How to sell art online: originals, prints and digital files

What kind of art should you sell online?

Originals sell once at the highest price, prints sell many times, and files sell with no shipping at all. You can mix them, so one piece reaches buyers at more than one price.

A limited edition is a fixed number of copies, each numbered as its place in the run, so the fourth print of 50 reads 4/50.

Where can you sell art online, and what does each keep?

A $600 original leaves a different amount in each place, and each place does a different job for its cut. These are the fees each company publishes, read in November 2026.

The store figure is Shopify's online card rate on Basic, 2.9% plus 30 cents, with the plan at $29 a month paid yearly or $39 monthly. Saatchi Art's page says you pay for the packaging. Etsy also takes 6.5% of any shipping you charge, per its fee page. The gallery range is the one Shopify's own guide gives.

You can use more than one. The full Etsy math is in Etsy vs Shopify fees, the marketplace side in Amazon vs Shopify, and every plan in Shopify pricing.

How do you price art to sell online?

Start from your costs plus your time, then check what artists at your stage charge. For an original, add materials, your hours at a rate you choose, and a markup. That is cost-plus pricing.

Say a print sells for $40. Printing costs $9, packing $3, and the card fee $1.46. That leaves $26.54, or 66% of the price. A markup and a margin give two different percentages from the same numbers, so pick one and keep to it. Track your profit margin per size.

Price a limited edition above an open edition of the same piece, as Shopify's guide advises. That is value based pricing: the print costs you the same, but fewer copies make it worth more to buyers.

How do you photograph or scan art for your store?

Shoppers can't see the piece in person, so the photo has to show its true color, size and surface. Scan flat work, in parts if a piece is larger than the scanner. Shoot canvases in soft, even light to avoid glare. Add one picture on a wall for scale and one close-up for texture. The lighting setup is in our product photography guide.

How do you sell an original painting on Shopify?

Make it a product with a stock of 1, and Shopify stops the sale once it sells.

1. From your Shopify admin, go to Products, then Add product. Enter the title, price and photos.
2. In the Inventory section, switch on Inventory tracked, the setting that makes Shopify count stock. Set the quantity to 1.
3. In the Shipping section, keep Physical product on and enter the painting's weight.
4. Save.

Sell when out of stock stays Off by default, so at zero shoppers can't add the piece to their cart. Inventory tracked and Quantity are the labels on the redesigned product form, as Sledge's demo store showed it on November 9, 2026. On the older form, the switch reads Track quantity and the field Available.

Once it sells, you can keep it out of the collection shoppers browse. Build an automated collection with the condition Inventory stock is greater than 0, and sold pieces drop out of it. Their product pages stay live. Or leave them up as a record of what sold, and check how your theme shows a sold-out piece.

How do you sell prints in several sizes, or a limited edition?

Make one product with a Size option, and give each size its own price. In the Variants section, the part of the product form for sizes and colors, click Add options like size or color. Type Size and create it, then type each size and click Done. Shopify lists one row per size, with its own price and stock. A product takes up to 3 options and 2,048 combinations. Before you order a large size, ask your printer what file size it needs.

Shopify counts stock per size, so split an edition up front: 50 prints in three sizes might be 20, 20 and 10. Number each print as it ships.

If you'd rather not print or pack at all, print-on-demand prints and ships each order for you. Start with how to start a print on demand business, then Printful vs Printify.

To take orders for an edition you haven't printed, open Sell when out of stock in the Inventory section and tick Shopify's Continue selling when out of stock, which keeps it buyable at zero. A pre-order app such as Sledge switches that setting on for the products you pick and adds a "Pre-order" button and a note shoppers see in the cart, at checkout and in the order email. When you turn the pre-order off, Sledge switches back only the settings it changed.

How do you sell digital downloads of your art?

Shopify's free Digital Products app emails the shopper a download link after payment. It used to be called Digital Downloads.

Install the app, then go to Apps and open Digital Products. Click Add assets, pick File and upload the art. Keep Delivery method on Send automatically, and save, which creates the product. Then open it from Products to set the price, and check that Physical product is off in its Shipping section so no shipping is charged.

Each size or version takes up to 50 files, 5 GB in all, with no bandwidth limit, per Shopify's Help Center. Access limit, the number of times a link works, starts at Unlimited. Shopify adds no fee for selling digital products on your online store.

Place a test order before you launch, and check that the email with the link arrives.

How do you ship art without damage?

Pack for rough handling, weigh it with the packing, and insure the original. Shopify's guide gives the basics:

• Large prints and posters go in a mailing tube, small prints in a rigid cardboard mailer.
• A glassine or cellophane sleeve keeps the surface clean.
• Cardboard corners protect framed works and canvases.
• An unstretched canvas can be rolled to cut freight.

Shopify's package types are box, soft pack, envelope and carrier flat rate. A soft pack thicker than 3/4 inch doesn't qualify for USPS First Class Mail rates. FedEx's own tube is among the carrier packages. With weight-based rates, Shopify adds your default package's weight to the product's weight at checkout, so set that package to what your tube or box weighs. More on rates in Shopify shipping rates and on labels in how to make a shipping label in Shopify.

On labels you buy in Shopify and ship from the US, Grow and higher plans with Shopify Payments include up to $200 of insurance per eligible label. Extra cover costs $0.89 per $100 on a domestic label, up to $5,000, so $600 of cover on Basic, which includes none, is about $5.34. Shipping protection is a different thing: the shopper pays for it at checkout.

How do you find your first buyers?

Nobody finds a new store by chance, so the first shoppers come from you. Three places to start:

• An email list from your first sale, with Shopify's email tools.
• The platform where people already see your work, with a link to the store.
• A marketplace listing as a test of what sells and at what price.