Sell a Custom Comic Page Commission From Your Bio Link

To sell a custom comic page commission from your bio link, publish it as a fixed-price Custom Work listing that names panel count, color level, revisions, and turnaround. The follower pays the full price upfront and uploads their brief and character references in the same checkout, and you deliver the finished page as a file inside that order before your stated deadline — no marketplace listing, no booked call, and no invoice chased afterwards. 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.

No monthly fee, you only pay a small platform fee when you get paid. 8% platform fee when a follower pays for work, 5% platform fee on tips and goals. Card processing is separate (pricing). For Custom Work, you set the delivery time, capped at up to 5 days, per order (how it works).

Industry tracker ICv2 estimates that sales of comics and graphic novels in the U.S. and Canada totaled $2.2 billion in 2025, a new high (ICv2 White Paper). That ICv2 figure measures published comics and graphic novels sold through retail channels; it does not measure custom commission work, and no comparable industry survey tracks one-off commissioned pages, so treat commission demand as something you test with your own audience rather than something the $2.2 billion number proves.

On Brillay, a follower chooses the listing, pays upfront as a guest, and submits their brief through the creator's page in one flow, with no separate invoice tool or marketplace account required.

What counts as a custom comic page commission?

A custom comic page commission is one complete page of sequential art, typically one to six panels, built around a scene, moment, or character the paying follower specifies, delivered as a finished digital file. It is a larger deliverable than a single illustration or a bonus sketch because one page requires panel layout, paneling decisions, and often lettering.

A custom comic page commission also differs from a single-character portrait, which is priced and delivered as one image with no panel layout, and from writing a follower's character into an ongoing series, which is a continuity commitment about future canon rather than a standalone page. A comic page commission stays self-contained: the follower receives their page, and the page does not change the creator's own ongoing story unless both sides agree to that separately.

How much should you charge for a custom comic page?

Price a custom comic page by the hours it takes rather than by one flat page rate, because panel count, character count, background complexity, and line art versus full color each move the labor cost. A 3-panel black-and-white page with one character and a minimal background consumes far fewer artist hours than a 6-panel full-color page with several characters and rendered backgrounds.

The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reports a median annual wage of $55,290 for craft and fine artists in May 2025 (Occupational Outlook Handbook), which works out to roughly $27 an hour across a standard 2,080-hour work year. For comparison, the same BLS release puts the median annual wage across all US occupations at $50,980 in May 2025 (Occupational Outlook Handbook), so an artist pricing below roughly $25 an hour is charging under the national median for any job. The table below applies that derived ~$27 hourly figure to explicit hour assumptions so you can see where each range comes from and swap in your own rate.

*These are internal illustrative ranges, not market survey data and not a guarantee. Each range is the hour assumption in the same row multiplied by roughly $27 per hour, the figure derived above from the BLS May 2025 median wage of $55,290 for craft and fine artists. No published survey tracks going rates for follower-commissioned comic pages, so treat the table as a framework for pricing your own hours — substitute your real hourly target and your real drawing speed before publishing a price.

Many artists publish one tier to start, such as a 3-panel line-art page, then add color or larger panel counts as a second tier once they have timed how long that first tier actually takes — the same partial-scope-versus-full-scope tradeoff shows up in pricing a VRChat avatar edit against a full custom build.

Should a comic page commission be a Paid Question or a custom request?

List a custom comic page as a custom request, not a Paid Question. Custom Work accepts files the follower attaches at order time and lets the creator deliver a written note plus up to 5 files or a private link.

Brillay's own product documentation is the authoritative source for both offers: the Custom Work page states that a creator delivers "a written note plus up to 5 files (video, audio, images, PDF, Word, Excel, or PowerPoint), and/or a private link" and that "the follower can also attach their own files when they order", and Brillay's public machine-readable index describes Paid Questions as one typed question and one written reply.

A quick written question, such as "would my OC read better in a 3-panel or a 4-panel layout?", can stay a Paid Question. The drawn page itself stays a custom request.

What should a comic page commission listing include?

Put these nine specifics on the listing: they prevent scope arguments after payment, because the follower agreed to each of them at checkout rather than negotiating them afterwards.

• Panel count: For example, "up to 4 panels" rather than an open-ended page.
• Character count: How many distinct characters are included in the set price.
• Color: Line art only, flat color, or full rendered color.
• Background: Simple, partial, or fully rendered.
• Lettering: Whether dialogue and text are included or the page is delivered script-free.
• Reference requirement: What the follower must submit (character reference, description, or existing art).
• Changes after delivery: Publish your correction and revision policy, which the follower sees before paying; after delivery they can reach you through the order's support conversation, so define the finished page clearly up front.
• Delivery time: A time window you can reliably meet.
• File format: What the follower receives (PNG, PSD, print-ready file, etc.).

Brillay's guide on how to write a custom request offer covers how to scope a listing so a request doesn't drift beyond what was paid for.

How do you add the commission to your bio link?

To add a comic page commission to your bio link, create a custom request listing with one scoped tier, set its price and delivery time, spell out the references the follower must upload, paste your Brillay link into your Instagram, TikTok, or YouTube bio, and then deliver the finished file inside the order — or decline a request that arrives outside the scope you published. Your Brillay link in a TikTok bio works from your first follower: no threshold to clear, no finished pages you have to draw first, and the follower pays you directly for a question, a commission, a video, a tip or a goal.

1. Create the listing. Turn on Custom Work and write one scoped tier, such as "3-panel line-art page, one character, simple background."
2. Set the tier price and delivery time. Pick a price from your own hour estimate and set a delivery window of up to 5 days per order.
3. Ask for the references in the description. Say exactly what the follower must attach — character sheet, photo reference, or a written scene description — because Custom Work lets the follower upload those files at order time.
4. Paste the link in your bio. One Brillay link in the bio is where followers order; they pay by card as guests, with no follower account needed.
5. Fulfill or refund. Deliver the finished page as a file in the private order page, or decline a brief that is bigger than the tier the follower bought.

How do you handle characters you don't own in a comic page commission?

A follower's own original character is generally straightforward, since the follower typically owns that design. A character from an existing franchise, comic, or show is fan art, and under U.S. law the right to prepare a work based on someone else's copyrighted character is generally reserved to the copyright owner. Treat that as general legal awareness, not legal advice, since terms vary by rights holder.

The U.S. Copyright Office states the rule directly in its guidance on derivative works:

Under U.S. copyright law, only the copyright owner has the right to create an adaptation of a work or permit someone else to create one. — U.S. Copyright Office, Circular 14

That is why many artists keep original-character pages as their default commission and treat licensed-character requests as a separate, clearly labeled category, handled with the same caution as any fan art commission of an existing character. Registering your own original page with the U.S. Copyright Office is a separate optional step and currently costs $45 for electronic filing by a single author of one work not made for hire (Copyright Office fee schedule).

How long should a comic page commission take?

Set delivery time per tier from the real hours a page takes to draw, ink, color, and letter, not from an arbitrary deadline. For Custom Work, you can set delivery at up to 5 days, per order, which is the exact maximum the delivery-time picker accepts, so every delivery time you publish on a comic page tier must fit inside that window.

Using the estimates above, a 1.5–3.5-hour line-art page may fit into a one- or two-day delivery time, while a 7.5–17-hour full-color page may need most of the five days once drawing and queued work are counted. Publishing a separate delivery time per tier, rather than one blanket number for every order, keeps each promise achievable. If a brief arrives bigger than the tier that was bought, the creator can decline it instead of absorbing unpaid extra work.

What else can you sell alongside comic page commissions?

A comic page commission does not have to be the only paid option on an artist's page. Tips let supporters send a one-time thank-you with nothing to deliver in return, Personalized Videos let followers pay for a custom video, Goals give supporters a progress bar for one named funding target with no all-or-nothing cutoff, and Brand Collaboration Inquiries collect publisher and studio leads in a separate brand inbox — artists who also draw for streamers can round out the page with a smaller, faster listing like a custom VTuber badge or icon commission.

• Tips: For readers who want to support the comic without commissioning a specific page.
• Personalized Videos: Personalized Videos let a follower pay upfront for one personalized video for themselves or someone they care about: you set the price and the delivery time, then record it on your schedule.
• Goals: Cash toward a defined goal, such as printing costs for a comic run, shown with a funding progress bar — it processes payment toward the goal, not a per-copy sale or shipped product.
• Brand Collaboration Inquiries: Brand Collaboration Inquiries is a “Work with Me” form on your Brillay page that collects a brand’s budget, timeline, and deliverables into a separate brand inbox.

Baymard Institute's cart-abandonment research reports that 17% of US online shoppers have abandoned an order because of a "too long / complicated checkout process":

"17% of US online shoppers have abandoned an order due to a 'too long / complicated checkout process.'" — Baymard Institute

The Baymard finding is one reason to keep every one of those offers purchasable in the same place a follower already found the artist, rather than routing the follower to a separate storefront or a DM negotiation before they can pay.

What does it cost to sell a comic page commission?

Selling a comic page commission on Brillay costs nothing to set up: there is no monthly fee and no follower minimum, and the platform fee stated above is the only thing Brillay takes from a sale. Standard US online card processing applies on top of that platform fee — Stripe publishes a rate of 2.9% + $0.30 per successful domestic card transaction (Stripe pricing).

Wider market context is worth naming honestly, because a comic page commission is side income for most artists rather than a career plan. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that overall employment of craft and fine artists is projected to decline 1 percent from 2025 to 2035, with about 4,300 openings projected each year (Occupational Outlook Handbook). Direct sales channels, by contrast, grew: ICv2 reported that direct market comic sales rose nearly 30% in 2025, bringing total sales in comic shops close to $1 billion. Neither figure predicts what an individual artist earns from commissions, which depends on style, audience, and demand.

Frequently asked questions

Is a custom comic page commission a Paid Question or a custom request?

A custom comic page commission is a custom request.

How do I put a comic page commission in my bio link?

Create one scoped custom request tier, set its price and a delivery time inside Brillay's 120-hour delivery window, state the references the follower must attach at checkout, paste your Brillay link into your Instagram, TikTok, or YouTube bio, then deliver the page as a file in the order page or decline it.

How many panels should a starter comic page listing include?

Many artists start with a small, clearly bounded tier — such as 1-3 panels in line art, an assumed 1.5-3.5 hours of work — and add color or higher panel counts as separate, higher-priced tiers once they have timed how long each size actually takes.

Can I use a character I don't own in a paid commission?

Using an existing copyrighted character generally requires the rights holder's permission: "Only the owner of copyright in a work has the right to prepare, or to authorize someone else to create, an adaptation of that work" (U.S. Copyright Office). Treat that kind of request the way you would treat any fan art of an existing character, and check specifics for your situation since terms vary by rights holder.

What does Brillay charge to sell a comic page commission?

Nothing up front and nothing monthly. Brillay takes its platform fee only once a follower has paid for a page, at the rate given under this guide's opening summary, and Stripe's card-processing charge is a separate deduction on the same sale, published on Stripe's pricing page. Neither one is owed on a commission that was never ordered.

What's the longest Brillay allows for delivering a comic page?

For Custom Work, you can set delivery at up to 5 days, per order, the exact maximum the delivery-time picker accepts, so any delivery time set on a comic page tier has to fit inside that five-day window.

Create your free Brillay page and turn "can you draw my character into a comic page?" into a clearly scoped, paid listing.