RedBubble vs Society6

Best print on demand for artists 2023

Many sites allow artists to upload and sell their art online, but two of the most popular are Redbubble and Society6. Both have pros and cons, so deciding which one to use can be challenging. Here is a comparison of the two:(If you want to know more about Print on Demand, jump to this article!)

What is RedBubble?

RedBubble was born in 2006 in Melbourne, Australia, also maintains offices in San Francisco and Berlin. In 2018, it acquired TeePublic for US$41.0 million in cash. TeePublic was an important player in the POD market, having sold over 1 million products in 2016. This strategic acquisition created synergy for growth. It was rated 3.8 stars on TrustPilot. However, it had received criticism for IPR infringement, including repeated trademark breaches.

RedBubble vs Society6 Reputation (Even)

Society6 and RedBubble are both founded by serial entrepreneurs and publicly traded. We don’t need to doubt that they mean business. Society6 belongs to a group with several subsidiaries, which comes with many pros and cons. While RedBubble Limited is the mother group.

RedBubble for organic traffic (Wins)

Society6 organic traffic

Society6 is an online marketplace of artwork from a community of 300,000 independent artists. Many of its users are also selling on the brother website Saatchi Art. They target more fine artists with contemporary style, who might also sell on its sister platform Saatchi Art. In Nov 2021 it attracted 7.77M total visits (SimilarWeb).

RedBubble organic traffic

Redbubble is helping more than 800,000 independent artists sell their art. They are designers, calligraphers, illustrators, painters, photographers and digital entrepreneurs. It’s hard to pinpoint a specific style across this platform. It has a total visit of 31.84M in Nov 2021, making it the most visited POD site (SimilarWeb).

Society6 product range (Wins)

Currently, Society6 offers over 90 different kinds of products (iPhone case and iPad case are considered one kind, but T-Shirts of different base colors and compositions are considered different products).

Less products on RedBubble

RedBubble offers over 70 products, such as shirts, stickers, phone cases, and pillows. But it doesn’t have many outdoor and household items such as can coolers, yoga mats, cutting boards and acrylic boxes. Society6 has a greater range of products compared to its counterpart. If it is important for you to have your art on a specific item, you might want to consider Society6.

RedBubble artist interface (Wins)

It is not free to sell on Society6. To validate your account in order to sell on this site, you need to pay a non-refundable US$1 fee. Many users complained on forums and in their videos that Society6 had the worst design uploader and mobile App. Just for these two points, it would not win this round against RedBubble.

Easier on RedBubble but be careful

It was very easy to register and start your own POD store on RedBubble. I was able to register and set up my storefront in just 15 minutes. However, the verification process of each individual design was more tedious than I thought. If you have any sensitive words in your title or description, your design will be suspended until further review. It may take anywhere from a couple of days to over a month to process. This is to avoid IPR infringement and inappropriate content.

RedBubble vs Society6 payout (Even)

Artist margin Society6

Society6 artists earn 10% of the retail price on all products except for:

• Art Prints,
• Framed Prints,
• Canvas Prints,
• Framed Canvases,
• Floating Acrylic Prints,
• Recessed Frame Prints.

Those allow artists to set their own markup beyond the default 10%. The markup on these products can be adjusted anytime by the artist. All artist payments from Society6 are paid out via Paypal.

Artist margin RedBubble

On RedBubble, you can set your artist margin. By default, it is 20%, slightly higher than what you receive from Society6. You’ll be paid once your earnings reach our $20 threshold ($20/20€/£20). Payments start processing on the 15th of each month. There are four payment methods: PayPal, USD ACH, AUD EFT, GBP BAC.

Is RedBubble worth it?

Pros:

• Big audience, this platform drives a lot of traffic
• Relatively high royalty for the artist (20%)
• Easy to use interface
• A nice and helpful artist community
• Product variety

Cons:

• Lots of IPR infringements “we steal your art and suspend your account”
• High competition
• Depend on your marketing: You need to actively send people to your shop to make any money.
• Time-consuming

RedBubble tips

• Pinterest friendly: You can easily use Pinterest to create a storefront for your art on RedBubble
• Try to diversify: There are many products to add your art on, and ReBubble algorithms will likely push your art if you use many of them. Just avoid the ones not fitting with your art.

Is Society6 worth it?

Pros:

• Good for the Fine Art niche.
• Quality selection of designs for your art.
• Not many IPR infringements.
• You can get direct sales from the platform traffic
• Very simple interface

Cons:

• Low artist royalty: the artist only gets 10%
• Not good recent customers reviews (Shipping and product quality went down since the pandemic)
• Website slow and buggy
• Second rate customer support

Society6 Tips

• Fighting bots: Add your artist name in your tags so if Bots are scraping your art you can easily identify and make Society6 remove them
• Verticality: This works on every platform, yet very well with Society6: Create vertical artworks so they will be well seen on mobiles.

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