How to Sell Printables on Etsy: An Easy Guide to Making Passive Income

Do you have a bit of a creative streak, or even just the will to learn some graphic design and photo editing? If so, you're on track to getting yourself a nice source of passive income: making and selling printables.

Selling printables and other digital products is a highly profitable niche that you can scale up as much as you like. Need a side hustle? You've got it. Want to quit your job and start your own business? This can do the trick, too! 

If you're ready to sell printables, your options are to sign up with Whop and start selling sell in a few minutes, or to try your luck with Etsy. Below, we'll show you how to sell printables on Etsy and give you some expert tips on how to make money by selling digital products.

What are Printables?

Printables are digital products you can make and sell. The customer can purchase and download them, and then print them at home without your involvement. They're a great middle ground between buying a full-fledged product, such as a planner, and having to design it all by yourself.

Making printables is a fun and easy gig if you have a knack for design, but it's not only for those who are creative. All you need to do is teach yourself a design program or two, come up with an idea you like, and get to it.

The best thing about printables is that they're a great source of passive income. Although some Etsy sellers offer printables with the option to edit them for the customer at an extra fee, most people just sell Evergreen products as is. This means that you can make your designs and list them for sale, then watch them start making you some nice coin. 

In the meantime, you're free to do anything you like, such as working on more designs to sell! 

Can You Really Make Money with Printables?

Yes, you can absolutely make money by selling printables and other digital products. In fact, all things considered, this is one of the most flexible ways to make money online.

This is a good side gig because you can do it from anywhere, even on your phone, and whenever you have time—hence the flexibility. However, for such a versatile niche, selling digital products is also profitable, and the market is in a state of constant growth.

The digital printing market, which also includes printables, is definitely trending upward right now. Valued at $33.43 billion in 2024, it's projected to grow to $45.93 billion by 2029, which translates to a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 6.56%. 

Digital products, as a whole, are a booming market all on their own. McKinsey predicts that global spending on digital goods will hit $135 billion in 2024. The growth from 2021, when global spending on virtual goods was at around $110 billion, is exponential. This is more than double the spending in 2015, by the way.

So, we're dealing with a highly profitable market here, and it's one that isn't going anywhere. But perhaps the best thing about printables is that they have a really high-profit margin. Digital products can offer profit margins that go above 80%, and you can sell them repeatedly without additional expenses. If you play your cards right, it's something of an internet goldmine. 

You might need to invest a little bit of money upfront for a subscription to a stock photo website or subscribing to a design program, but those expenses will pay off with just a few sales. Other than that, your only investment will be your own time, and building a business is usually worth it.

How To Sell Printables on Etsy: The 5-Step Process

Selling printables on Etsy is a fairly simple process. Outside of creating your products, you'll need to go through setting up and adding your printables. 

Below, we'll walk you through our 5-step process to get you started on your road to success.

1. Choose a profitable niche

Before you sink too much time into your new project, it's important to make sure you're betting on the right niches. Etsy is flooded with printables of all shapes and sizes, but if you carve yourself a good niche, you'll be all set to start making money.

To figure out a niche, do some of the following:

• Browse Etsy and sort by "Etsy's Picks," "Most Relevant," and "Top Reviews" to see what is popular on the platform
• Use Google Trends, Sale Samurai, Marmalead, Ahrefs, or SEMrush to identify popular trends
• Browse Pinterest for ideas 
• Explore the stores of your top competitors and take notes
• Consider buying a few cheap printables from your competitors just to scope out what they're doing

In general, some of the most popular niches on Etsy include:

• Planners and organizers
• Wall art
• Party invitations 
• Educational printables
• Calendars
• Stickers
• Baby shower and wedding printables
• Seasonal printables, such as for going back to school or for Halloween

After some thorough research, identify 3-5 niches that resonate with you and narrow it down to the one you want to start with.

2. Make your printable

Here comes the fun part—it's time to make your printables. You've chosen a niche, so you probably have an idea in mind for what to make. If not, check out our list of the best digital products to sell, and also scroll down for Etsy-specific recommendations.

If you're a graphic designer, you already know what to do. But for the rest of us, this is the fun part of the process, but it can also be a bit confusing. There are hundreds, if not thousands, of tools and websites you can use to make your printables. So where do you even begin? 

We've got you covered.

First, design programs. Those are the bread and butter of any printable seller, unless you choose to outsource the work to a freelance graphic designer. Let's go over some of the most popular options for this one.

• Canva. Canva is a free tool that offers pre-made templates for various printables, including planners, invitations, and posters. It offers some freemium features, though, with many templates being locked behind a paywall. You can also subscribe to the Pro plan for access to more features. You can't just re-sell the designs as-is—you need to modify them first.
• GIMP. Unlike Canva, GIMP won't give you any pre-made templates, but you can use it to make printables from scratch for free.
• Adobe Creative Cloud. Subscribing to Adobe's stack of SaaS design tools gives you access to just about everything you could wish for, but it's pretty expensive, starting at $9.99/month and going beyond $59.99/month.
• Affinity Designer. This is an alternative to Adobe products that's more expensive upfront, but cheaper in the long run with a one-time $70 fee. It offers a six-month trial, though, so that's a good start.
• PicMonkey. This tool offers both templates and photo editing features. It's not free and you'll have to pay upfront after the 7-day trial is over, starting at $72 per year.

Depending on the type of printable you're making, you may or may not need stock photos and other graphic resources. For this, it's important to do some research and make sure that the photos or graphics that you're using are legal to edit and re-sell.

For stock photos, make sure to check out:

• Unsplash. The photos are usually free and commercial use is allowed. You'll have to modify the photos before selling them, and check the credits for each photo to make extra sure you're in the clear.
• Creative Market. This is a marketplace for premium design assets, including fonts, illustrations, templates, and more. Some downloads are free, but many will cost you.
• DesignCuts. This website also offers various creative assets, like fonts and brushes, but some are quite expensive.
• Pexels. Similar to Unsplash.
• Shutterstock. Shutterstock is expensive if you pay on a by-photo basis—the prices are sometimes eye-watering, really. But if you subscribe, it's a great source of high-quality stock photos.

Take your time making your printables. Make several options for each template and design, and don't be shy about showing them off to your friends and family. You want people to like these, so a second set of eyes can really help.

3. Set up your Etsy Store

You've got your printables, and now, it's time to start selling them.

On the Etsy home page, click on "Sign in," and then "Register". Type in all the relevant information and confirm your email address. This gets you an account—the next step is to set up a storefront.

To do this, unfold the dropdown menu that contains your profile and choose "Sell on Etsy." The process of setting up an Etsy Store is fairly simple. You'll be asked to fill out some of the following:

• Your country
• Currency
• Shop language
• Shop name

In the next step, you'll be making your first listing. At first, Etsy will prompt you to add one product—we'll go over that in more detail below. If you're not ready to do that just yet, no worries. You can just make a product called "Test" or something along those lines and delete it later.

Next, set up your payment and billing. You'll get paid by Etsy, but you will also need to pay Etsy for each listing, and Etsy takes a cut out of each sale, as well as an additional payment processing fee.

4. Add your printable products

You'll add one product first, and the rest of them later, but at the end of this process, you'll have listed as many printables as you like. How do you get to that point? Well, there's a lot to fill out, that's for sure, but we'll walk you through it.

The actual process of adding new products is pretty lengthy, but mostly straightforward—you'll just go from top to bottom, filling in the various things that Etsy wants you to decide on. Right away, you'll be faced with an important choice: naming your product.

Having done some research beforehand, you probably know what kind of names your competitors use for their products. While you don't want to copy them word for word, it's important to use some of the same keywords so that customers can easily find your printables. Reading up on search engine optimization (SEO) is worth your time.

Add as many images as possible. You often won't have images of your printables on physical products, but creating some mockups is a good idea. You can also make a video or two that showcases your product, which is great for sales.

When it comes to product descriptions, leave no stone unturned. Ask yourself what the customer might want to know and mention it, including things like dimensions, whether the product can be edited and re-sold, and the types of things the design might be printed on, such as t-shirts or mugs. Just as with titles, lean into SEO and ecommerce marketing starts to make your printables more visible in the Etsy marketplace.

Pricing is perhaps the most tricky thing in this whole process. When choosing your prices, consider the following:

• Competitor pricing (most printables are under $10)
• The time it took you to make your printables
• Whether there are many similar products on the market or not
• Overhead costs, such as software subscriptions, Etsy fees, marketing costs, and even your power bill
• Whether the products are on trend right now (especially important in seasonal printables, like Christmas cards)
• Your target audience

You'll find that many Etsy sellers choose to run frequent, or even perpetual, discounts. This gives the customers a feeling of urgency and entices them to buy, so you can try it out on a few of your products.

5. Market your printables business

With your store fully stocked, it's time to start thinking about marketing outside of the Etsy platform.

You've already done some of it by integrating SEO into your product names and descriptions as well as adding high-quality pictures and videos of your printables. Here's what else you can do to ensure that your printables are seen by as many pairs of eyeballs as possible.

• Create a target persona to learn where and how to market your products.
• Use tools like Sale Samurai, Marmalead, Ahrefs, and SEMrush to find the right keywords to include in product titles and descriptions.
• Use the Etsy Search Analytics tool to see which keywords are driving traffic to your shop and which ones need to be updated.
• Make sure all your products have plenty of images and videos.
• Customize your storefront with information about you and your products, as well as a personalized banner.
• Consider investing in Etsy Ads.
• Set up social media profiles for your store and post frequently.
• Run discounts and giveaways on your social media—it's a win-win. You'll get more followers and more customers in one go.

10 Best-Selling Printables on Etsy

If you're not too particular about what you want to make, you might as well go for gold. By making one of the best-selling printables, you're also making it easier for yourself to get sales.

There's one downside to entering an evergreen niche, though—it's usually saturated. Stick to your marketing strategies and keep a close eye on the competition when you sell one of the following.

Some of the most popular printables on Etsy and elsewhere include:

1. Coloring pages and books

These days, kids and adults alike love to indulge in some good old-fashioned coloring. You can sell books separately or build bundles, and popular options include seasonal themes, alphabet and numbers for kids, mandala designs, and affirmation coloring pages.

2. Planners, trackers, and journals

Planners and journals are huge on Etsy and elsewhere, as are trackers. Daily and weekly planners, habit trackers, budget planners, self-care journals, or ADHD task trackers are great options to make. 

3. Printables for weddings, baby showers, and other events

Event-related printables are evergreen, as many of these events take place all year round, and there's a lot of room for customization. Look into wedding invitations, bridal shower games, save-the-date cards, baby shower decorations, event invitations, and party favors like labels and thank-you notes.

4. Craft patterns

Etsy is all about being crafty, so it's no wonder that various crafting patterns sell very well. If you make these yourself and include photos of your finished product, you can often charge a premium. The most popular options include sewing, knitting, crocheting, paper crafts like origami, embroidery, and quilting.

5. Logos, business cards, and branding materials

Companies and people alike often need graphic assets that they can use for their own websites or marketing materials. You can sell bundles of logo designs, templates for business cards, social media branding kits, flyers and brochures, and email signature templates.

6. Wall art and decoration

Etsy is flooded with wall art and decoration, and a lot of those things are fairly easy to make. You can sell quote prints, abstract art (often used in Airbnbs), children's room decor, seasonal art, or gorgeous photographs.

7. Printables for kids

There are so many fun printables you can make for kids! Try out chore charts, learning games, back-to-school signs, birthday decor and invitations, growth charts, or even children's books if you feel like writing.

8. Printable cards

Various cards make great printables. From Christmas cards to thank-you notes to birthday wishes, you can sell these in bundles or one at a time at a surprisingly high-profit margin.

9. Seasonal printables

Decorating the house for every holiday gets expensive if you're mostly shopping in brick-and-mortar stores. Printables make it cheaper, which is why they're popular on Etsy. Tap into things like Christmas gift tags, Halloween decorations, Valentine's Day cards, or party decor for the Fourth of July.

10. Educational worksheets and homeschooling materials

Students and their parents alike are always on the lookout for useful worksheets and materials, including math worksheets, reading comprehension sheets, or language learning flashcards. You can tailor these for homeschooling purposes, or just sell them for every student to use.

Where Else Can You Sell Printables?

Etsy is one of the most popular platforms for selling printables, but it's not always the best one. In fact, there are options that might be better suited to your needs.

While Etsy has plenty of perks, it's not perfect. The platform charges a $0.20 fee for every product listing. In the case of printables, this is a significant downside, as you will often have dozens, if not hundreds, of products up for sale at any given time. 

Etsy also takes a 6.5% cut out of every sale, plus a 3% + $0.25 fee for payment processing. It all adds up. Plus, the market is pretty saturated, which makes it harder to get your products seen.

Where else can you sell your printables? Here are three options.

1. Whop

Whop is a social commerce platform and the go-to for selling digital products. Whether you want to sell journals, coloring pages, or even ebooks, Whop gives you the flexibility you need to grow as an entrepreneur and make money online.

With Whop, you can make your own whop hub and upload your printables in no time. Whop handles the entire process, from accepting payments to making sure that buyers get their printables quickly. It's simple and seamless, both for you and for your customers. Plus, Whop only takes a 3% cut of your sales.

2. Easy Digital Downloads

If you have your own WordPress website, or you're planning to set one up, Easy Digital Downloads can help you start selling printables through your own platform. This is because EDD is a WordPress plugin, so instead of using a separate marketplace, you'll sell printables directly on your own website.

Easy Digital Downloads is straightforward if you know WordPress, but if you don't, you'll have a lot of reading to do before you can get started. It offers a basic plan for free, but if you want to unlock useful functionalities like custom pricing and recurring payments, you may have to pay up to $500/year.

3. Payhip

Payhip is a platform where you can sell all kinds of digital products without a website. This includes printables, of which you'll find plenty on Payhip. The platform also protects you from piracy with tools like PDF stamping.

Signing up is free and you can stay on Payhip's free plan, but then, you'll lose 5% of every sale to platform fees. There are also two paid plans that reduce transaction fees but require monthly payments: one priced at $29/month (2% transaction fee) and the other one priced at $99/month (0% transaction fee).

Why Whop is the Number One Place To Sell Digital Products

When we say that Whop is the go-to for selling digital products, we mean it. Why? Because we work with creators like you, and we know how valuable your time is. That's why we built whop to be as easy to use as it can be.

You shouldn't have to spend hours creating listings just to sell your printables. Likewise, you shouldn't need to set up your own website to start a business. Just as importantly, you shouldn't have to pay even a dime without knowing when you'll score your first sales. Such a system is punishing to new creators, and that's not our style. We want to help you grow, no matter if you're in this for the long haul or if you just need a side gig to make some extra cash.

With Whop, you can sell all your printables at the lowest fees possible, with no upfront costs. You can list as many products as you like, and you can create bundles to score even more sales. You can even take it all to the next level and expand your range by adding ebooks and other downloadables—all of this can be sold as part of your own whop hub.

Choose Whop for selling your printables and make money on your own terms. Getting started is free and it only takes a couple of minutes, so sign up today.