I uploaded the same 50 designs to both TeePublic and Redbubble. After 90 days, Redbubble pulled in about 4,200 views and 8 sales ($16 net after fees). TeePublic got 860 views but 3 sales at full price ($12 net, zero fees). And the part nobody tells you: both platforms are owned by the same company.
If you’re trying to figure out which platform deserves your time, I’ll save you the research. I’ve been selling designs across multiple print-on-demand (POD) platforms for over a year, and the answer isn’t as simple as picking one. But if you forced me to choose a single platform for a brand-new seller in 2026, I’d say TeePublic first, then add Redbubble within a month.
The real numbers tell you why.
TeePublic vs Redbubble: The Quick Verdict
| Factor | TeePublic | Redbubble | Winner |
|---|---|---|---|
| Earnings per t-shirt | $4 regular, $2 on sale | ~$1-4 (depends on tier + markup) | TeePublic |
| Platform fees | None | 50% for Standard tier | TeePublic |
| Product range | 75+ types | 70+ types | Tie |
| Monthly traffic | ~8-9 million | ~16-25 million | Redbubble |
| Upload speed | 2-3 minutes | 10-15 minutes | TeePublic |
| Pricing control | None (fixed) | Full (set your markup) | Redbubble |
| Print quality | More consistent | Variable by fulfiller | TeePublic |
| Best for beginners | Yes | No | TeePublic |
| Tag limit | 15 tags | 15 tags | Tie |
Bottom line: TeePublic pays more per sale with zero fees. Redbubble has 2-3x the traffic and more products. Serious sellers use both. One caveat: both platforms have tier systems that punish new accounts. TeePublic’s Apprentice tier makes your designs invisible in search. Redbubble’s Standard tier takes 50% of your earnings. Details below.
Wait, They’re Owned by the Same Company?
Yes. Redbubble acquired TeePublic in October 2018 for roughly $41 million. The parent company rebranded as Articore in November 2023. Both platforms still operate independently with separate shops, separate payment systems, and separate policies. Your TeePublic shop and Redbubble shop are completely unlinked. Whether you search “redbubble vs teepublic” or the other way around, you’re comparing two brands under the same corporate umbrella.
Why does this matter? Because it means the two platforms aren’t truly competing. They’re two revenue streams for the same company. Articore has no incentive to make one clearly better than the other. They want you on both.
Keep that in mind when you see “vs” comparisons that declare one the obvious winner. The real competition is between Articore and Amazon Merch, Spreadshirt, and Society6.
How You Get Paid: Fixed Royalties vs Flexible Markup
This is the biggest practical difference between the two platforms.
TeePublic: Fixed Flat Rates
TeePublic uses a dead-simple system. They set the retail price. They set your royalty. You get a flat dollar amount per sale, period.
For their Artisan tier (the better tier):
- T-shirt: $4 regular price, $2 during sales
- Hoodie: roughly $8
- Sticker: $0.20 to $1.00 depending on size
You have zero control over pricing. You can’t charge $30 for a premium design or $15 to undercut competitors. TeePublic decides what everything costs, and you get your flat cut.
The upside? No math. No strategy. No overthinking your margins. Upload a design, get paid a predictable amount.
Redbubble: Set Your Own Markup
Redbubble works differently. They have a base price (their production cost plus margin), and you add a markup percentage on top. In plain terms: Redbubble charges a base price to cover printing and their cut, and you add a percentage on top. That percentage is your profit. The default markup is 10%, but you can set it to anything you want.
At 20% markup on a $20 base-price t-shirt, you’d earn about $4. Sounds comparable to TeePublic, right?
Not anymore.
Redbubble’s 2025 Fee Overhaul Changed Everything
In September 2025, Redbubble introduced a tier system that took a sledgehammer to small sellers’ earnings. The tiers work like this:
| Tier | Platform Fee | Excess Markup Fee |
|---|---|---|
| Standard | 50% of your earnings | 50% on any markup above 20% |
| Premium | 20% of your earnings | 50% on any markup above 20% |
| Pro | 0% | 0% |
Read that Standard tier line again. Fifty percent of your earnings goes back to Redbubble. If you set a 20% markup on a $20 t-shirt and earn $4, Redbubble takes $2. You keep $2.
It gets worse. If you set your markup higher than 20% to compensate, the excess markup fee kicks in and takes 50% of anything above that threshold. So a 30% markup on a $20 shirt gives you $6 in gross margin, but Redbubble takes $0.50 from the excess (50% of the extra $1 above 20%) plus $2.75 from the platform fee (50% of the remaining $5.50). Your actual take-home: around $2.75.
The criteria for moving from Standard to Premium to Pro? Vague. Redbubble mentions “design quality, artistic skill level, volume of designs, account activity, and commercial success.” No specific thresholds. No public benchmarks. You just have to hope they promote you.
One seller on InspireMari.nl put it bluntly: “For most small or starting artists, Redbubble is no longer worth it in 2025, as the new account fee structure for Standard accounts takes a significant portion of earnings, sometimes 60% to 85%.”
Net effect: Standard-tier sellers keep about $2 per t-shirt sale on Redbubble vs TeePublic’s $4 with zero fees. That’s a 50% pay cut for the same design on the same type of product.
Real Earnings: Side by Side
Let’s compare what you’d actually take home from 10 t-shirt sales on each platform:
| Scenario | TeePublic (Artisan) | Redbubble (Standard, 20% markup) |
|---|---|---|
| 10 t-shirt sales (regular) | $40 | ~$20 (after 50% fee) |
| 10 t-shirt sales (sale price) | $20 | N/A (no equivalent site-wide sales) |
| 10 sticker sales | $5-10 | ~$2-4 (after 50% fee) |
| Platform fees deducted | $0 | ~50% of earnings |
| Net per t-shirt | $2-4 | ~$1-2 |
Both platforms pay on the 15th of the month. TeePublic has no minimum payout via PayPal (Payoneer requires $20). Redbubble requires a $20 minimum before they’ll send payment. If you’re earning $15/month on Redbubble, your money just sits there until it accumulates.
TeePublic looks better per sale, but there’s a catch: Redbubble gets roughly 2-3x more traffic. If your design gets 100 views on TeePublic, it might get 300 on Redbubble. More eyeballs means more sales, even if each sale pays less.
One comparison from Merch Titans captures it well: “If you upload identical designs to both platforms and do nothing else, Redbubble will likely generate 5-10x more sales simply because more people see your work.”
So TeePublic pays more per item. Redbubble potentially pays more in total volume. Both numbers are going down year over year. Redbubble’s FY2024 marketplace revenue was roughly $241 million AUD, down 17% from the prior year. TeePublic doesn’t publish revenue figures, but seller reports on r/teepublic and r/printondemand consistently describe declining organic traffic through 2025.
Products: Both Offer 70+
TeePublic and Redbubble both offer 75+ product types now. TeePublic covers t-shirts, hoodies, stickers, mugs, phone cases, wall art, pillows, tote bags, hats, notebooks, and more. Redbubble adds niche items like shower curtains, duvet covers, jigsaw puzzles, pet bandanas, backpacks, scarves, and leggings.
The product count is roughly comparable. The real difference is in how you interact with those products. On TeePublic, one upload populates everything automatically. On Redbubble, you can customize positioning per product but it takes significantly longer.
Does the product range matter? Honestly, for most sellers, t-shirts and stickers drive 60-80% of revenue on both platforms. The long tail of niche products (pet bowls, aprons, coasters) occasionally generates surprise sales, but the product catalog is no longer a major differentiator between these two platforms.
Upload Workflow: Speed vs Control
TeePublic (2-3 Minutes Per Design)
Upload a PNG, fill in a title, add some tags, write a description. Your design automatically populates across all product types. Done.
“TeePublic is the quickest, as they have fewer text boxes than Merch by Amazon and fewer products than Redbubble,” notes Adventures with Art. That tracks with my experience. TeePublic is the least friction between “I have a design” and “it’s live for sale.”
File requirements: PNG with transparent background, minimum 1500x1995px (5000x5500px recommended to enable all products), 150 DPI, 100MB max.
Redbubble (10-15 Minutes Per Design)
Upload the same PNG, but now you need to manually position and scale your design on each of the 70+ product types. A design that looks great centered on a t-shirt might need repositioning for a phone case, a tote bag, and a shower curtain. Each one takes clicks.
You also set markup percentages per product, write a longer description (it matters for Redbubble’s SEO), and carefully craft your 15 tags.
File requirements: PNG preferred, 7632x6480px recommended for full product coverage, 300 DPI, 300MB max.
“Redbubble rewards customization and effort, while TeePublic rewards simplicity and speed,” as Merch Titans put it. If you have 500 designs to upload, TeePublic will take you a weekend. Redbubble could take you weeks because of the per-product positioning.
Pro tip: TeePublic has a built-in importer that can pull your entire Redbubble store. If you already have designs on Redbubble, migrating to TeePublic takes minutes, not hours.
Tags and Search: How Buyers Find Your Designs
Both platforms give you 15 tags per design. That’s the same limit, but how each platform uses those tags is different.
TeePublic Tags
Tags carry the most weight in TeePublic’s internal search. The platform uses a system of “blue” (nominated) tags that get algorithmic preference for strong relevance and search volume. Your title and description matter less than your tags for on-site discovery.
The catch: if your account is in Apprentice tier (more on this below), your designs don’t appear in on-site search results at all. They’re only findable through direct links or Google.
Redbubble Tags
On Redbubble, title, tags, and description all carry roughly equal SEO weight. Tag order matters because Google typically crawls only the first 10 tags. Your description is also crawled by Google, so leaving it blank is a missed opportunity for search traffic.
For both platforms, generic tags are a waste of your 15 slots. From my upload tests, designs tagged with 3-4 word buyer-intent phrases (“retro 80s hiking sunset”) got roughly 3x the impressions of broad single-word tags (“hiking,” “sunset”). On TeePublic specifically, tags combining color + style + subject consistently outperformed everything else.
If you’re managing tags across multiple platforms, this is exactly the kind of repetitive metadata work that eats hours. I use AutoKeyWorder to generate optimized tags in bulk. Full disclosure: that’s our tool. But whether you use it or handle tags manually, the principle is the same: specific, buyer-intent tags on both platforms.
The Apprentice Trap (Both Platforms Have One)
Both TeePublic and Redbubble have tier systems designed to fight spam and low-quality uploads. Both punish new sellers.
TeePublic’s Apprentice Tier
New accounts start as Apprentice. This means:
- Your royalties are lower ($3/$1 per t-shirt instead of $4/$2)
- Your designs are invisible in on-site search
- The criteria for upgrading to Artisan are not published
That second point is devastating. If buyers can’t find your designs through TeePublic’s search, your only traffic comes from Google or direct links. Some sellers report going from $4,000/month to $500/month after being demoted to Apprentice.
Redbubble’s Standard Tier
New accounts start as Standard. This means:
- 50% platform fee on all earnings
- 50% excess markup fee on anything above 20%
- No specific criteria for promotion to Premium or Pro
At least Standard-tier designs still appear in Redbubble’s search. You’re visible, just paying a heavy tax.
The pattern: Both platforms make you prove yourself before earning full rates. AI art uploaders and mass-upload accounts are hit hardest by both systems. My account hit Artisan after about 60 designs and 4 months, but I’ve seen sellers on Reddit with 200+ designs stuck on Apprentice. Neither platform publishes exactly what triggers a promotion.
Print Quality: Who Does It Better?
When it comes to TeePublic vs Redbubble quality, TeePublic wins on consistency. TeePublic uses centralized production with fewer fulfillment partners, which means what you see in the mockup is closer to what buyers receive. I ordered the same design as a t-shirt from both platforms. TeePublic’s colors were closer to my original PNG file, and the print had a softer feel. According to VersusGuy’s hands-on comparison, TeePublic consistently scores higher for t-shirt print quality. The DTG (direct-to-garment) printing produces accurate colors with a soft feel.
Redbubble uses a global network of print partners, and quality varies depending on who fulfills your order. Some orders come out great. Others have color shifts or placement issues. Stickers, mugs, and art prints tend to be consistently good. T-shirts are the most variable product.
Neither platform gives you quality control. You design, they print. If a buyer gets a bad print, that’s on the platform’s fulfillment partner, but it’s your shop’s reputation.
Which Platform Should You Start With?
If you’re brand new to print-on-demand, follow this order:
- Start with TeePublic. The upload process takes minutes, there are no fees to worry about, pricing is automatic, and you’ll learn what sells without the complexity of Redbubble’s markup system. Get 20-30 designs live, see what gets traction, and learn from the data.
- Add Redbubble within 30 days. The traffic difference is too significant to ignore. Even with the Standard tier’s 50% fee, more eyeballs on your work means more sales. As you build a track record, you’ll (hopefully) get promoted to Premium or Pro, where the fees drop dramatically.
- Expand to Amazon Merch, Displate, and Society6. Each platform you add multiplies your reach without extra design work. More on this below.
If you’re already on Redbubble: Use TeePublic’s import tool to mirror your shop. It takes minutes and gives you a second revenue stream with zero additional design work.
The Real Answer: Upload to Both (and More)
Every experienced POD seller I’ve talked to says the same thing. Merch Titans put it best:
“The sellers making serious money aren’t debating which platform to choose. They uploaded to both six months ago, added three more platforms since then, and they’re currently designing tomorrow’s listings.”
TeePublic and Redbubble together give you 25-35 million monthly visitors seeing your designs. Add Amazon Merch, Spreadshirt, Society6, and Displate, and you’re building a distribution network that doesn’t depend on any single platform’s algorithm or fee structure. If you’re also creating AI-generated designs, the math gets even better. I broke down the full workflow and real earnings in my guide on how to make money with AI stock images. For the specific t-shirt design workflow using Ideogram V3 and VectorMagic, see how to make AI t-shirt designs and sell on Etsy.
When I added TeePublic as my third platform, it added about $35/month from designs that were already made. That’s roughly 45 minutes of upload work paying me $35/month indefinitely. The fifth platform I added (Displate) took longer to learn but now generates more per design than any other. The returns compound over months and years.
Managing Tags Across Both Platforms
Writing 15 optimized tags per design per platform adds up fast when you have hundreds of designs. I use AutoKeyWorder to generate tags in bulk, which saves me about 2 hours per batch of 50 designs. We built it, so I’m biased, but a spreadsheet works fine if you prefer manual control.
Whatever method you use, match what buyers search, not what you’d call your design. “Retro 80s synthwave sunset landscape poster” will outperform “my cool sunset art” on every platform. For platform-specific tag strategies, see my guides on Adobe Stock keywords, Shutterstock tags, and Displate metadata.
Frequently Asked Questions
Which is better, TeePublic or Redbubble?
TeePublic is better for per-sale earnings and upload speed. Redbubble is better for total sales volume and product variety. If you’re a beginner, start with TeePublic for its simplicity. If you can only pick one long-term, Redbubble’s traffic advantage usually wins out despite the fees, but only if you get promoted past Standard tier. The best strategy is using both.
Are Redbubble and TeePublic owned by the same company?
Yes. Redbubble acquired TeePublic in 2018 for about $41 million. The parent company rebranded as Articore in November 2023. Both platforms operate independently with separate shops, payments, and policies.
What is the TeePublic controversy?
Multiple issues. The biggest is the Apprentice/Artisan tier system introduced to fight spam. Apprentice accounts earn half the royalty ($3/$1 vs $4/$2 per t-shirt) and are completely invisible in TeePublic’s on-site search. Criteria for promotion are not public. There’s also controversy around AI art enforcement, with accounts being suspended for AI-generated uploads despite no explicit ban in the terms, and the near-constant site-wide sales that cut artist earnings by 50-70%.
Is there a better site than Redbubble?
It depends what “better” means. For beginners: TeePublic is simpler. For premium art prints: Society6. For apparel specifically: Amazon Merch (if you can get accepted). For metal posters: Displate. For maximum reach: list on all of them. No single platform is best at everything.
How much can you realistically earn?
In my experience, most sellers with 100-200 designs earn $10-50/month per platform. Sellers with 500+ quality designs and good metadata can reach $200-500/month across platforms. The outliers making $1,000+/month typically have thousands of designs, years of data on what sells, and designs on 4-5 platforms simultaneously. Anyone promising $10K/month from POD is selling you a course, not sharing reality. For a broader look at realistic AI income streams, I tested 10 methods and shared the actual numbers.