Where to start selling Pattern Designs online – 14 alternatives
In this guide we’re going to explore what options you have if you want to start selling surface pattern designs online, we’ll be talking about marketplaces, shops & services that let anyone get started with selling repeated pattern designs right now.
There will be plenty of options for Pattern Designers who want to start earning some extra income from their designs.
This page contains affiliate links, clicking some links & making a purchase using it will earn Creativehowl a small commission,
Spoonflower
Spoonflower is an online store where you can upload your own patterns or buy other artists’ patterns on fabric, gift wraps, and wallpaper.
Anyone can order their own designs but if you want to start selling your repeated patterns on their marketplace you either have to order a fabric sample of your own pattern, alternative you can participate in any of their design competitions, placing among the top patterns will get you into the Spoonflower shop.
If anyone buys a product with your patterns on Spoonflower you’ll earn a 10% commission on the sale price. (more info on how the commission work can be found here).
(above link is an affiliate link)
Spoonflower alternative
Print me pretty is an alternative to Spoonflower with a similar concept, upload your patterns and then order them for yourself or make them available for anyone to buy on the site. Defiantly worth checking out and comparing to Spoonflowers before starting out on either platform.
Print all over me (PAOM)
Print all over me is a print-on-demand shop that makes clothes with all-over patterns (in both cotton & polyester). Anyone can set up a shop and start selling their patterns on a range of different clothes in their store (t-shirts, backpacks, leggings, bags, hats, and much more).
PAOM is especially great for repeated pattern designs just because they’re able to print all over the products and not just a limited area (like most other print-on-demand shops), and that’s why PAOM is one of my favorites on this list.
Selling digital pattern designs
There’s a huge market for selling your patterns as digital downloads, plenty of people buy & use patterns, like other graphic designers, people who do scrapbooking, web designers, or people who need a pattern for their wedding or party invitation, the list can go on forever.
The biggest downside with sites like this is that the pay isn’t great, I would recommend anyone getting started with selling pattern downloads to do some research and see if the pay is worth it for you.
GraphicRiver
Graphicriver is a site where people sell different kinds of digital files like fonts, icons, logos, and also pattern designs. You can package and sell your patterns in a few ways, you can sell them as background that people can download and use for their website or products, you can also sell your patterns as textures.
What many people do is they sell pattern designs in a package, there’s typically one pattern made into a variety of color combinations, it’s an easy way to offer a large pattern package without having to spend that much time creating the variations.
(above link is an affiliate link)
Creativemarket
Creativemarket is a similar marketplace where you can sell your pattern design digitally on their platform. Just keep in mind that these kind of sites where you sell digital downloads usually doesn’t pay that much for each purchase, it could still be worth doing but I would advice anyone to check out the rates for both Creative Market and Graphic river and see if the pay is worth it for you.
(above link is an affiliate link)
Art Licensing for Surface Pattern designers
If you’re interested in learning more about licensing your pattern design I suggest you check out Illustrator and Pattern designer Mel Armstrong’s course over on Skillshare, “Art Licensing for Surface Pattern designers”. It’s a great 30-minute video course that helps you get started and get to know the basics.
To check out this course and a bunch of other pattern design content you can use my link to get 2 weeks for free on Skillshare.
(above link is an affiliate link)
Print on demand
Print-on-demand shops are a great option if you want to start selling your pattern designs on products without having to handle shipping, production, and all that hassle.
You probably already visited plenty of print-on-demand shops already, on these shops artists & designers can upload their designs and start selling their designs on different products (like clothing & home decor), the store handles everything (shipping, sales, etc) and the only thing the designer has to do is upload their designs.
These sites pay around 10-20% of the sale price directly to the artist, with some sites even having higher rates than that.
Redbubble
Redbubble is one of the bigger shops with a large selection of products. We’re talking clothing, notebooks, cases, and a lot more.
The cases for laptops and iPhones work especially great for pattern designs, but it’s easy to upload your pattern to the site, and then you can easily see what it would look like on a large selection of products.
(above link is an affiliate link)
Designbyhumans
Designbyhumans is a clothing where artist can apply to get started selling on the platform, applying is easy and not very hard to get approved.
You’ll also have to get each print approve before heading out to the store, which in my book is a great thing (even though getting denied can be annoying), it keep the quality of the work on the site higher in my opinion.
As an pattern designer on Design by humans I would check out their leggings, phone cases, notebooks and backpacks, these products will look great with a repeated patterns on.
(above link is an affiliate link)
Threadless
Threadless is a t-shirt shop that branched out to countless of other products. Here you’ll get your own shop on their platform where you’ll sell your products on, it’s basically your own corner of Threadless that you can customize as you like.
Especially their All-Over T-shirts/Tanks, pillows and also many of their home decor products are great for pattern designs.
Teepublic
Teepublic is as the name suggests mainly a t-shirt & clothing store, but just like the other stores on this list they also sell mugs, phone cases, wall art, and a lot of other products.
(above link is an affiliate link)
INPRNT
INPRNT is a bit different from other print-on-demand sites, here you need either an invitation or you have to apply and get accepted as an artist in order to set up your shop and start selling. They pride themself on being a curated platform and I must agree that it shows (there are much fewer low-quality prints & less if any copyrighted material).
Applying is easy and all that they ask for is to see 3 images of your work. After you have been accepted to INPRNT you can start selling your pattern design (or other work) on art prints, device cases, and framed work
INPRNT also offers by far the best rates for artists,
- you’ll get 50% of the sales price for art prints,
- 40% on canvas prints
- $5 for each frame/cases
- $1 for Cards
These rates may have changed as of writing this guide, you can check their help section over here for current rates.
Society6
Society6 is yet another big print on demand site that also offer a large selection of products to have your design on.
They do offer all over print t-shirts which look great with pattern designs, sadly these t-shirts are 100% polyester, but if you can overlook that these t-shirts are perfect for pattern designs.
(above link is an affiliate link)
Sell Patterns on your own products
There’s plenty of options for setting up a shop to sell your own products online, surface pattern designs are also great for things to sell, you can sell the pattern as a print, as a digital download, you can order or make your own products with your patterns on.
Having your own shop is more work then the options I showed previously in this guide, you’re going to have to everything, from selling to shipping, but you also get to keep almost all of the profit yourself (instead of a 10-20% commission per sale). I can be a good idea to read our guide on How to promote pattern designs online if you’re planning to open a shop for your patterns and need some ideas on marketing.
Etsy
Etsy is the leading platform when it comes to sell handmade products from artists and designers, but you can also sell digital products on Etsy. So you can sell your pattern designs as a print or as a digital download for example.
(above link is an affiliate link)
Shopify
Shopify is another option if you’d like to sell your own work, and Shopify let’s you open up your own shop to sell on. The monthly fee for Shopify is quite high but the platform comes packed with featured like Instagram shop integration.
(above link is an affiliate link)
Big Cartel
Big Cartel is a online shop solution for artists & creators. Big Cartel even has a free plan (with max 5 products) or if you want more items to sell you can pay a monthly fee, depending on what your selling Big Cartel can be a great alternative to Etsy because of the much lower fees per transaction.
It’s also easy to sell digital products on Big Cartel which is perfect for any pattern designer.
