After Redbubble, TeePublic is Charging Fees Now Too!

A few weeks ago, Redbubble announced they would start charging fees on the earnings of creators. And quite absurd fees, I might add.

I’ve written an article about it on Medium:

And today, I received an email from Teepublic, titled “Important Updates to TeePublic”.

Because I know that Teepublic is owned by Redbubble… my first thought was: “oh no… there we go.. now it’s Teepublic’s turn..”

And, little spoiler: I was (partially) right.

Here’s a part of the original mail:

For years, we’ve been shouldering increased costs without passing them on to artists, but beginning May 8, 2023, TeePublic must increase our existing SERVICE FEE, a fixed fee charged to artists for each sale they make through our marketplace, which will result in reduced artist earnings for select products.

Lovely. After earning less on Redbubble, will we now be earning less on TeePublic as well?

Let’s analyse the mail before giving our verdict.

The service fee

The service fee increase will depend on your Account Category.

There are 2 different account types:

• Artisan Accounts
• Apprentice Accounts

What’s the Difference?

Artisan Account

Artisan Accounts represent artists who design unique products that customers are specifically browsing for on the TeePublic Marketplace.

For example, I already know that I’m an “Artisan”, because I (for most designs) have a very specific niche — and because in the mail they wrote “If you’re reading this email, you are an Artisan Account!” :)

The service fee increase will be discounted for Artisans, thus resulting in a smaller reduction in earnings.

So, I’m an Artisan, but what does this mean for my fees?

Artisan Account fee

Quoting the mail:

Beginning May 8, 2023, Artisan Accounts will earn $4 on full priced ($2 for discounted) sales of apparel and select home goods.

This aligns the earnings for these products with the earnings for Classic T-shirts (the #1 product sold by artists), which were already $4/$2. The impact of this change will be relatively small for most Artisans. Based on 2022 sales, the average Artisan would have seen a loss of only $6 per month.

I don’t really get it.

“I will earn $4 ($2 for Sale) on full priced sales of apparel and select home goods.”

So this means that the MAXIMUM I’ll be able to earn on any product or sale… is $4?

Let’s say I sell a hoodie for e.g. $7, then I’d be earning only $4? This is how I understand it at least. If you see this differently, let me know.

Below I have added a screenshot of my recent Teepublic earnings, and as you can see I earned $2 on a discounted T-shirt, and $4 on a normal priced T-shirt.

According to the mail, this wouldn’t change, but if I’d sell anything that is MORE than $4, then the maximum I’d be able to earn would be $4?

----

Apprentice Account

Apprentice Accounts represent artists who are less discerning about the products they design, which are less likely to interest their customers browsing the TeePublic Marketplace.

For example, they may be spamming TeePublic at high volumes, exploring more automated content like vector packs or clip art, or may not have uploaded enough art to differentiate themselves from these types of creators.

TeePublic’s service fee will be higher for these accounts because of the additional costs of hosting their designs.

Apprentice Account Fee

I quote:

Beginning June 1, 2023, Apprentice Accounts will earn $3 on full priced ($1 for discounted) sales of apparel and select home goods. Until then, they will have the same service fee as Artisan Accounts starting May 8, 2023.

So, in comparison with the Artisan accounts, they’ll take $1 extra as a fee.

My thoughts

So far, I’m still a bit confused.

Let’s say I sell a big poster which would normally earn me $17 — would my earnings then be reduced to $4 only?!

I hope not.

I understand why they’re doing this, with all the worldwide increase & in prices and production costs etc, however I don’t get why they just don’t increase the base price of their products, and leave the earnings as they are?

Is it still worth it to publish on Teepublic?

For the moment, I’d say “yes”, but solely for the reason that their upload process is so fast and smooth.

Even if I don’t use Merch Titans to automate my uploads, I still only costs me a few minutes time to upload a design — so why not?

P.S. I quickly want to add that Merch Titans has become quite awesome in the past months, look at all the platforms they support:

That being said, I WILL BE spending more time on other Print on Demand platforms:

• Zazzle
• Amazon (publish products via Awkward Styles and Printful)
• Etsy (definitely one of the better platforms at the moment). P.S. if you don’t have an Etsy shop yet, you can use this link to get 40 free listings (saves you a couple of bucks).
• Society6

P.S. If you’re interested in Etsy…

check out my “Getting started with Etsy” tutorials on Medium:

-

If you find this piece interesting, please consider leaving a ❤️, or subscribing to see more of my stories! Your support means a lot to me!

-

Note: This article contains some affiliate links. This means that if you click on the link and make a purchase, I may receive a commission (but for you it’s free of course) — look at it as way to support my writing & all the countless hours I put into these articles :)

You might notice that not all links are affiliate links; This is because I only promote products and services that I believe in and that I think will be of value to you. Please do your own research before making any purchase decisions.