A Brief Comparison Between Selling on Etsy and Redbubble

What are the pros and cons on using the two platforms?

Aug 06, 2024

I have been using both Etsy and Redbubble to sell some of my products online. At this point, I’m still on the experimental stage and I’m keeping my mind open for opportunities in earning more.

I will start with Redbubble because it’s the first one that I’ve tried. And it’s very simple to start selling there.

Opening Your Redbubble Shop

The focus of Redbubble is on artists’ creativity. Here, you don’t have to think about anything much than the designs you’ll be offering on your shop.

Think of designs that could fit T-shirts or mugs.

On Redbubble, you only need to upload a single design and it will automatically create several products for you. You only need to click a button to either enable or disable selling your design on selected products.

Here are just some of the products you can sell on Redbubble with a single design: stickers, notebooks, mugs, tote bags, shirts, posters, hats, mats, hoodies, art prints, pillows, masks and greeting cards.

It’s so exciting to see your design in so many products that can be purchased on demand by other people without you having to take care of its production, packing and shipping.

On Redbubble, you can also set PayPal as your payment method so those from outside the US can easily get their earnings there once they reach the payment threshold.

On top of that, there is no registration fee or listing fee. You don’t have to pay any fee until you actually sell something.

Selling on Etsy

Etsy is a place for those selling handmade items, artists who would like to sell what they have made with their own hands. Today, this can also include digital creation and even those with AI assistance as long as the artist has a hand in creating the prompts that resulted in the final design.

What I like about Etsy is the traffic. Aside from this, they also offer Ads. It’s very easy to set up the Ads for your product and set your daily budget for your promotion.

However, before you can even start selling on Etsy, you need to pay a setup fee which is estimated to be $15. It depends on the conversion to your local currency. In addition, you also have to pay a listing fee of $0.20 for each item that you add to your shop. That’s even before any transaction fees for your sales.

With Etsy, you have to handle the packaging and shipping of your products unless you intend to only sell digital items.

And unlike Redbubble, any design you upload isn’t converted to other products for them to sell and deliver to buyers. You upload either a PDF or a PNG file for download after a customer buys your printable product.

For me, I sell printable wall arts and cards. No physical item will be received by buyers, only the digital file that they can use to print wall arts and cards.

Regarding payment, you will be paid through your bank account which you need to verify. There is no PayPal option to receive payment on Etsy.

Which one would you like?

Your ultimate decision whether to sell on Etsy or Redbubble would depend on your personal preference. Would you rather sell only digital stuff on Etsy? Or are you prepared to handle your product’s packaging and shipping if you intend to offer physical handmade products?

Meanwhile, would you rather that you only upload your designs on Redbubble and get paid via PayPal? Are you willing to do your own marketing such as promoting your Redbubble shop on your social media channels? Remember that it has lesser traffic than Etsy and has no Ads feature for your product promotion.

The choice is yours.