to sell art prints online, step by step

These steps apply whether you print at home, use a local print shop or use print on demand.

1. Decide what you sell

   Pick the mix of originals, open-edition prints, limited editions and digital downloads. If you sell a limited edition, state the edition size on the listing and keep to it. Digital files need no shipping, but buyers print them on their own paper.

2. Choose how prints get made

   You can print at home on an archival printer, order batches from a local print shop, or connect a print-on-demand service that prints each order after it sells. Batches usually cost less per print; print on demand usually costs more per print but needs no stock.

3. Photograph and describe each print

   Show the print flat, close up and in a room so buyers can judge size and color. State the paper, ink, size, edition and whether it is signed.

4. Set a price that covers fees

   Add up paper, ink or print-shop cost, packaging, your time and the platform fee from the fee section below. The guide to pricing art, linked at the end of this page, walks through the full calculation.

5. Pick where to list

   Start with one marketplace if you have no audience yet, or one own store if you already have followers on social media. Add the second channel once the first one runs smoothly.

6. Set up shipping and packaging

   Ship prints flat in rigid mailers or rolled in tubes, with a backing board and a plastic sleeve. Give each listing a shipping time you can keep. If you miss it, the FTC mail order rule says you must seek the customer’s consent to the delayed shipment.

How to sell prints online without printing them yourself

Print on demand means a service prints each order after a buyer pays, then packs and ships it. You upload the image once and hold no stock. The trade-off is a higher cost per print and less control over paper and packaging. There are four ways to use it.

• On a print-on-demand marketplace: Redbubble lists your art in its own marketplace. Every product has a base price that covers Redbubble’s service fee for hosting the marketplace and the manufacturing fee charged by the third-party manufacturer. You add a markup on top, which defaults to 10%. Opening a shop is free, but once an account is placed in a tier, two types of fees may apply to your earnings.
• On a curated print marketplace: INPRNT makes prints itself, handling all aspects of printmaking, shipping and customer service. It pays artists 50% of sale price on fine art prints and 30% of sale price on its other print types, such as canvas and poster prints. To join, you upload three of your favorite pieces for review, and applications are curated by a community vote of the artists. INPRNT also says you must be the sole creator of the work you are submitting.
• Connected to your own store: Shopify lists 200+ print on demand apps, and Big Cartel has print on demand, where its providers print, pack, and ship your designs. The print service charges you its base cost per order, and you keep the difference between that and your price, less store and card fees.
• On Etsy with a production partner: Etsy allows original designs that are produced or printed by a third party or offered as a digital download. Sellers must disclose that an item is made by a production partner, so mark each print made by a print shop or print-on-demand service as made with a production partner.

Fees on one $30 art print

Example: one $30 art print, sold online and paid by card. Each platform's own published rates are applied to the same sale. Print-on-demand marketplaces are left out because they pay you a share instead of charging a fee.

Rules for selling art prints: copyright, disclosure, tax and shipping

Several rules apply to anyone selling art prints online. Rules vary by state and city, so check with your state revenue office and city hall before you open. This section is general information, not legal or tax advice.

• Copyright: your work is under copyright protection from the moment it is created and fixed in a tangible form. In general, registration is voluntary, but you have to register if you wish to bring a lawsuit for infringement of a U.S. work. Online registration of one work, by a single author who is also the claimant and not made for hire, costs $45.
• Fan art and copies: the Copyright Office says only the owner of copyright in a work has the right to prepare, or to authorize someone else to create, a new version of that work. If you use a copyrighted work without authorization, the owner may be entitled to bring an infringement action against you. For prints of someone else's characters, photos or artwork, get a license in writing first; in cases of doubt, the Copyright Office recommends that permission be obtained.
• Fine prints in California: the state's fine prints law covers any fine print, photograph (positive or negative), sculpture cast, collage, or similar art object produced in more than one copy, offered or sold for one hundred dollars ($100) or more, exclusive of any frame. It applies to an art dealer, which the law defines as a person who is in the business of dealing, exclusively or nonexclusively, in the fine art multiples it covers. An art dealer may not sell such a print into or from California unless a certificate of authenticity is furnished to the purchaser. For a limited edition, the certificate states the authorized maximum number of signed or numbered impressions. A dealer who skips it owes the buyer, on return of the print, the consideration paid by the purchaser for the multiple, with interest at the legal rate.
• Shipping times: under the FTC mail order rule, if you make no shipping statement you must have a reasonable basis for believing you can ship within 30 days. If you cannot ship within the time you stated or within that period, you must seek the customer’s consent to the delayed shipment.
• Sales tax: in the states its help page lists, Etsy automatically calculates, collects, and remits US sales tax on behalf of sellers. On your own store, ask your state revenue office whether you must register to collect sales tax. The SBA says the licenses and permits you need depend on your business activities and business location.
• Income tax: the IRS says that even without a tax form from the platform, if you received payments for goods, services or property, you must report your income. Self-employment tax of 15.3% applies when your net earnings from self-employment are $400 or more.
• Indian arts and crafts: under the Indian Arts and Crafts Act, it is illegal to offer or sell any art or craft product in a manner that falsely suggests it is Indian produced, an Indian product. For a first violation, an individual can face up to a $250,000 fine or a 5-year prison term, or both.

Example: how one art print shop could be set up

This is a labelled example, not a real store, and it has no sales figures. Example: an illustrator who paints botanical watercolors and wants to sell prints of them online, with no audience yet beyond a small Instagram account.

The example leaves out ads, wholesale and limited editions. Each can come later, once the shop knows which designs sell. If the shop sells prints into California for one hundred dollars ($100) or more, exclusive of any frame, the California fine prints rules above may also apply.

What a Nation store would and would not do for a print seller

Nation is an AI store builder. Nation says one description of what you make builds the store, then agents handle orders, customers and delivery and run ads, content and social posts, with you approving the work. In this guide's terms, that is the store, order, delivery and marketing work.

Nation is pre-launch, with a waitlist on withnation.ai and its pricing is not announced yet, so the fee section leaves it out. Whatever store you use, the print production, copyright, disclosure and tax work in this guide stays with you.

Where Nation fits

Questions about selling art online