Abby B. Are you wondering how to make stickers to sell on Redbubble? Interested to finally monetize your artsy skills? It’s actually pretty easy!
The second sale I made on Redbubble was for stickers. It wasn’t much but it’s mind blowing to me – that it was possible to make money online with my amateur designs made on Canva. I was only introduced to print on demand two months prior. Just like you, I never knew this dropshipping business model existed before!
In this article, I’ll be sharing a step by step guide on how to make stickers to sell on Redbubble and what you’ll need to succeed.
*This post may contain affiliate links. This means I may earn a small commission (at no cost to you) if you sign up for a program or make a purchase using my link!
How Much Does The Average Person Make On Redbubble?
How much a person makes on Redbubble depends on the type of product sold, number of designs uploaded and selling prices. Sellers start with a markup of 20% which gives a minimum profit of $0.43 and a maximum profit of $54.76, depending on product. Pro sellers typically make $200 or more per month while $10 is common for newbies.
How To Make Stickers To Sell On Redbubble
1. Create an account on Redbubble
First and foremost, you’ll have to create an artist account on Redbubble. It should take less than a few minutes to do so. The shop name you register for will be used for your shop URL and can’t be changed so decide properly before signing up.
Once you’re logged in, click on your icon on the top right corner to view Dashboard – this is where you can see an overview of your account. The activity feed is where you’ll see if anyone liked your designs, if a shop you’re following uploaded more of theirs and if they liked anyone else’s designs.
How To Make Stickers To Sell On Redbubble: View dashboard
2. Decide on a niche you want to focus on
The best tip anyone can give you to make sticker sales on Redbubble is to serve your target audience by giving them what they want – not what you want. A lot of people overlook this step and proceed to make stickers without much thought. Think about it before you even start, who will purchase your stickers?
Other things to think about when choosing a niche for Redbubble:
- What kind of interest do you have that others may also have?
- What has a great following?
- Who are the biggest users of stickers?
- Where will these stickers be used?
- Will these stickers be sold as a collection or individually?
Try writing these answers down on a piece of paper to get a clearer view of what niche you should work on. Decide on one to focus on in the beginning. Maybe Redbubble has given it away for you – some categories you can find are car stickers, helmet stickers, laptop stickers and hydro flasks stickers. You can work around these!
3. Choose the main way you will make the stickers
Your sticker designs are all digital files uploaded from your computer to Redbubble’s products. You won’t need a physical product and most sticker designs are made digitally.
Four methods how to make stickers to sell on Redbubble:
Hand drawing
If you’re born a creative person able to draw amazing things by hand, you can make stickers with your skill. Most artists use a tablet for digital drawing. Tablets can come with a dedicated screen like the iPad or without a screen as they can only be used once attached to a computer.
I’m not a tech geek but here is a list of best drawing tablets for beginners, with comparison of prices and specifications. Read them well to decide on a tablet that is best for you. Unsure how to draw digitally with a tablet? These are some cool digital art courses you can enroll in on Udemy.
Here is a list of software for digital art drawing and best for beginners:
- Adobe Photoshop
- Adobe Illustrator
- Affinity Photo
- Procreate
- GIMP
- Krita
- Adobe Fresco
- Corel Painter
- Sketchpad
- Astropad
- Vectr
- Inkscape
Online editing tools
Less creative people can explore online editing tools instead of worrying that you can’t draw or are unable to draw without a drawing tablet. This goes the same for me! I’m not a graphic designer, just a normal person still saving money for an iPad. So don’t worry too much.
Online editing tools to help you make creative stickers:
What kind of stickers can you make with these generic online editing tools? I’ve made a list and included some samples down below.
Read: 14 tools to make Etsy digital products (applicable to stickers!)
Purchase art elements
If you’re not interested in making your own art and believe in the power of outsourcing, you can purchase digital art elements online and use them to make stickers to sell on Redbubble.
Some sites where you buy digital art for commercial use and get digital art prints downloads include:
- Creative Market
- Envato Elements
- Dribbble
- Design Cuts
- Design Bundles
- Etsy
- DealJumbo
- Creative Fabrica
- The Hungry JPEG
- Stock websites
Hire others to make the stickers for you
This is not the main method everyone goes for especially for beginners, as most sellers are solopreneurs working on their own. However, you may consider this option to hire others when you’re more successful or you have the budget to hire. The return on investment is also higher if you sell the designs on other products as well. Although stickers are popular, they don’t make you a lot of profit per sale.
Websites you can hire others to make designs for you and find freelance brand designers:
4. Decide what kind of stickers designs you will make
It’s important that you know the categories of stickers you can find on Redbubble includes – design & illustration, digital art, drawing, painting & mixed media and photography. So what’s limiting your creativity? You can upload any kind of designs and practically sell anything as stickers!
Types of sticker designs you can make and sell on Redbubble
- Objects
This can include anything from sloths to plants to New York City’s iconic buildings. Kids and young adults love stickers like these.
- Typography
Short words or even creative alphabets. Everyone loves a nicely designed word sticker. Best part of making these is you can use something repeatedly and just change its design.
- Abstract
Back when I was young, stickers were only made for abstracts. If you’re a super creative artist, this is a niche you would want to go into.
- Filing & organization
Nowadays, stickers are made for all kinds of usages. Planners are something everyone loves collecting even though they’re unsure when to use them! Cute organization stickers will surely make a sale.
- Quotes
Aside from good old typography, nice quotes can be self-assuring and helps us go through battles life throws at us. I love writing down quotes in my journals to tell myself I’m doing well in my blogging journey. You can make quotes serving all kinds of purposes!
Quality of stickers made by Redbubble
Redbubble offers stickers in three types of finishing:
- Matte
- Glossy
- Transparent
Stickers are available in 4 sizes, with white or transparent background.
The stickers are made kiss-cut, meaning cut to the dimensions of the graphic uploaded. Hence, files used to make stickers or any print on demand product usually have a transparent background. This is doable on sites like Canva with the pro package – the reason why I got it in the first place!
5. Educate yourself to make better stickers
If everything I’ve written above sounds a lot to you, do not worry. There’s so many ways you can learn to improve yourself even when it comes to sticker making. Everyone starts from zero and I did so myself! The only way is to move forward to reach your goals.
Some websites offering sticker making content to help you design better stickers:
I always believe paid courses have greater value, tips and tricks no one teaches for free. It also builds your commitment to work harder since you’ve put in some money to learn it.
6. Upload design files on Redbubble
Once your designs are ready, it’s super easy to upload them to Redbubble. All you have to do is click on “Add New Work” and select “Upload new work” if it’s your first time uploading. If you’re uploading a design that’s similar to what you already have in store, you can select “Copy an existing work” to save time – no need to manually edit placements again.
Redbubble recommends using JPEG and PNG files of minimum 1000px for best printing results.
Fill in the title, tags and product description that is most relevant to the design you have uploaded. These details are important for SEO – letting Google understand your product better to show it to anyone that searches for something like it. You can decide to not sell any other product by disabling them and only enabling stickers & magnets. Click on “Edit” to choose the types of stickers you want to offer and alter the markup.
When all is done and it should be easy if you’re only selling stickers, click on “Save work” at bottom right corner. Ensure that you have the rights to sell the design you’ve made – not an issue if you made it yourself, you’ve avoided trademark items and it’s 100% original.
Your sticker is ready for sales and now in your Redbubble shop!
7. Increase number of sticker designs
A lot of people have shared their Redbubble success stories online. The most common challenge they had was to increase the number of designs they have and I believe it’s not easy especially for artists with a creative process. As a business owner, it’s your ultimate goal to increase the number of sticker designs you sell. Doing so will allow your products to reach a wider audience and increase your chances of sale.
So aim for at least 100 designs in the first two months on Redbubble and increase your designs every month – even better if every week. Get the ball rolling! You’ll never know which sells until it does.
Not everyone is eager to actively promote their print on demand shop thinking that it should be a source of passive income. However, promoting your creative business products on Pinterest can get you amazing traffic. Stickers and even artwork can do really well on Pinterest and posting a pin can get you traffic a few months down the road (not days!).
I do not recommend using other social media platforms for a few reasons I’ve explained in this article.
Clicking on these pins will land you directly to the product page – improving customer experience will increase your sales.
9. Sell other products using the same designs
One of the best things about making designs for stickers is that you can use the same files for other types of products without making any changes to it. Meaning, you can sell more products in your Redbubble shop at no extra cost or time!
18 merchandise you can sell using the same designs as stickers on Redbubble:
- T-shirts
- Tote bags
- Tumblers
- Posters
- Phone cases
- Cushion covers
- Desk mats
- Mouse pads
- Shower curtains
- Laptop accessories
- Tablet cases
- Blankets
- Drawstring bags
- Scarves
- Notebooks
- Clocks
- Canvas prints
- Aprons
Simply enable these products when uploading the sticker design just like I explained above. Ensure that the designs are placed correctly on each type of product. What you see is what your customers will get in their mailbox.
13 Websites Like Redbubble Selling Stickers
- Society6
- Teespring (Spring)
- Printful
- Printify
- Prodigi
- Camaloon
- StickersAndPosters
- SPOD
- T-Pop
- Zazzle
- Pwinty
- Merchize
- Spreadshirt
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
Question: Where are Redbubble products made?
Answer: Orders made on Redbubble are made by a third-party printer located in any one of the 10 countries they ship from. This includes the USA, Italy, Netherlands and the UK. Orders with multiple products may be shipped individually and arrive at different times.
Question: How to make products on Redbubble?
Answer: To make products on Redbubble, users will need to create an artist account. Upload design files by clicking on “Add new work” and ensure the designs are placed correctly on the products. Publish the design and products are ready to be sold in your shop.
Question: What products are sold the most on Redbubble?
Answer: Products that are sold the most on Redbubble include mugs, stickers, phone cases, canvas prints and t-shirts. While these are common, pet supplies, leggings and accessories are becoming more popular. Some of the best products to sell on Redbubble are low priced items and items meant for gifts.
Bottom Line
A lot of people over complicate things and worry on how to make stickers to sell on Redbubble. Truth is, everything gets easier when you take action.
Here are 9 steps to get you started with selling stickers on Redbubble:
- Create an account on Redbubble
- Decide on a niche you want to focus on
- Choose the main way you will make the stickers
- Decide what kind of stickers designs you will make
- Educate yourself to make better stickers
- Upload design files on Redbubble
- Increase number of sticker designs
- Promote your Redbubble shop to social media
- Sell other products using the same designs
If you decided stickers might not be your thing, that’s okay. There’s so many merchandise you can explore when selling with print on demand. You don’t have to hold any inventory anyway.
Check out my print on demand product guides down below. Sure to help you discover your niche!
- Tote bags for print on demand
- Tumblers for print on demand
- Phone cases for print on demand
- Posters for print on demand
- Leggings for print on demand
- Jewelry for print on demand
- Candles for print on demand
- Doormats for print on demand
- Hoodies for print on demand
- Pet products for print on demand
- Socks for print on demand
- Pajamas for print on demand
- Blankets for print on demand
- Baby clothes for print on demand
- Wrapping paper for print on demand
- Puzzles for print on demand
- Stickers for print on demand
- Athletic wear for print on demand
- Hats for print on demand
- Journals for print on demand
- Greeting cards for print on demand
- Mugs for print on demand
Photo by Tanja Baumann
