How do you sell digital art?
·Founder, Stakk
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5 October 2026
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7 min read
You sell digital art as files the buyer downloads, and the decision that shapes everything else is what those files are for: printing and framing, a phone or desktop wallpaper, or artwork the buyer uses inside their own projects. Each use needs different sizes, a different format and a different license line, and you set all three yourself. Then you list it on a marketplace like Etsy, which charges per listing and per sale, or on a store that only charges when something sells. Checked 30 September 2026.
The top results for this question are mostly stories about somebody's first good month. This is the part those skip: what goes in the download, what the buyer is allowed to do with it, and what each place to sell it takes.
What kind of digital art sells as a download?
Three kinds, and they are different products even when the artwork is the same.
- Printable wall art. The buyer prints it at home or at a print shop and frames it. They are paying for the image and for not having to think about sizing.
- Wallpapers. A phone or desktop background. Cheap, quick to buy, and judged entirely on how it looks behind the icons.
- Assets for other people's work. Illustrations, clip art, patterns and textures that the buyer drops into a design, a planner or a product of their own. This is where the license matters most.
Pick one per product. A single listing that tries to be a print, a wallpaper and a commercial asset at once has three sets of sizes to explain and a license nobody can read. The same painting can become three separate products, each built properly for its use.
Commissions are a fourth way artists sell, but they are a service rather than a download, and they need a booking and briefing process this post does not cover.
Which file formats and sizes should you deliver?
For prints, sizes come in ratio families, and a frame only fits one family. 2:3 covers 4x6, 8x12, 12x18, 16x24 and 24x36 inches. 3:4 covers 6x8, 9x12, 12x16 and 18x24. 4:5 covers 8x10 and 16x20. 11x14 and 5x7 are their own ratios, and the A sizes used outside the US, A5 to A1, share one ratio of their own. Export one file per ratio at the largest size you want to support, at 300 pixels per inch, so an 8x10 is 2400 by 3000 pixels. A buyer can print that ratio smaller without losing sharpness, but not larger.
Format follows the artwork. JPEG keeps painted and photographic work small enough to download on a phone. PNG suits flat color and line work, and keeps a transparent background, which most clip art needs. PDF is useful when you want a print to come out at an exact size with no scaling. Export in RGB, which is what screens and most home printers expect to receive.
Wallpapers are simpler and less exact. Phone screens differ, so ship a tall version large enough for current phones, keep the important part of the image near the middle where the clock and icons will not cover it, and add a desktop version in a wide ratio if the art suits one. The full walk-through of print file prep is in selling printables without Etsy.
How do you package the files so the buyer can use them?
One folder, named so a buyer understands it without opening anything. A folder per ratio with the ratio in its name, the files inside named by size, and one short PDF at the top that says which folder fits which frame and to print at 100 percent scale rather than fit to page.
Keep your working file out of it. The layered file from Procreate or Photoshop is your source, not the product, and handing it over gives away the thing you would need to make the next version. If you make the tools as well as the art, selling Procreate brushes is its own product with its own rules.
Listing images matter more than the files. Show the art in a frame on a wall for prints, on a phone screen for wallpapers, and inside a finished design for assets, plus one plain image of the whole set so the buyer can see exactly what arrives. Etsy's listing guide recommends listing photos at least 2000 pixels wide, which is a sensible floor anywhere.
What license do you give the buyer?
Whatever you write down, because a file cannot enforce anything and the license is a sentence you choose. There are three common shapes.
- Personal use. Print it for your own wall, set it as your own wallpaper. The default for prints and wallpapers.
- Commercial use. Use the art inside things you make and sell, or in client work. The usual shape for clip art and assets, and often priced higher than personal use.
- Extended or unlimited use. Bigger print runs, print on demand, or anything where your art is most of what the buyer's product is. Usually a separate, pricier license, and a real second product rather than a problem.
Almost every seller draws the same line on redistribution: the buyer may use the art, but may not resell, share or give away the files themselves. Put your license in the listing, in a text file inside the download and on the receipt.
Two cautions. Art of characters or brands someone else owns is not yours to license, and Gumroad's own list of what you cannot sell names copyright infringement. And this section describes commercial choices, not legal advice. If you need to know how the law treats your art where you live, ask someone qualified there.
Where should you sell digital art, and what does each place charge?
A marketplace charges you for being listed. A store charges you when something sells.
| Where you sell | Fee on a sale | Monthly fee | Card processing |
|---|---|---|---|
| Etsy | $0.20 a listing, plus 6.5% of the order | None | On top, rate varies by country |
| Gumroad | 10% + $0.50, or 30% on its Discover marketplace | None | On top, 2.9% + $0.30, except on Discover |
| Payhip | 5% free, 2% on Plus, 0% on Pro | $0 / $29 / $99 | On top |
| Stakk | 10% + $0.50 | None | Included |
Etsy's fees page charges the $0.20 when you list, regardless of resulting sales, and again each time a listing renews after four months. Etsy's digital listings take up to five files and do not allow variations, so every size a buyer might want has to fit into those five files. In return it brings buyers who are already searching, which is worth something nobody can put a number on.
Gumroad's fees article says its 10% + $0.50 does not include card processing, so a $20 print costs $3.38 to sell there, against $2.50 on Stakk. Payhip's free plan is cheaper than both on the percentage and adds processing on top.
How do you price digital art without guessing?
By comparison, and by what the file does rather than how long it took to paint.
Find five listings for the same use as yours, prints next to prints and clip art next to clip art, and note what each includes: how many sizes, which license, how many pieces. Place yours against them by scope. A single ratio for personal use belongs at the bottom of that range. Every ratio family plus a commercial license belongs near the top.
Then build the ladder the files already give you. One print, the full size set, a set of three matching pieces, and a commercial license as its own product. The size set is a natural add-on at checkout. None of this needs sales data you do not have, and checking whether a product will sell before you make it covers how to test demand first.
An example checkout, not a real listing. The size set is offered before payment and joins the same charge, so the order carries one transaction fee rather than two.
When is Stakk the wrong choice for selling digital art?
When you need buyers to find you. Stakk is a checkout, not a marketplace, so nobody browses it looking for wall art the way they browse Etsy. It is also the wrong choice if price per sale is the whole decision: Systeme.io charges no transaction fee on any plan including its free one, and Whop takes 2.7% + $0.30 with no monthly cost, both less than our 10% + $0.50. And Stakk has no subscription billing, so a monthly print club is out, no booking for commissions, US dollars only, a $999 price cap, and no file hosting: the product is a link you paste in, to a folder you keep in your own Drive or Dropbox.
What Stakk offers instead is the shape of the checkout. The size set or the matching piece rides the same charge as the print, so the order carries one fee rather than two, and the post-purchase upsell is one tap against the card already on file. Both are on every account with nothing behind a tier, which fewer platforms do than you would expect, and the layout came out of funnels that ran for agency clients before Stakk existed.
Ready to put your art behind a checkout?
If the folder is named, the sizes are exported and the license line is written, the rest is short. Paste the link to the folder as the product's delivery link, set a price, put the full size set on the payment screen as an optional add-on, and share the checkout where people already ask whether your art is for sale. Stakk is 10% + $0.50 a sale with card processing included and no monthly fee, and the charge lands in your own Stripe account rather than a balance we hold.