How To Sell Art Online And Make Money In 2024 (2024)

Whether you’re a professional photographer, graphic designer by trade or an experimental artist, there are more opportunities than ever to share and sell your art online.

Many platforms exist that enable selling your work as an independent artist online. These include Etsy and Zazzle to Creative Market and Instagram, not to mention directly through your own online store. Follow along to learn how to sell art online and make money in 2024.

1. Decide What Art To Sell–And How To Sell It

To start you’ll need to decide exactly what to sell and how to sell it. This is because there are a number of ways to sell art online, and knowing what you’re going to sell and the medium in which you’ll sell it is an important step in the process.

Not only can you sell your original artwork, which is rarer and therefore typically involves a higher price point, but you can also sell digital files or prints of your work to further leverage your time and make money over and over with one piece. Additionally, you can also make money selling other people’s artwork online if you build a network of artists and a website to sell their art.

Sell Original Art

If you’re a painter or work with charcoal or other specialized materials, you could sell original artwork. This would be an exciting item for anyone to buy because people love to have bespoke artwork to decorate their spaces. You might want to price these items higher because they are individually created.

Sell Copies, Prints or Digital Files

If you work with digital art or are interested in leveraging your time by selling copies of your original photography or art, you can sell prints of your work in various sizes. Prints and digital files typically sell for less money than originals, however, they do present artists with a good way of repeatedly making money with one piece of artwork.

Additionally, people might want T-shirts or mugs or even notebooks with your art on them. There are various print-on-demand services such as Printful or Printify that can make this process fast and easy. What’s great about print on demand is that you have no overhead, so you don’t need to invest in ordering a bunch of shirts or hoodies to sell. Items are only created when someone places an order. On top of that, you can also set up print on demand services so that orders are automatically printed and shipped every time you land a sale.

If you are looking to use a print on demand service to sell your art online, learn more about how to start a t-shirt business.

Sell Other Artists’ Work

If selling your own art takes off, you can start hosting other artists in your store as well. This would provide more variety for your customers and allow you to support other up-and-coming artists. This would be ideal for those who have large networks of fellow artists and those who are very skilled at marketing as both will be key in getting traffic to your site and selling art.

With that in mind, consider your brand, or the type of brand you want to build. This will help you stay on track, and produce the right types of art that reinforces your brand and helps you go in the right direction.

2. Register Your Business

Before you start selling and making income from your artwork, it’s important to have all of your paperwork in order. You can register as a sole proprietorship for free, but it might be a better idea to submit paperwork and register as an LLC. As an LLC, you can more easily keep track of your business expenses and start hiring employees if and when you need them.

Keep in mind that you will need to be registered as a business in order to have an employer identification number (EIN), which is typically required to set up a business bank account.

Depending on the state you live in, you may also need a business license to sell your art so it’s worth checking with your state. You can generally do this by referring to your state’s Secretary of State or Business Division.

3. Choose Your Sales Channels

Next, decide where you want to sell art. There are various e-commerce platforms that make selling incredibly easy, from Amazon to Getty Images. However, the sales channels that are right for you will depend on which type of art you are selling. For example, a photographer might sell via Fineartamerica and Getty Images. Whereas, a graphic artist might sell via Creative Market, Zazzle and Fiverr.

Here are some of the most popular platforms for selling art online:

• Direct: All sellers are advised to create their own website to sell their products directly. Learn more about how to start an online store.
• Fineartamerica: A website where you can list and sell your fine artwork online.
• Society6: A site geared towards connecting buyers with sellers of unique artwork.
• Etsy: Sell all types of custom art, including original and digital art.
• Amazon: Sell wall art prints via Amazon or Amazon FBA.
• Amazon Handmade: Connect with Amazon buyers who value handmade goods by selling originals through the world’s largest e-commerce platform.
• Zazzle: Sell your art and graphic designs on products such as t-shirts, hats and mugs.
• Redbubble: Same as Zazzle.
• Creative Market: Sell graphic design work at scale.
• Social media: Sell via Facebook Marketplace and Instagram Shoppable posts.
• Fiverr: For graphic designers and professional writers looking to get paid for custom art.
• Upwork: Same as Fiverr, for graphic designers, web designers, and professional writers.
• Getty Images: Photographers, videographers and graphic designers can sell images online and earn a monthly commission for their work.

Generally, the more channels you sell on, the more exposure your art gets, and with that the more sales you receive. So say you plan to sell on Etsy, it may be wise to also sell on Society6 to boost your online visibility. This is because sites like Etsy and Amazon have millions of site visitors every month.

4. Determine Pricing

Putting a price on your artwork is difficult, but it’s important and there are several factors to take into account. If you’re producing original pieces of art to sell, you should consider pricing those higher because so much of your work went into the creation.

Since shipping can be prohibitively expensive for consumers, price your products to be more expensive to keep shipping costs down for customers. It’s a difficult calculation, but higher shipping costs tend to dissuade potential customers. If you keep shipping costs down, you might get more sales, even if the product is priced to be more expensive.

If you’re selling digital prints and reproductions printed on items, you might want to keep costs down to get your products out to more customers. After you build a customer base, you can start to raise prices and consider special offers and shorter runs to incentivize your products as collectibles.

5. Market Your Online Art Store

After establishing a presence online, whether that’s through your own online store or seller accounts through marketplaces such as Etsy, it’s time to begin marketing your art so that it reaches people who are looking for the types of artwork you sell.

For example, if you’re selling on Amazon or Etsy, you could use ads to promote your listings. Or, use social media to connect with people who are interested in your type of art, whether that’s through Facebook Groups, Facebook Marketplace or Instagram.

Here are the leading ways to market your art online:

• Optimize your website to help you rank in search engines (SEO)
• Promote your listings
• Try pay-per-click ads
• Join relevant Facebook Groups
• Create a Facebook Store
• Build other social profiles (e.g., Instagram, Pinterest)
• Use content marketing to bolster SEO efforts
• Use your existing network to promote your art
• Connect with other artists to collaborate on a project

Like choosing your sales channels, it is generally advisable to market your art in multiple ways. This will help you reach a larger audience and drive more sales.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)