If you design t-shirts, stickers or wall art, "should I sell on Etsy or Redbubble?" usually comes down to one thing: which one lets you keep more of the sale? The honest answer is that they charge you in completely different ways, so the fee comparison only makes sense once you understand who's doing the work. Here's how each one takes its cut in 2026, worked through a real example.
Two different business models, not two versions of the same fee
On Redbubble you upload a design, Redbubble prints it, ships it and handles customer service. You never touch a product. Redbubble sets a base price for each item (the shirt, the printing, their cut), and you add a margin on top — 20% by default, but you can change it. The buyer pays base + your margin, and you keep the margin. There's no listing fee, no monthly fee, and no separate transaction fee — the base price already contains everything Redbubble keeps.
On Etsy you run the shop. Whether you print the shirts yourself or use a print-on-demand partner like Printful, you pay for the product and fulfillment, and Etsy charges you marketplace fees on top: a $0.20 listing fee, a 6.5% transaction fee on the whole order (including shipping), and payment processing (3% + $0.25 in the US). More on those in Etsy fees explained.
So Redbubble's "fee" is invisible — it's baked into a base price you don't get to see broken down. Etsy's fees are visible line items, but you also carry the product cost yourself. Comparing them fairly means looking at what lands in your pocket, not the fee percentages.
The same $25 shirt, both ways
Say a customer pays $25 for a t-shirt.
On Redbubble, a standard tee might have a base price around $20. If you keep the default 20% margin, the buyer pays roughly $24 and you earn about $4. Push your margin higher and you earn more per sale, but your price climbs above other artists selling the identical Redbubble blank — so most sellers stay near the default. Your take-home is the margin, full stop: no product cost to subtract, because Redbubble already covered it.
On Etsy, you set the $25 price. Etsy's fees on that sale are about $0.20 + $1.63 + $1.00 = $2.83 (see how much Etsy takes from a $25 sale). That leaves ~$22.17 — but now you pay for the shirt. If a print-on-demand partner charges you $12 for the printed tee plus shipping baked into your price, your actual profit is closer to $8–$10. If you print it yourself for $6 in materials, it can be $14+.
The pattern: Redbubble is simpler and hands-off but caps you at a thin margin; Etsy is more work and more fees on paper, yet usually leaves more profit per sale because you control the price and the product. This is the same trade-off we cover in print-on-demand profit margins.
The fees Redbubble comparisons quietly skip
Two things make the gap wider than a simple example suggests — and they cut in Etsy's favour and against it:
- Volume and pricing power. On Redbubble you compete on a level blank against every other artist, so raising your margin directly raises your price. On Etsy you own the listing, the photos and the brand, so you can charge more for the same design — that's where the real profit gap opens up.
- Non-US Etsy fees. If your bank is outside the US, Etsy stacks higher payment processing (e.g. 4% + £0.20 in the UK), a regulatory operating fee, and often VAT on the fees themselves. Redbubble's margin model hides all of this in the base price, so a non-US seller's Etsy math needs a closer look. See the hidden costs for non-US sellers.
And on both platforms, ads change everything. Etsy's Offsite Ads can add 12–15% on an attributed sale; on Redbubble, promoting your work is on you and doesn't come out of a fee line — but neither shows up in a naive "which has lower fees" comparison.
So which keeps more of your money?
If you want zero setup, no product cost and no customer service, Redbubble keeps things simple — but you're accepting a small, fixed margin and little control over price. If you're willing to run a shop, pick your own print partner or make items yourself, and build a brand, Etsy almost always leaves more profit per sale despite its visible fees — because you set the price and keep the difference. Many sellers do both: Redbubble for passive volume, Etsy for the products they can price and profit from. (For the marketplace-vs-your-own-store version of this question, see Etsy vs Shopify fees.)
Know your real number, not the estimate
The catch with any comparison like this is that the figures are estimates. Etsy's actual charges shift with refunds, ad attribution, exact processing amounts and — for non-US sellers — VAT on fees that only your Etsy ledger shows. You can ballpark a single order with our free Etsy fee calculator, but to see what you truly earn per design after every fee and your product cost, you need your real data. That's what Seller Profit Lens does: it connects to your Etsy shop read-only, reads the fees Etsy actually charged to the cent, and subtracts your own costs to show real profit per product — so you can tell which designs and which platform are actually making you money. It's free in beta right now. Join the waitlist →