Best Way to Sell Fan-made Merch Designs as Paid Commissions

The best way to sell fan-made merch designs as paid commissions is to list one priced, scoped commission offer on your bio link instead of opening a print-on-demand shop. The follower pays upfront, attaches reference images, and receives a file or print-ready design inside a turnaround window you publish before anyone pays. Custom Work lets you offer clearly scoped commissions and services: you set the price, the scope and the delivery time, and followers submit a brief and pay before you start.

Artists get the same commission requests on repeat: “can you draw my OC as [character],” “make me a chibi version of this,” and “design a shirt with my two favorite characters together.” Answering those for free in replies or DMs trains an audience to expect free art. Turning the request into a priced, scoped commission changes nothing about the drawing — only who gets paid for it. Related reading: how to take paid commissions and how much to charge for a character design commission.

Should you sell fan art as a shop product or a paid commission?

Sell fan art as a paid commission when the request is personalized to one buyer, and as a shop product when one finished design can sell repeatedly to many buyers. A commission sells one artist’s time against one brief. A print-on-demand shop sells a fixed design at scale on the platform’s fee schedule, product templates, and catalog rules.

Marketplaces and print-on-demand platforms take a defined cut before a design ever ships. Etsy charges sellers a 6.5% transaction fee on the full amount a buyer pays, including shipping and gift wrapping, per Etsy’s Fees & Payments Policy. Etsy also charges $0.20 USD per listing, and an Etsy listing expires four months after it is posted, with another $0.20 USD charged on renewal, per Etsy’s Help Center article “Fees and Listing Multiple Quantities”. Etsy Payments processing in the United States costs 3% + $0.25 USD per order, charged in addition to the 6.5% transaction fee and calculated on the total sale price including shipping and sales tax, per Etsy’s Help Center article What are Payment Processing Fees for Selling on Etsy?. On your own Brillay page, a Custom Work listing takes one custom order at a time, with the scope and the delivery window written down and nothing to renew every four months.

Redbubble’s print-on-demand economics work differently from a flat marketplace commission because the artist’s margin is added on top of Redbubble’s base price rather than carved out of the retail price. Redbubble’s own worked example applies a 20% default artist margin to a $20 base price, producing a $4.00 artist margin and a $24 retail price before account fees, per Redbubble’s help article “How is my payment calculated?”. Redbubble deducts a 50% excess markup fee from gross earnings on any product where the artist sets a markup above 20%, per Redbubble’s help article How does the excess markup fee get calculated?. Redbubble account fees apply only against sales and are capped at $150 / £150 / €150 in total per account, per Redbubble’s help article What account fees exist on Redbubble?.

Selling a defined commission from your own link keeps pricing and scope in your hands instead of a marketplace’s fee schedule, listing expiry clock, and catalog rules. One Brillay link can hold your commission alongside your other offers, so clients do not have to hunt through different payment links.

Can you legally sell commissions based on someone else’s characters?

Selling a commission based on someone else’s character is not automatically legal. U.S. copyright law reserves derivative works to the copyright owner, and several major rights holders publish follower-content policies that permit fan art only when it is free and non-commercial. Paid commissions based on copyrighted characters may require the rights holder’s permission; limiting the artwork to personal use does not automatically make it legal.

Section 106 of U.S. copyright law lists “to prepare derivative works based upon the copyrighted work” among the exclusive rights reserved to the copyright owner, per the U.S. Copyright Office’s text of the statute in Circular 92, Chapter 1. For works created on or after January 1, 1978, U.S. copyright in a character’s underlying work runs for the life of the author plus 70 years, and 95 years from first publication or 120 years from creation, whichever expires first, for works made for hire, per Section 302 of U.S. copyright law in the U.S. Copyright Office’s Circular 92, Chapter 3. Fair use can apply to some uses, but the U.S. Copyright Office is explicit that no bright-line quantity test exists:

“There are no legal rules permitting the use of a specific number of words, a certain number of musical notes, or percentage of a work.” — U.S. Copyright Office, Fair Use FAQ

The U.S. Copyright Office advises creators to obtain permission from the copyright owner in cases of doubt, per its Fair Use FAQ.

Individual rights holders publish their own fan-art policies, and those policies are what an artist can check before accepting a commission tied to that franchise. Three major publishers state the commercial limit in writing.

Epic Games’ Fan Content Policy defines Fan Content as “your personal, non-commercial” fan art based on Epic IP and bars monetization outright in Section 1.4 of that policy:

“Fan Content must have no commercial (i.e., monetary) objective. As an exception to this, individual fans are permitted to monetize web videos (such as YouTube) with advertisements, so long as those videos otherwise meet the requirements of this Policy.” — Epic Games, Fan Content Policy, Section 1.4

Riot Games says projects using Riot IP are generally limited to noncommercial community use, with specific exceptions listed in its Legal Jibber Jabber policy, last updated August 2018:

“You may not create commercial Projects, including any Project that crowdsources any portion of its funding, any Project that involves a business or legal entity, or any Project where you gate the content with a paywall (e.g., Patreon, YouTube Premium, etc.) without a written license agreement from us.” — Riot Games, Legal Jibber Jabber, Section 2, last updated August 2018

Wizards of the Coast, whose Fan Content Policy was last updated November 15, 2017, is blunter still and names selling directly:

“You can’t sell or license your Fan Content to any third parties for any type of compensation.” — Wizards of the Coast, Fan Content Policy, last updated November 15, 2017

Policies differ by franchise, and none of the three above permits a paid commission of their characters without a written license. Before selling art tied to a specific franchise, read that rights holder’s published follower-content policy, keep any piece a one-off personal file for a single buyer rather than a resold product line, never claim official license or endorsement, and do not mass-produce merch featuring someone else’s IP. Those practices reduce exposure but create no legal exemption, and a rights holder can still object to a paid commission based on its characters. This is not legal advice — consult an attorney or the rights holder’s published policy before selling at volume.

Is a Paid Question or a custom request the right fit?

Custom Work is the right fit for any merch or design commission because clients can attach reference files and you can deliver the finished work as a file or link.

Brillay’s Paid Questions are one private question from a follower and one written reply from the creator, per Brillay’s documentation at https://brillay.com/how-it-works and its Paid Questions feature page. The same file-versus-text distinction is worth checking before pricing a paid mock interview or career advice session, since that offer type hinges on the same choice.

With Custom Work, your client can attach reference photos, character sheets, or mood boards, and you can deliver the finished design as a file or link within the delivery time you set, up to 5 days.

How much should you charge for a fan-made commission?

There is no single correct commission price. Charge by complexity tier — medium, character count, one-time delivery scope, and delivery time — and publish the tier boundaries and the net-fee math in the listing so a buyer knows exactly what the base price covers before checkout. The illustrative tiers below show the shape of a listing, not a market rate.

Here is a complete sample listing. Every dollar figure below is illustrative only, not a market rate, a benchmark, or a guarantee.

Usage-rights wording to paste into the listing: “Personal use only. You may print this file for yourself and post it online with credit. Resale, print-on-demand upload, merchandise runs, NFT minting, and AI-training use are not included. Commercial or resale rights are quoted separately.” Scope wording to paste into the listing: “This price includes one final delivery and no rounds of changes. If you need a different version after delivery, place a new order. Send any scope questions before you order so the brief matches this listing.”

Run the fee math before setting the tier, because the platform’s cut is knowable in advance. On an illustrative $120 full-color commission sold through a Brillay page, the 8% platform fee is $9.60 and typical US online-card processing of 2.9% + 30¢ is $3.78, leaving roughly $106.62 before taxes — derived from Brillay’s published 8% platform fee for paid work (tips and goals carry 5%) at https://brillay.com/pricing and Stripe’s published US rate at Stripe pricing. The same illustrative $120 sale on Etsy carries a 6.5% transaction fee ($7.80), US Etsy Payments processing of 3% + $0.25 ($3.85), and a $0.20 listing fee, leaving roughly $108.15 — derived from Etsy’s Fees & Payments Policy and Etsy’s Help Center article “What are Payment Processing Fees for Selling on Etsy?”. Etsy’s fee stack is cheaper in this illustration; the trade is that Etsy defines listing categories, expires listings after four months, and supplies browsing traffic, while a direct Custom Work link lets the artist set the scope, fixed price, delivery time, and exact contents of the one final delivery.

Both net figures above are pre-tax estimates on a single illustrative order and exclude refunds, disputes, currency conversion, and payout fees. How much to charge for a character design commission walks through pricing by complexity in more depth.

What should a merch commission listing include?

Before a client pays, your commission listing should spell out the file format, character count, art style, required references, what one final delivery includes, when you will deliver it, and the usage rights. Undefined scope is the cheapest thing to fix and the most expensive thing to leave open, because each field removes one negotiation that would otherwise happen after money changes hands.

Define these up front:

• Format: digital file or print-ready file.
• Character count: how many characters/subjects are included at the base price.
• Style: sketch, full color, chibi, painterly — whatever your actual style options are.
• Reference requirement: what the follower must attach when they order (photos, character sheet, color notes).
• One-time delivery: one completed delivery is included.
• Delivery time: a realistic window within Brillay’s Custom Work delivery cap of 5 days, per Brillay’s documentation at https://brillay.com/how-it-works.
• Usage rights: personal use only, unless you explicitly sell commercial or resale rights.

Vague scope can end in a card dispute rather than a conversation, and disputes carry their own cost: Stripe charges a $15.00 dispute countered fee for each dispute a business responds to manually, returned only on disputes the business wins, per Stripe’s pricing page. A defined Custom Work scope and a single documented delivery give you a clearer record if a card dispute happens.

Queue management, waitlists, and payment timing are covered in more depth in how to take paid commissions.

How does a direct commission link compare to a shop or marketplace?

A direct commission link lets the artist define scope, price, and delivery time; a shop or marketplace supplies browsing traffic but charges listing, transaction, and margin-based fees while constraining products to fixed templates. The trade is discovery and a lower fee stack versus full control of the offer, and card processing applies on top of every platform’s own fee.

Card processing sits on top of any platform’s own fee. Stripe’s published US pricing for Payments is 2.9% + 30¢ per successful transaction on domestic cards, with +1.5% for international cards, +1% when currency conversion is required, and +0.5% for manually entered cards, per Stripe’s pricing page. That Stripe rate is the US domestic online-card rate specifically; rates vary by country, payment method, and account, and Stripe publishes separate country pricing pages. Connect your bank through Stripe before Stripe can pay you; Brillay supports creator payouts in 41 countries.

How do you turn one-off commission requests into repeat buyers?

Turn one-off commission requests into repeat clients by sending people who ask for free art to your priced commission link. Put the commission link in your bio, pin an announcement post, reply to every “can you draw X” request with that link instead of drawing it for free, and publish a visible slots-open or waitlist status so followers know when ordering is open.

Set a maximum number of open commission slots and update your listing when they fill, so you stop getting the same “are you open?” DM. The tactic carries over even to an account with no personal face attached, as covered in monetizing a faceless Instagram fan-art page. When requests outnumber open slots, point overflow followers at a goal for a specific upgrade — a new tablet, better lighting, a software license — rather than at a queue you cannot clear. A Brillay Goals offer collects cash toward a stated creator goal with a funding progress bar rather than shipping a product, and Brillay charges 8% when a follower pays for work and 5% on tips and goals, per https://brillay.com/pricing. One bio link that carries every offer: followers pay you as guests by card, at prices you set, whatever format the request takes.

Frequently asked questions

Short answers to the questions fan artists ask most before listing a first commission: paid fan-art commissions may require the rights holder’s permission and personal-use limits create no exemption, design commissions belong on a custom request rather than a Paid Question, a print-on-demand shop is optional, and Brillay charges nothing monthly, then 8% when a follower pays for work and 5% on tips and goals.

Can I sell fan art commissions without being an official license holder?

Selling a paid fan-art commission based on someone else’s characters may require that rights holder’s permission, and keeping the piece to personal use reduces exposure without creating any exemption. Section 106 of U.S. copyright law reserves derivative works to the copyright owner, per the U.S. Copyright Office’s Circular 92, Chapter 1. Some rights holders bar commercial follower content outright: Epic Games’ Fan Content Policy states in Section 1.4 that “Fan Content must have no commercial (i.e., monetary) objective”, and Wizards of the Coast’s Fan Content Policy, last updated November 15, 2017, states that “You can’t sell or license your Fan Content to any third parties for any type of compensation”. Avoid implying official endorsement, avoid mass production, and consult an attorney or the specific rights holder’s policy when unsure.

Should a merch commission be a Paid Question or a custom request?

Use Custom Work for any commission that needs a reference upload or a delivered file. Paid Questions let a follower send one written question and receive one written reply, while Custom Work lets a follower attach reference files and lets the creator deliver a file within a delivery time of up to 5 days, per Brillay’s documentation at https://brillay.com/how-it-works.

Do I need a print-on-demand shop to sell fan-made merch?

No. A print-on-demand shop or marketplace is one option, but it carries its own fee schedule: Etsy charges a 6.5% transaction fee plus $0.20 per listing per Etsy’s Fees & Payments Policy, and Redbubble applies a 20% default artist margin plus a 50% excess markup fee on any markup above 20%, per the Redbubble Help Center. A direct commission link avoids the storefront setup entirely.

What does Brillay charge to sell a commission?

Brillay has no monthly fee, and an 8% platform fee applies when a follower pays for work, 5% on tips and goals, per https://brillay.com/pricing. Each commission is a one-time purchase, not a membership; followers can pay by card without creating an account, there is no follower minimum, and creators in 41 payout countries can receive earnings after completing Stripe onboarding, per https://brillay.com/how-it-works. Stripe processing fees are deducted separately, per Stripe’s pricing page.

Create your free Brillay page, put Custom Work alongside Paid Questions, Personalized Videos, Tips, Goals, and Brand Collaboration Inquiries behind one bio link, and turn the next “can you draw my OC” request into a priced commission.