Gumroad, Cubebrush, ArtStation Marketplace or all three?
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To either sellers or buyers, what do you recommend is the best place to buy/sell digital art assets? I used to buy from Gumroad but now I am noticing a lot of artists are posting their products on ArtStation too.
It looks like right now if I just want to sell gumroad is cheaper until ArtStation releases the store websites where you will then earn more. I'm wondering though if it makes more sense to just put it all on artstation because of the discoverability and all the other features that come with the price. Any thoughts?
It looks like right now if I just want to sell gumroad is cheaper until ArtStation releases the store websites where you will then earn more. I'm wondering though if it makes more sense to just put it all on artstation because of the discoverability and all the other features that come with the price. Any thoughts?
Replies
Gumroad is all-around the worst now. It has the worst fee structure without paying the $10 a month, and to justify the $10 you have to be making, if I recall correctly, at least a few hundred a month off sales from their site alone.
They have by far the worst storefront for customers as well.
Perhaps most importantly, they're extremely anti-seller. They've been known to shut down people's payouts for arbitrary reasons and just keep all your sales, which is legally grey at best.
They nearly did that to me a while back just because I changed my email address, though it was eventually sorted out.
They do have the best seller tools at the moment, such as analytics and mailing lists. But this comes no where near making up for its flaws to me.
Cubebrush is in the best position for now. It has the best fee structure. It has the best storefront for customers. And they're working on a lot of the same tools Gumroad currently provides for sellers.
It also has great passive traffic, and awesome tools for customers such as product ratings, comments, and wishlists. You can also see these yourself, and get a great view of how well received your products are by customers.
One thing I really hate is that they only pay out through Paypal, but supposedly they're working on that. Why it's so hard for them when Artstation came out the gate with direct deposit is beyond me.
Cubebrush also provides pretty decent free promotions through various recommendations given to customers.
Artstation is too new to pull out ahead, but it's been going in a great direction. Once the tools are fully fleshed out, it might become the best.
By default the fees are identical to Cubebrush, except that Cubebrush charges only 5% for sales generated by direct links, such as from your own ads or social media posts.
If you're a Pro member, they charge less than Cubebrush for passive traffic.
On the other hand, Artstation has been working on allowing Pro members to embed their storefront in their Artstation Pro website directly, and charging only 5% for any sales generated off your site, which is even better than Cubebrush's direct link system. Not only is it easier to link to, but the site itself can generate passive traffic sales.
They're also working on many of the same tools Cubebrush is, and have been making much faster progress on them. For example they just recently released sales analytics.
The storefront for customers currently can't match Cubebrush. You can't search for specific things as easily, and there aren't any ratings, comments or wishlists. Though it still far surpasses Gumroad in that area.
You might think that would give Cubebrush better sales through passive traffic, but due to the sheer user-base of Artstation compared to Cubebrush I've not found a large difference between them in that area.
Never used Artstation marketplace, but i'm sure it will grow fast, and since a lot of industry people have their portfolio there, it would be a nice thing to have your store directly attached with your portfolio
I never use Gumroad because it doesn't look user friendly to me, it's not as easy as the two others in my opinion.
Also if you are targeting a precise game engine maybe you could put your assets it respective market ? I think it's the first place people goes to get their assets integrated quickly.