How do Artist Earnings work?

Artist Shops

Retail Price - Base Cost = Your Artist Shop Earnings

Each Artist Shop product has a Base Cost, which is equal to the Product Cost plus a 5% processing fee based on your retail price for that product. For your Earnings, subtract the Base Cost from the Retail Price that you set and you keep the difference as Artist Earnings.

Threadless Marketplace

Purchase Price x 10% = Your Threadless Earnings

Starting February 3, 2025, we’re introducing a simplified 10% royalty rate for all sales made from the Threadless Marketplace only. This allows you to earn a fixed 10% royalty on the purchase price of any product featuring your designs sold on Threadless.

This change is based on artist feedback to make earnings easier to understand while creating more opportunities for full-price marketplace sales.

Find the full outline of base costs for Threadless, Artist Shop, and Threadless Marketplace earnings in the Policy Concerning Payments to Artists and Artist Shop Owners section of the Terms & Conditions.

Artist Payments

All Artist Earnings are paid through PayPal. To ensure you receive your Earnings, add the email address associated with your Paypal account in the Payment Information section of your Artist Dashboard. If you don't have a Paypal account, you can get one here.

Make sure you enter your Paypal address correctly and hit 'Update'. Once you see the confirmation message below, your Paypal account was successfully added!

Once your Paypal email is added to the payment information, you'll start receiving payments for any cleared earnings the following month directly to the PayPal address associated with your account, typically around the 18th and 20th of each month. If you have past payments that were not paid out because your Paypal account was not associated with your account, these payments will also be paid out the following month.

Artist Earnings Details

You can find all your Artist Earnings details in your Artist Dashboard. Earnings are separated into 3 sections: Pending, Cleared, and Paid Earnings.

Pending Earnings

Pending Earnings appear as 'Pending' when a sale for your design is made and the customer's order is sent to be printed and fulfilled. To account for customer cancellations and order changes, there may be a slight delay (think 1-2 hours) from the time the order is placed to when it appears in Pending Earnings. The sale of your design will remain in 'Pending' for 15 days.

Cleared Earnings

If not returned or canceled during the 15 days 'Pending', the sale will move to Cleared Earnings. Any Cleared Earnings will be paid out in the next Artist Earnings monthly payment.

Paid Earnings

Paid Earnings are all Artist Earnings paid out in the lifetime of your designs. Once Cleared, Earnings are paid out between the 15th and 20th each month.

The Purchase period is the month your design earnings were earned. This will help you keep track of when a sale was made and when the payment for something might be due.