How to Sell Your First Design on Redbubble (2026): Step by Step

Updated September 12, 2026 · 6 min read · How we research

Compiled with AI-assisted research from the official help pages and sources listed at the end of this guide. Spotted something out of date? Tell us.

To sell your first design on Redbubble, sign up as an artist, publish at least five designs, add payout details and verify your phone number. Your shop stays private until Redbubble places it in the Premium or Standard tier, which takes up to five business days, and that tier sets a platform fee of 20% or 50% on your monthly earnings. Payouts go out monthly, by the 15th, once your balance reaches $10 (or 10 GBP or EUR).

Redbubble at a glance (September 2026)

Item	Current rule
Cost to open a shop	Free
Needed before your shop goes public	Completed setup guide and 5 public designs, each with at least 1 product enabled
Phone verification	Required to sell, not available in every country
Default markup	10% of the base price
Platform fee	Premium 20%, Standard 50%, Pro 0% of monthly gross earnings
Excess markup fee	50% of earnings from markup above 20% (Premium and Standard)
Fee cap	$150 (or 150 GBP or EUR) per monthly payment period
Payout threshold	$10 (or 10 GBP or EUR), down from 20 on July 1, 2026
Payout methods	PayPal, or bank transfer to a US, UK or Australian bank

Step 1: Create your artist account

On redbubble.com click Signup, then Artist Signup.
Confirm your email address from the link Redbubble sends.
In account settings, open Edit Payment Details, choose your payout currency and pick PayPal or bank transfer. The currency cannot be changed later, bank transfer only works for US, UK and Australian bank accounts, and PayPal accounts must be verified. Payoneer is not supported.
Add your name and residential address. Phone verification unlocks once the other setup steps are complete.

Step 2: Prepare files that print well

Redbubble accepts JPEG and PNG only, and PNG is needed for transparent backgrounds on stickers and apparel. Files over 300 MB or 13,500 x 13,500 pixels are refused, and DPI makes no difference, only pixel dimensions do. Redbubble suggests designing in CMYK and converting to RGB before upload.

Product	Minimum size in pixels
Stickers, all four sizes	2800 x 2800
Most apparel	2400 x 3200
Men's Graphic T-Shirts	3873 x 4814
Phone cases	1187 x 1852
Standard mugs	2700 x 1120
Throw pillows	3225 x 3225
Art prints, up to extra large	3840 x 3840
Large posters	8310 x 11790

The uploader automatically disables products your file is too small for. Products use different aspect ratios, so Redbubble recommends portrait, landscape and square versions of each design.

Step 3: Upload and list the design

Click your avatar, choose Add New Work, then Upload to All Products. Later, Copy settings from existing work reuses tags, markup and background color.
Add a descriptive title, up to 15 tags of up to 50 characters each, and a unique description of up to 250 characters.
In the product previews, click Edit on each product, adjust the placement and click Apply changes. Disable products where the design looks weak.
Pick a default product view, set the work to public, choose the maturity setting and save.

Repeat until you have five public designs. Private designs, suspended designs and designs with no products enabled do not count, and the uploader allows 30 works per day.

Step 4: Finish setup and get your tier

Complete the setup guide in the Artist Dashboard: profile picture, cover picture, social links and bio, then phone verification. Redbubble classifies the account within 5 business days and emails you the result.

Tier	What puts an account there	Platform fee
Premium	Original artwork, good file quality, consumer appeal	20%
Standard	High volumes of low-effort or repetitive designs, unmodified clip art, vector packs or royalty-free images, poor file quality, tag spamming	50%
Pro	Invitation only, top 1% of artists, selected once a year	0%

Tiers are not based on sales, and Premium includes artists who are just starting out. Redbubble does not upgrade accounts on request and only rarely re-reviews accounts it identifies as high-potential. That makes your first five uploads the most important designs you will publish, so lead with finished, original work rather than filler. Your tier appears on the Account Tiers and Fees page of the Artist Dashboard.

Step 5: Set your markup with fees in mind

Your markup is a percentage of the base price, which covers manufacturing and the Redbubble service fee. It defaults to 10% and can be changed on the Product Pricing page. In Redbubble's own example, a Classic T-Shirt shipped to the US has a $20 base price, so a 20% markup earns $4 and the retail price is $24.

Applying the published fee rules to that shirt gives these illustrative take-home amounts per sale, before the monthly cap and taxes:

Markup	Gross margin	Pro keeps	Premium keeps	Standard keeps
10%	$2.00	$2.00	$1.60	$1.00
20%	$4.00	$4.00	$3.20	$2.00
30%	$6.00	$6.00	$3.80	$2.00

For Standard accounts, markup above 20% goes entirely to fees until the cap is reached, so 20% is the practical ceiling. Premium artists keep 30 cents of each extra dollar above 20%. Total fees never exceed $150 (or 150 GBP or EUR) in a payment period, and anything above that is credited back. Sitewide sales, bulk discounts and currency conversion can all push a margin lower than expected.

Step 6: Win the first sale

Tag for real searches. Redbubble suggests brainstorming 30 words or phrases and keeping the best 15. Irrelevant, repeated, numbered or run-together tags and other artists' names count as tag spamming.
Do not rely on Redbubble search. Redbubble states that not every design is included in its search results, so share product and shop links yourself. Links shared while logged in carry asc=u, and the Analytics Dashboard counts those visits under My shares.
Follow the data. The dashboard refreshes daily and shows your top designs and products. If stickers sell for one design, Redbubble advises enabling them on all of your designs.

Getting paid

Each payment period covers orders shipped in one calendar month, so an order that ships late moves to the next cycle. If your balance after fees reaches $10 (or 10 GBP or EUR), processing starts at the beginning of the next month and the money should arrive by the 15th. Smaller balances roll over, and fees are only taken from new earnings.

Method	Who can use it	Time after release
PayPal	Any artist with a verified PayPal account	Nearly instant, may need claiming in PayPal
US bank (ACH)	US bank accounts	1 to 3 business days
Australian bank (EFT)	Australian bank accounts	1 to 2 business days
UK bank transfer	UK bank accounts	2 to 4 business days

Redbubble does not issue 1099s or other tax forms, so keep the downloadable CSV sales history for your records.

Common problems and fixes

Shop still private. Finish every setup step and confirm five public designs with at least one product each.
Phone verification unavailable. Redbubble requires it to sell and says it is not offered in every country. If yours is excluded, use one of the alternatives below.
Placed in Standard. Upgrades on request are not offered, so keep markups at or below 20% and keep publishing original, well-made work.
Not paid by the 15th. Check that your balance after fees passed the threshold, that PayPal is verified, that the orders shipped within the period and that your payment details are valid. Since July 31, 2026, invalid details trigger an Unpayable Artist Account Fee of $3 (or 3 GBP or EUR) a month once the balance reaches 10.
Design removed. Most removals follow a rights holder's takedown notice, so upload only work you own or have permission to use. A suspended account's balance is frozen, and fan art is only allowed for brands in Redbubble's Fan Art Program.

Where else to sell your designs

Once your shop is live, compare other print-on-demand marketplaces such as TeePublic, Society6, Spreadshirt and Amazon Merch on Demand, or browse our best print-on-demand platforms list.

Sources

Redbubble fees, payouts & alternatives