9 Indie Marketplaces to Sell your Designs

These days, it’s easier than ever to share your creations with the world. There are numerous companies out there who make it their mission to help you sell digital products of any kind, including music, videos, ebooks and designs to your audience. Most of them will make sure your premium products will get as many product views as possible, but in return they’ll take a big piece of your revenue pie.

Today we’re going to talk about marketplaces where designers can sell the design assets to their fellow designers. The first two places that come to your mind when you hear this is probably Envato and Creative Market. But what about the marketplaces that don’t take away your power to control the pricing of your products and allow you to take most of your profits?

Here are 9 such non-exclusive marketplaces that may help you reach new audiences.

1. Sellfy

Sellfy is one of those places that started out as one of the online services to sell digital products and expanded by opening their own digital goods marketplace in November. While they do accept digital goods in a variety of categories, including eBooks, audio, video and software, their biggest category is web design. One of the most compelling benefits of Sellfy is that you can offer "social discounts" to customers who share your products via social networks. They take a 5% fee per sale.

2. Iconfinder

Iconfinder started out as an icon aggregator and search engine, but has recently morphed into an icon marketplace. With more than 400,000 icons in stock, Iconfinder is the place for designers, developers and other creative professionals to find premium icons for their next creative project. The payments received are pooled together and distributed on a monthly basis, hence there will be a month’s delay before you can receive your money. Minimum cash-out is USD100.

3. Picfair

Picfair is an image marketplace where photographers can sell their photos, choose their own price and keep all copyright. What separates this marketplace from others is the fact that there is only one single license that is used for every photo. Picfair also has an advanced search by tag or topic functionality, which makes it easier for buyers to find a suitable image for their needs. Picture info includes image resolution, the date it was taken, and the model of the camera used. PicFair takes 20% commission on top of your sales price plus a small payment processing fee.

4. Luvly

Luvly.co is another non-exclusive marketplace for graphic design assets, with a style that can be described as cute, girly or feminine. The strong collection of beautiful digital designs includes vectors, fonts, clipart, wordpress themes and blogger templates. One aspect that distinguishes this marketplace from others is its DIY and scrapbook bias. Fees range from 20-40%, depending on sales volume.

5. Fantero

Fantero.com is a virtual content marketplace within the design and freelance communities. It’s collection of over 2 million digital items by over 100,000 users. The marketplace originated as a place for photographers to sell their stock photos, but over time expanded its specialization into web design templates, sound loops & effects, music, flash and video files as well as 3D models and scripts. A minimum of USD50 is required to cash out and fees range from 25-50%, depending on sales volume.

6. MotionElements

MotionElements is the marketplace where you can sell your 2d/3d animation, stock video clips, video backgrounds and other stock motion elements. Because of the MotionElements’ exclusive dedication to the stock motion elements, they are able to provide highly relevant search function. The categorical search helps with queries such as background, front view, keyed top layer or camera view. They charge a 30-50% fee based on exclusivity of the elements. Payments roll out once a month, on the 15th.

7. MOJO Marketplace

MOJO marketplace offers premium products to build, brand and grow your website. This includes themes, plugins as well as graphics and logos. They offer a wide variety of website graphics suitable for both website or print projects. Designers can upload their logo designs, business cards, vector graphics, font sets and stock graphics to MOJO marketplace. The marketplace has partenerd with a lot of hosting companies that provide premium distribution opportunities for the products in their marketplace. They take a 50% cut from each sale.

8. Canva

Canva.com is an simple graphic design software that allows everyone to create their own designs for Web or print. They rely heavily on pre-made design templates, including infographics, banners, flyers, photo collages, album covers and social media graphics among many others. Designers can then release their designs for use. Payment is fixed at per one-time-use license. Professional designers are welcome to submit their own layouts for Canva users to use in their designs. Canva’s royalty rate stands at 35% per sale.

9. Shapeways

Shapeways is a 3D printing marketplace and 3D printing service. Designers are invited to upload their 3D printable files and Shapeways will take care of the rest. This includes printing out the item, shipping it to the buyer and settling any disputes in case there are any problems with the product. There is a 3.5% transaction fee on top of your markup.

[Editor’s note: The Shapeways site is down at the moment. The team is working to sort out some technical issues.]

Editor’s note: This is written for Hongkiat.com by George Vauvenargues. George is a writer and designer with over 4 years of experience in both fields. He is now working on Soccerstand, an online tool and mobile app that helps people to stay on top of live sports results.

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9 Indie Marketplaces to Sell your Designs