That digital art marketplace I ignored for months turned out to be legit after I sold a $40 sketch in under an hour

I signed up for ArtPal back in June just to prove a point to my friend that nobody buys from new artists there, but my first upload of a simple character portrait sold to someone in Sweden within 45 minutes and now I'm wondering if I should move all my stuff over.

3 comments

3 Comments

john_fisher1mo ago

Artpal is actually decent. I threw a random watercolor on there last year and it sold to some lady in Germany in like 3 hours. The fees are low too compared to Etsy. Just check if your stuff fits their categories, some of my weirder pieces got flagged.

jamie_adams1mo ago

Wait @john_fisher, did they give you a reason why your weirder stuff got flagged? I've been thinking about trying Artpal for some of my mixed media collages, but they're kind of abstract and might not fit their normal categories. Like, is it just a content moderation thing or are they super strict about what's considered "art"? Some platforms are real picky about nudes or political stuff, but mine are just weird shapes and textures, nothing offensive. I just don't want to waste time uploading a bunch of pieces only to have them rejected after I've already added descriptions and tags. Also, did you have to adjust the price for international buyers or was it fine with their default conversion rates?

davidkim1mo ago

Kind of funny you mention that, I had a weird piece from last year that was just a photo of my old sneaker with some paint splattered on it, and that got flagged too. Their moderation seems to lean on the safe side, like they're not sure if abstract stuff counts as art. For international sales, I just left the default conversion and it worked fine for that watercolor, but the buyer might have paid a bit more with exchange fees baked in. Your mixed media collages would probably be fine, but you might want to message them first to check if abstract is okay, saves the hassle of retagging.