I heard about Redbubble through a YouTube video about earning money using memes. The deeper I dived into this platform, the more really cool stuff I found.
Today I want to share a few things I’m excited about and, of course, how to get paid.
Redbubble pays using PayPal or a bank transfer. You can get paid in Australian Dollars, Canadian Dollars, Euros, Pound Sterling, or United States Dollars.
Keep reading, and I’ll share what Redbubble is, 2 ways you can make money using the platform, how much you get to keep, and 7 mistakes to watch out for when opening a store.
2 Ways to Earn Money from Redbubble!
RedBubble is a print-on-demand platform that got started in Australia in 2006. This means it connects designers to shoppers and handles the boring stuff like shipping, packaging, and payment.
This way, YOU, the designer, gets to focus on what you enjoy doing, which is designing. You can get your own store on the platform, and the website itself gets around 45 million visits so far in 2022, according to SEMRUSH.
You could, of course, promote your store on other social media platforms to get more traffic and sales.
The first way to earn money is, of course, to open up a shop and start designing stuff. Your design could be on anything from clothing, stickers, phone cases, wall art such as posters, kid/pet wear, and more.
You can even put your design on pillows, mugs, and clocks, for example.
The second way to earn money from this platform (which might be the easiest) is to be an affiliate marketer.
I LOVE LOVE affiliate marketing. With affiliate marketing, all you have to do is have a big mouth. Basically, mention the company to “as many” people as possible. If they click on your affiliate link and purchase something, then you will earn money.
There is no designing or need to open a shop.
You earn up to 10% commission with a 30-day attribution window, plus they throw out some bonuses. The 30-day attribution window means if someone clicks on your link and purchases something within 30 days, you STILL earn money.
What I like about affiliate marketing is that there are many different ways to do it, and you can be very creative.
You can do it anywhere, anytime around your schedule, in nearly any niche, and it can be a TON of fun.
You can take a look at my system for FREE HERE.
How Much do you Get Paid from Redbubble?
With Redbubble, there are 3 prices, and that would be the base price (Redbubble’s cut), Artist Margin (this is your cut), and that equals the total price.
What goes into the base price (what Redbubble earns) is their fee for hosting the marketplace, the fee for creating the product, and the shipping cost. This shipping cost can change depending on where someone lives.
Let’s get into the good stuff, and that is the “Artist Margin” and how you get paid.
By default the artist margin is 20% but you are free to raise and lower that amount when you want.
If the base price is $100 and your artist’s margin is 20%, then you would earn $20 on that sale. The total price would be $120 for the product plus any taxes.
I hope this explains how it works.
7 Mistakes to Make with Redbubble!
To give you an idea if starting a Redbubble shop is a good fit for you, here are 7 mistakes you want to avoid.
You want high-quality designs in niches that are in demand and NOT a lot of competition. It’s actually the exact same with blogging. If you don’t have a HELL YEA feeling you can win, then maybe keep looking.
You can find out how much competition there is by putting in a keyword in the search bar.
I used “guitar tuner” and found 621 results (the lower the better). Heck, most of the stuff didn’t have anything to do with a guitar tuner! There isn’t a lot of competition for this keyword!
The first mistake is to create a design in a niche that is WAY too competitive. You might be wondering how to find keywords that people search for.
This is actually a very deep topic. There are many keyword tools that cost money. However, I can show you how to do this FREE.
I use this for blogging, but it can be used for Redbubble.
You can view how I do keyword research for FREE in this post HERE. Plus, I share 20 benefits that blogging can provide, and it might surprise you.
There are paid tools that show you how much traffic a keyword gets, but I don’t use them or recommend them.
Now comes the fun of creating an avatar and creating a store.
When setting up your profile, it’s good to click on “Bubblemail.” This means someone can send you custom requests.
Next, head on over to get paid and fill out the currency you want to get paid in, and if you want PayPal or a bank transfer.
The second mistake is not filling in the details on how you get paid. I know it sounds silly, but I’ve made this mistake before.
This comes to the third and maybe biggest mistake you could make.
You want to make sure you own the rights to the artwork you created.
Getting into legal trouble with images doesn’t sound like fun. If you’re not sure how to create designs, I did create a blog post on Photoshop and alternative tools you can use that you can check out HERE.
The fourth mistake is not using tags. You want as many tags that are as targeted as possible, and you can add up to 50 of them.
A great tip on getting tags is to use AI. Ask ChatGPT, Gemini, or another idea to come up with the ideal tags and copy and paste.
I know what you might be thinking.
Is there a way I can use AI art and Red Bubble to earn money? The answer is YES. In fact, I created a whole post that shares 10 ways to use AI to earn extra cash; you can view it HERE.
Tags are keywords that people type in to find your work. The more tags, the more likely your work will get found.
The fifth mistake is not enabling your design on as many options as possible. By default, some options (like children’s clothing) are not checked.
By enabling your design on more options, you’re increasing the chance of a sale. To enable your design on more options, first click on Edit, then click on the second check mark (picture below), then click on ALL the options.
This way, 12/12 is enabled, and you know your design is on all the options. Oh, and this is the place where you can change the default markup of 20% if you want.
If your image has any mature content, then of course, you want to click on (is this mature content) button. Now, you have your first image uploaded, so it’s best to upload LOTS more.
The sixth mistake is to only have a few images.
You need at least 5 just to make your store go live.
Redbubble recommends adding 25 designs in your first 30 days.
The more images, the better your chance of getting a sale. I keep thinking about Beeple, the artist who created the NFT “Everyday’s” which sold for 69 million dollars.
He has “really” cool artwork, and he uploaded 1 image a day for a year, but he has a HUGE history of creating work for a LONG period of time. I wrote about his history in this post I created HERE.
The 7th mistake is not promoting your work. I know maybe you don’t want to promote your work, but it can ONLY help. This reminds me of the story of Jimmy Hendrix when he was ALWAYS playing the guitar 24/7, but his band made him go out and talk to the crowd.
There are MANY ways to share your store, and starting with just 1 social media platform might be best so you don’t get overwhelmed.
One place you could start is TikTok, where you make a 15-20-second video sharing your design and some thoughts on why you created it. TikTok is great because you can get LOTS of views for little effort.
Plus, you can download the video and upload it to other platforms for MORE views. I have a whole system you can check out for FREE at this post HERE.
Then you can link to your store in your profile.
Reminds me of the early days of YouTube (I miss those days). Of course, there are MANY other places, such as Pinterest, which I talk more about HERE as well as share ideas on getting images.
Believe it or not, Pinterest is one of my top free traffic places. AI can help a TON with Pinterest.
Closing
I hope this post on Redbubble was a little helpful. I do hope that it gave you “at least” a few ideas on what was possible. Plus, there are other websites that do print on demand as well. You could repurpose your work for other platforms.
I’m a HUGE fan of doing this because I’m SUPER lazy.
I try to do this as much as possible. I hope this makes sense. This works in MANY ways. For example, with microstock, if I take a photo insteadof just uploading it to Shutterstock, I upload it to Pond5, Dreamstime, Adobe Stock, and more.
This way, I squeeze as much juice from the lemon as possible.
Microstock is a way to earn money from photos, videos, audio, and illustrations. If you want to learn more, you can check this post out HERE.
Have a nice day, bye for now.