Fine Art America vs. Printful: Artist Profitability Comparison

If you’ve been wondering how to sell art online and make money, you’ve come to the right place.

From selling art prints to merch like custom t-shirts, there are many options these days to monetize your art.

To help you figure out which company to use for the best results, we compared Fine Art America and Printful.

What is Fine Art America and how does it work?

Fine Art America is a print-on-demand (POD) company with its own marketplace, where thousands of artists sell their work.

Fine Art America lets you upload your artwork and then pick what products you want to add it to. When someone orders your product, FAA fulfills the order and ships it to the customer.

There are two account options—standard and premium. The standard account is free and the premium costs $30 per year. Let’s look at what they include.

Standard free account

A standard Fine Art America account offers you a storefront with a unique URL (fineartamerica.com/profiles/yourstore) that you can personalize by adding your picture, bio, and other information. With this account type, you can upload up to 25 images and add them to products you’d like to sell online.

If you’re mainly looking to sell prints, Fine Art America offers art prints, posters, canvas prints, framed prints, metal prints, acrylic prints, wood prints, and tapestries in various sizes.

The free plan also allows selling merch. You can add your artwork to and sell products in categories like home decor, lifestyle products, tech accessories, stationery, and apparel.

Once you create your products, they become available on your storefront and in the Fine Art America marketplace along with those of other artists. You also get some additional perks, such as the ability to create blog posts, promote your products on social media, and network in the community forum.

This is an easy way to sell merch if you don’t want to worry about upfront costs and are just testing the ecommerce waters.

Premium account

The premium plan includes all the features of the standard account, plus additional ones like unlimited image uploads and access to email marketing tools. You can also sell on Shopify, build a personal website, or add a shopping cart widget to an existing one.

Source: Fine Art America

How does Printful work?

Printful is a print-on-demand dropshipping company that empowers individuals and businesses to create and sell custom products online. Printful offers 371 customizable items such as clothing, accessories, and home decor and enables customers to sell their products on the world’s top ecommerce platforms and marketplaces.

With Printful, you can sell custom wall art, such as canvas prints, posters, and metal prints.

Creating a Printful account is free. You can connect and manage multiple stores and create your custom products using the free Design Maker.

Once an order is placed, Printful handles the product printing, packaging, and shipping directly to the end customer, allowing users to run their businesses without worrying about inventory or logistics.

What’s Fine Art America’s and Printful’s pricing model?

Fine Art America and Printful have identical pricing models. Both have a base price for all of their products, which is the amount you pay them for the product and printing. You add your own markup, and that’s your profit from the sale. The retail price = base price + your markup.

Let’s look at similar trending products available on Fine Art America and Printful and compare the base prices.

Some prices, like those of posters and mugs, are similar. Others, however, such as canvas prints and blankets, are noticeably higher on FAA, negatively affecting your potential profit margins.

How much can you make on Fine Art America vs. Printful?

After comparing Printful’s and FAA’s base prices, it becomes clear that Fine Art America charges more for most of its products. This means that you can only mark your merchandise up so much before you price yourself out of the market and customers settle for buying something more affordable.

I explored Fine Art America’s average sales prices for the products we’ve looked at and calculated the average profit margins for Fine Art America and Printful. However, you can estimate your own markup and calculate your profitability. Remember, your profit = your sales price – the product base price.

So, what’s the best option for selling art online?

Fine Art America and Printful are both good for selling printed products, but the difference is in what products you sell. If your focus is selling fine-art quality prints online, then Fine Art America offers more wall art options. But if you want to sell various products and maximize your profits, then Printful might be for you.

Another aspect to consider is where you want to sell your products. With Fine Art America, the options are the FAA marketplace, your own website, and Shopify. However, you’ll need a premium account to use the non-FAA sales channels. 

If you’d like to explore more sales platforms, such as Etsy, Amazon, or even TikTok, you have those options available with Printful.

Ultimately, the best option depends on your artistic goals and preferred sales strategy. Choose the company that aligns with your vision for sharing your creativity and growing your business.

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