# T-shirt websites: any that give you a percentage of sales for shirts you design? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [August 10, 2010, 4:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/t-shirt-websites-any-that-give-you-a-percentage-of-sales-for-shirts-you-design/549794 "2010-08-10T04:41:25Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 7\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![magellan01](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@magellan01](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/magellan01)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2010, 4:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/t-shirt-websites-any-that-give-you-a-percentage-of-sales-for-shirts-you-design/549794/1 "2010-08-10T04:41:25Z")
I’ve found some sites that will pay you a fixed amount for shirts with your designs, but was wondering if some would sell your designs and give you a percentage of the sales instead. As an option, what would be the easiest way to sell your own designs online? Thanks. ---
**Author:** ![Darryl\_Lict](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/7cd45c/32.png) [@Darryl\_Lict](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darryl_Lict)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2010, 5:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/t-shirt-websites-any-that-give-you-a-percentage-of-sales-for-shirts-you-design/549794/2 "2010-08-10T05:34:17Z")
[Cafe Press](http://www.cafepress.com/cp/info/sell/index.aspx?area=learn&page=learn) gives you a 10% commission on your sales, I believe. ---
**Author:** ![Shot\_From\_Guns](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ccd318/32.png) [@Shot\_From\_Guns](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shot_From_Guns)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2010, 9:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/t-shirt-websites-any-that-give-you-a-percentage-of-sales-for-shirts-you-design/549794/3 "2010-08-10T21:38:34Z")
I know it’s not \*exactly \*what you’re looking for, but: [http://www.threadless.com/](http://www.threadless.com/) > [@](#): > > Designers who are printed earn $2,000 and a $500 gift certificate (the $500 gift certificate can be exchanged for an additional $200 cash). You’ll also become a member of the Threadless Alumni Club, which includes a package of goodies and access to a members-only section of the blog forum! Your printed design will also be eligible for up to $20,000 in the annual Bestees Awards. > [@](#): > > Earn $500 per reprinted batch! So your earnings \*will \*scale based on how many shirts you sell; but it’s by batch, not as a solid percentage of the profit. ---
**Author:** ![PlainJain](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/5daacb/32.png) [@PlainJain](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PlainJain)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2010, 9:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/t-shirt-websites-any-that-give-you-a-percentage-of-sales-for-shirts-you-design/549794/4 "2010-08-10T21:42:05Z")
> [@Darryl\_Lict](#): > > [Cafe Press](http://www.cafepress.com/cp/info/sell/index.aspx?area=learn&page=learn) gives you a 10% commission on your sales, I believe. Last time I used CafePress they let you set your own prices thus your own profit percentages. ---
**Author:** ![Reply](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/reply/32/15952_2.png) [@Reply](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Reply)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2010, 10:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/t-shirt-websites-any-that-give-you-a-percentage-of-sales-for-shirts-you-design/549794/5 "2010-08-10T22:25:45Z")
CafePress does indeed do that. They also enforce a “minimum” price for all their products… good luck trying to get somebody to buy your $18 (or so) + shipping T-shirt. [Zazzle](http://www.zazzle.com)’s one of their competitors with very similar pricing. ---
**Author:** ![mattomic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/3ec8ea/32.png) [@mattomic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mattomic)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2010, 2:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/t-shirt-websites-any-that-give-you-a-percentage-of-sales-for-shirts-you-design/549794/6 "2010-08-11T02:50:08Z")
Most t-shirt operations online ask you to set your own commission rate, generally a buck or two, that goes straight to your wallet for every shirt sold. The key is finding the company that has the lowest base price for the shirts themselves, and trust me, there are a ton of alternatives out there, Cafepress probably being the most famous. I started a Canadian politics blog and decided to at least make the cost of registering the site back by selling a few oddball shirts off the site. I used a Canadian company called Wordans, just to keep it local, and they’ve been great - you can request a payout at any time (some sites have fixed payout points), they’ve got a sweet self-design tool, I’ve made about 40 bucks myself off of this bad boy: [http://maplerag.wordans.com/my/boutique](http://maplerag.wordans.com/my/boutique) (Not exactly a dot-com millionaire success story, I know, but it’s not bad for beer money) ---
**Author:** ![Shot\_From\_Guns](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ccd318/32.png) [@Shot\_From\_Guns](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shot_From_Guns)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2010, 2:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/t-shirt-websites-any-that-give-you-a-percentage-of-sales-for-shirts-you-design/549794/7 "2010-08-11T14:12:40Z")
My experience with CafePress (many years ago, so this may have changed) is that their shirts were (a) overpriced (i.e., they have a high minimum base price) and (b) of inferior quality (anything other than text was just something like a heat transfer, which looks cheap and doesn’t hold up well). I’m a huge customer of theirs (six months ago, I had [an entire drawer half-full of their shirts](http://img37.imageshack.us/img37/4339/threadlessdrawer.jpg), and I’ve bought more since then), so I’m probably a bit biased, but I think Threadless is a really good option. Because they have such an established customer base, I think you’ll get much better exposure for your designs there than having them made elsewhere and trying to hawk them on your own.