Can I Make Money as a Digital Artist?

The question on everyone’s lips when they create their first digital picture is – can I make money as a digital artist?

Here, we’re going to go into detail about whether you can make money being a digital artist. How you can make money. And exactly how much money you could potentially make through digital art. As well as this we’re going to go through the steps you need to take in order to get there.

Disclaimer: This post may contact affiliate links. This means I may earn a commission from qualifying purchases.

Can I Make Money As A Digital Artist?

The short answer is – yes! But don’t click off this article yet. Because, yes you can absolutely make money as a digital artist, but it takes more than being good at creating art.

How you make your money largely depends on how you intend to sell your art. And how much money you make depends on how much effort you’re willing and able to put into the process. For some people, they want to create their pieces, print them, and then sell them as physical copies. Some people might want to sell these copies in person. Maybe at an art fair or somewhere similar.

And some people might want to sell them on an online shop. Then, there’s deciding what online shop is best for you, if you want to go down this route. Or would you prefer to create a subscription service like a Patreon, where people subscribe to you and then you provide them with exclusive content in return?

The possibilities truly are endless when it comes to discovering how to make money as a digital artist. The biggest initial hurdle is cutting through all the noise and finding the path that is best for you.

Deciding How to Sell Your Art

The first decision you need to make when figuring out how to make money as a digital artist is how to sell your art. There are plenty of options to consider which I’ll list below. Before making your decision, work out the pros and cons for each. And try to decide which one is going to fit with your lifestyle, capabilities, skill, and time constraints the best. Bear in mind there are plenty of other options out there for selling your art to make money as a digital artist. I’ve just listed the most popular ones, and ones that have personally worked for me.

At this point when you’re figuring out how to make money as a digital artist, you also need to decide whether you’re going to sell physical copies of your art, or digital copies. Physical copies will, of course, end up being a larger expense to you. But you will be able to charge more to the customer. Don’t forget, you could always do a mixture of both, and then after a while, decide which way works best for you and for your customers.

Remember: selling anything takes a lot of work, and requires a bunch of different skills. These skills could include marketing, photography, writing, website development, and a whole load of other skills too. Bear these in mind when you’re deciding how to sell your art to make money as a digital artist.

Here is the list of options to consider:

• Etsy
• Shopify
• Self-hosted website
• Patreon
• Thortful (for greetings cards etc.)
• Creative Market
• DeviantArt
• Physical marketplace – craft fairs etc.

Selecting The Best Selling Platform For You

Selecting the best selling platform for you when you’re trying to make money as a digital artist is probably one of the most important decisions you can make.

As you can see from the above list, there are plenty of ways you can start to make money as a digital artist through different platforms. And the real list of platforms available out there is extremely long. The ones I’ve listed are very broad and can be used for most art categories. But there are so many others that are more specific to certain niches.

Do lots of research, because this is going to be one of the most important decisions you make when it comes to selling your art.

When selecting the best selling platform for you, consider these things.

• What am I selling? Is it wall prints? Greetings cards? Company logos? Animations?
• How much time do I have to put into setting up my sales pages?
• Do I already have access to an audience? Have I got a large social media following, or the time and ability to create one?
• Am I any good at website design?
• Do I have the time and ability to constantly create content for subscribers who are paying monthly for my work?
• Do I have the extra cash to invest into a site of my own?
• Am I willing to pay fees out of my sales in order to immediately reach a wider audience?

Deciding How You’re Going to Price Your Art

There’s a few different ways for you to decide how you’re going to price your art. Unfortunately you can’t just throw a finger in the wind and make up a price. In order to make money as a digital artist, you need to come up with a price which is fair, competitive and enticing.

When I say ‘fair’ I mean to the customer of course. But also to you. You know how much time you’ve spent creating an art piece, so you don’t want to price yourself short.

So how do you decide how to price your art?

Firstly, take a look around at what your competitors are charging. The aim here isn’t to completely undercut them – that would be a bad move on your part and de-value the product you’re offering. Instead, get a flavour of the sorts of prices they’re charging. Understand how large their pieces are, how detailed. How original. Are they digital or physical prints?

Secondly, work out roughly how many hours you spent on the piece. Was it a quick sketch you produced in an hour? Or did it take 100+ hours to create? I’m not for one minute suggesting charging ‘by the hour’ for your piece. This is more just to place a value on your time. If you’ve spent 100 hours creating something and then end up pricing it at £5 when you don’t even know how many you’re going to sell, this would be seriously undervaluing your work.

Thirdly, price is going to depend on whether it’s a digital file you’re selling, or a physical printed art piece. If it’s been printed (but still reproduceable) you can definitely mark up the price a little bit. Because you will have to pay to print the piece, pay for shipping, and go to the effort of posting it. If it’s a digital file, your income will basically be passive, so less work will go into it and you can afford to price it a little lower.

Unfortunately, if you were hoping I was going to give you an exact price list, you’re going to be a little disappointed, because every artist is so different. I would hate to see a talented artist underpricing their work. Or someone equally as talented overpricing their work and then not receiving any sales because of it.

Feel free to take a look at my shop – if my art style matches yours, you’ll be able to make your first price comparison 🙂

Taking Amazing Photos Of Your Art

This step is often overlooked, or an afterthought, but is one of the most important things you can do. You could have the best product, the best marketing strategy, and the best, most competitive price for your art. But if the photos are rubbish, there are too few of them, or they are simply non-existent, then you might as well just not bother.

Human beings like to know what they’re buying. If they’re buying art – then they definitely like to know what they’re buying. As an art seller, product like-ness and good photography is more important than ever. You’re not selling function or usefulness. You’re selling beauty and creativity. And in this case, that is visual.

For that reason, you need to take incredible photos of your art.

If this is a step you’re worried about, just try to follow these simple steps, and you should be on the path to some great photos. And don’t forget how valuable it can be to, again, take a look at some other art sellers out there and see what they’re doing. Please don’t copy people, but getting inspiration from other sellers shouldn’t be overlooked.

How to take amazing photos of your art

1. Make sure your lighting is good. If you can use daylight, this is great. You want the colours and textures in your art piece to be as close to original as possible when you’re taking your photos
2. Use props – but don’t let them get in the way of your art. Some people might like to use flowers, plants and other foliage to surround their art piece. Or perhaps a candle or even a cup of coffee. This is fine. Just don’t let it cover the piece. People want to see what they’re buying
3. If you can frame it – then do! And take photos of it in the frame. This will give potential buyers a really great idea of how it will look hanging in their homes
4. Take a close up of JUST the art – artsy shots are lovely, but you also just want to show the piece exactly as it is, so that buyers can see the details
5. If your art is only digital, and you don’t have a printed version, then make sure to check out a mockup site. You can upload photos of your art piece and they mock it up in different frames and situations so that it looks printed and real – please don’t forget to put a disclaimer on your sales page that this piece isn’t printed and the photos are just mockups to demonstrate how the art piece could look. Also, just upload a straight image of your art piece on your sales gallery (with a watermark so the piece can’t be reproduced for free). Again, this is so people can see the art properly, as well as in mocked up scenarios

Some great mockup sites are:

• SMARTMOCKUPS
• Canva Free MockUp Generator
• Media Modifier

Marketing Your Digital Art

Marketing your digital art is arguably one of the most important aspects of selling your art, and how to make money as a digital artist.

As we know, marketing is nothing new. It might have lots of different guises as time has progressed, but marketing is basically advertising. And how you advertise your art (and how successful you are at it) is going to be the deciding factor as to how much money you make.

We all know there are a whole host of different marketing options out there. That could be social media. Pay per click advertising. Direct mail. Sponsored posts on other blogs. Video content (on YouTube for example). Podcast advertising. The possibilities are endless. Hence sometimes the frustration of not knowing where to start. Or even worse, trying to give them all a go and spreading yourself too thin, failing miserably in the process.

The best way to market your art (or anything, for that matter!) is to narrow your methods down. But you can’t just make a split second decision about your strategy. You need to try the best you can to make informed decisions.

Social Media

Firstly, you would be doing yourself a huge disservice if you didn’t include social media in your marketing strategy. It’s free, and it’s popular. A lot of people hang out there. And it’s where a lot of people are ready to be sold to, or influenced. So use this to your advantage.

But social media is vast, and nowadays there are so many different platforms. Where do you start?

Well, firstly, decide where your audience is. For me, personally, this was Tiktok, Instagram and Pinterest. I’m sure there would be a few people on Facebook, and maybe Twitter (or X), and lots of other places too. But remember what I said before about not spreading yourself too thin. I would suggest a maximum of three social media platforms to focus on. Anything more than this and you’re not going to have the time to keep everything up to date and build audiences consistently.

In terms of other marketing avenues, YouTube would probably be your next best bet. But remember, these aren’t necessarily quick wins. And building audiences does take time. If you want a quicker marketing campaign, you will have to speak to professionals, or pay for advertising. Unless you have the capital to do this, then you’re better off sticking to the social media and YouTube route.

What type of content do you post?

That’s the million dollar question and one that social media influencers are trying to figure out all the time.

I don’t know the exact answer to this question. The algorithm is changing all the time and I don’t think anyone can keep up with it. But follow these below rules and you should be off to a good start:

• Make sure your photos and videos are of excellent quality – high resolution images only. People will not stop to watch low quality videos
• Post regularly and consistently – you can’t just post one picture or video and then disappear, hoping that you’ll be a viral success. You need to stick at a regular posting schedule so that your growing audience know when to expect content from you. The platforms your posting on will also recognise that you’re a loyal poster and will reward you for that by hopefully pushing your content out further. If you’re a fairweather poster, the platform will know
• Maintain a brand message – it’s OK to experiment at first as you’re finding your feet and figuring out what works, and what people like. But once you’ve deciphered that, keep to a similar style of content. Your audience will recognise your videos and will stop to watch them out of loyalty. If you’re posting something that they don’t recognise, they won’t necessarily stop, because they won’t know it’s you. It could be that you post in the same room all the time, or start with the same spoken introduction. Whatever it is, keep the brand message consistent

Conclusion

You came here to find out if you can make money as a digital artist. And I’m hoping that question has been answered for you. You can absolutely make money as a digital artist, but it does take more than creating beautiful art. We’ve covered that you need to be a good marketeer, have excellent organisation skills, and be able to give the time and effort required to make it work. You will effectively be running a business, which takes a hell of a lot of work and dedication. Once you’ve got this nailed, you can absolutely make money as a digital artist!

If you’re interested in getting involved in digital art, then take a look at some of my recommendations on my Amazon Storefront.