Selling on Etsy vs. Creative Market

This post will feature selling on both Etsy vs Creative Market as a Digital Designer.

I opened up my first Etsy store back in 2007 and since then have ran a few shops on there. This one is technically still active but I have not had time to dedicate to it at all which is why you will see no listings) Within the last year, my side hustles was opening up 2 Stores: Typemaven (Etsy and Creative Market) and Flat Lay Studio on (Etsy and Creative Market).

Primary Differences

Etsy primarily sells physical goods and handmade products, and within the last several years, I’ve seen digital assets added. The community is largely made up of craftsmen, artisans, and designers and some stores even sell supplies to these artists. The end user is made up of the general public.

Creative Market sells digital assets like fonts, stock photos, clipart, illustrations, digital papers, resumes. The community is largely made up of designers, illustrators, photographers and developers. The end user is usually a fellow designer, developer, photographer or a creative individual.

I will talk about the differences in User Interface, Marketing, and lastly Finances, especially for Canadians.

User Interface

Inside the Listings
Uploading and maintaining over 150 stock photo listings in both my shops (they are duplicates of each other), I have definitely become very intimate with their respective interfaces. I can definitely say that Etsy is way easier to use for simple things like being able to drag multiple photo listings right into the browser (whereas in Creative Market, you have to do them one by one, and using a Wacom Tablet and pencil DO NOT make this any easier because their scroll box doesn’t work properly unless you use an actual mouse).

File Sizes
If you are selling digital goods like me, Etsy only allows a max of 20mb per file upload on their servers and you are allowed up to 5 files. This makes it hard when you are selling high res 300 dpi stock photos where one file can reach up to 100mb.

A workaround that I have implemented:

Organize each of my stock photo listings in numbered folders on my desktop.
Zip the entire download and upload to my server.
Use a site like Rebrandly to create a unique url which is great at hiding the location of that file on your server.
Create a PDF with this url link in it and upload this to ETSY as the digital download itself, which serves as the instructions for the purchaser on where to download the digital good.
Manage all the URL’s on a spreadsheet. Yes, that’s right, for me that is 150+ Url’s. This may sound way complicated, but once you get the rhythm going, you can bang this out fairly quick if you set up the process right. It will only take a matter of minutes. And you can pre-create all the folders and PDF’s prior.

UPDATE August 2020: An even better workaround I have implemented

Get a Standard or Professional Dropbox account. You have to pay money to make money! Copy and organize all your files into Dropbox. I mimic my folders exactly so I know what to replace if I have an update.
You are able to share specific files and folders as a link. You can find this link by clicking on either the file itself or the folder in your dropbox. Copy the url into a PDF that you will create and then upload this PDF into ETSY as the download.

Creative Market on the other hand, allows you a whopping 4GB x 1 file upload per listing. All you have to do is zip your entire download in one sitting. For ease of use, I still implement my PDF download strategy because it is easier to maintain in the long run. If I have any file changes, I can just upload the changed file onto my server rather than going back to each listing and re-uploading that digital asset. I don’t even have to touch any listings if I have to make a change to the file itself. The url always remains the same (assuming I don’t change the name).

Aesthetics of your listing
Etsy doesn’t have any option to make your copy look any more exciting other than their default font. Creative Market allows you to use Bold, Underline, Italic, Bullets and Horizontal Rules.

Copying Listings
Etsy allows you replicate a listing down to tag words and you just swap out the photos, change the title, price and copy. This is very handy when you are selling things that are similar with minor differences. Creative Market on the other hand doesn’t allow you to copy listings, you have create a new one altogether and re-input the keywords, price etc.

Editing Multiple Listings
They each have their own unique options, Etsy allows you to add text to ALL your listings at the same time. For example if you forgot to write down at the bottom of each listing “Copyright 2018”, all you have to do is select your listings and ADD text to wherever you want it to go. There are so many more features such as changing prices on multiple listings in one shot etc. Creative Market on the other hand, has a “edit multiple listings” feature, but all it is really is having about 8 of your listings on one page with the ability to click in each one to edit in the same window without having to open each to edit in another window.

Currency
Etsy allows your shop to sell in the currency of your country of origin. Creative Market only sets prices in USD.

Marketing and Traffic

Etsy has dedicated an entire section to just marketing and integrates into many aspects of social media such as Pinterest. For analytics and stats, it tells you all the search queries that resulted in visits, impression amounts, conversion rates and revenue and this goes very deep into details. Also, how many visits resulted in a sale, how many visits to your shop as a result through searches via Etsy, Pinterest, Facebook, Instagram, Google etc.

Etsy also allows you to add coupon codes, run discount programs, and promote any of your listings by setting a daily budget (min $1.00) and also gives accompanying stats just for these programs. It also integrates with accounting systems such as Quickbooks.

Creative Market doesn’t have nearly any of this, just conversion rates. However, it does allow you to submit to offer a free good. This is a great way to market your products and get exposure. BUT, I’ve tried to do this many times and each time I have been rejected. When they only allow 6 free goods a week, you are competing will thousands of other people so it is nearly impossible to get chosen.

Finances

Finally! The reason why you are reading this right? So the ultimate question, which one makes you more money? Well, hard to say because both platforms appeal to different audiences. While I get more sales on Creative Market, I get better Payouts in Etsy. Here’s why.

ETSY

There are so many factors at play with the financial aspect in Etsy, like currency, exchange rates, shipping costs, where you live which has different percentage transaction rates, and much more, so I’m just going to focus on the fact that I’m a simple Canadian gal selling digital products everywhere (these are instant downloads and require no shipping). All below are in USD. (The majority of my purchasers are in the USA)

Listing Fee: $0.20 per listing for 4 months. If your product doesn’t sell, you can enable an auto renew feature. If your product sells, then you have to renew again at the cost of $.020. This price has stayed the same every since I signed up with Etsy back in 2007. Depending on how many listings you have (I have 150, some stores have several hundreds), this fee can accumulate quickly. So if I sold absolutely nothing for 4 months, I would be paying about $7.50/month to maintain 150 active listings.
Transaction Fees for Canada: 5% per transaction
Payment Transaction Fee: Canada (domestic orders or orders from the US) 3% + 0.25 CAD / Canada (international orders) 4% + 0.25 CAD using Etsy Payments.
When do you get paid? You can choose the money to be deposited into your account every day, every week, bi-weekly, or monthly.

Creative Market

It’s very straightforward, the only thing you are going to be confused about is all the tax forms. And because of this, I lost hundreds of dollars the last year.

Listing Fee: $0
Transaction Fee: 30% per transaction (Update Dec 2019 – this has now increased to 40% so adjust math accordingly below in all scenarios)
Withholding Tax Rate: 30%* (See below, the reason why I lost hundreds of dollars)
Payment Transaction Fee: if you want to be paid through Paypal: 1% of the amount, maximum USD 10.00. If you want a direct deposit into your bank account that is free. There are also other options such as wire transfers which costs $20 USD.
When do you get paid? Payments are not automatic, and you must have a minimum of $20 in your account. You must request a payout before the end of the month and be paid the 15th of the following month.

Let’s do a comparison

Scenario: Let’s say I sold 5 digital stock photos last month at a price of $9.00 USD each within Canada and the USA on both platforms:

Etsy

Gross Sales: $45
Listing Fees: ($.20 x 5) = $1.00
Transaction Fee: ($45 x 5%) = $2.25
Payment Transaction Fee: (($45 x 3%) + ($0.25 x 5)) = $2.60
Net Sale: $39.15

Creative Market

Gross Sales: $45
Listing Fee: $0
Transaction Fee:($45 x 30%) = $13.50
Withholding tax Rate: 30%* = $13.50 (more on this below)
Payment Transaction Fee: $0 (if you use Paypal, then -$0.32)
Approx Net Sale: $18 (yes you read that right)

So, by this comparison, I’m making approx $21.15 more selling on Etsy.
If I were to take away the 30% Withholding Tax Rate, then I am still making $7.65 more on Etsy.

Withholding Tax

What is a Withholding Tax? In short, if you are a Canadian selling to US buyers, the US Government will withhold 30% of your earnings. Creative Market will facilitate this. The work around to this is that you have to provide a Personal Identification to be exempt.

When I initially filled out Creative Market’s tax forms, it was very confusing (and still is) about what this identification number was. I had incorrectly put my Canadian Business Number. So for 1.5 years, they were holding 30% of each sale ON TOP of the 30% transaction fee.

So if I sold something for $28, I would be making a net sale of $11.20. This amounted to hundreds of dollars in losses.

So when I decided to write this post, I sat and thought that this is ridiculous and sent an email to their support. Well, now it turns out all that was needed was the S.I.N (Social Insurance Number) that was needed.

I went back in and entered it correctly and sent another email to support asking if I can be back paid for the losses. Their response was “It looks like your tax form is completed, so your sales to US buyers moving forward from that point are taxed at the rate of 0%. By federal US law, we cannot return previously withheld amounts to you. However, we will send you a Form 1099-MISC or 1042-S which you will be able to file with your taxes in order to potentially reduce your liability.”

Well it sucks that I lost hundreds by a simple dumb error on my part because I’m not an accountant and that I have an 11 year old and 2 year old which takes up 95% of my time so I cannot read the fine print nor have the energy for the past year to deal with this issue. Yes, I take full blame.

So, attention Canadians selling on Creative Market! Fill out the correct form which is the W-8BEN tax Form for Non-US Persons (Individuals) and enter your S.I.N. for the Personal Identification Number. Then you won’t be dumb like me.

For more honest experiences on selling on Creative Market, read Adrian Pelletier’s post:
A Complete and Honest Guide to Creative Market

Charging Taxes to the Purchaser

Etsy allows you to set up taxes in your store to the purchaser. So I have a fellow buyer from any given province, I can charge whatever tax rate is applicable. Creative Market does not have this option.

Which one makes me more money?

I make more money selling on Etsy if you were to talk transaction fees alone vs quantity of sales.
I make more money on Creative Market if you were to talk quantity of sales vs transaction fees.

So I guess that’s a fair comparison right?

It’s all about your audience

My digital photos works well on Creative Market because the audience needs my digital assets to HELP them. My listings on Etsy however, are competing with many other non-like things such as like handbags, wallpaper, nursing covers, and wooden coffee tables. The 2 are vastly different.

Can you get rich quick?

It’s definitely not a get rich quick scheme on either platforms. Although other blogs will tell you that. Well, at least for me.

It’s a slow and steady pace working upwards and you have to dedicate time to create, build and market you store listings and it doesn’t happen over night. But as with anything, perseverance always wins. Remember, quality over quantity. If you produce good stuff, it will sell.

While yes, I can complain about all the fees and such, but at the end of the day at least it’s better than making no money right? And I’m doing something I love! And even better, I’m creating passive income. That’s the beauty about selling digital products.