How to Sell Art Online in Australia: Fees, Platforms and Shipping

If you want to sell art online in Australia, you've never had more choice. You've also never had more people wanting a slice. For most artists, it starts by accident. A message pops up at 11pm, "is this one still available?", you say yes without thinking, and an hour later you're at the kitchen table trying to wrap a 90 cm canvas in bubble wrap and a flattened Weet-Bix box.

We've all been there, or close to it. It doesn't have to be that chaotic, though. Work out where to list, what each place really takes, and how you'll ship and handle returns, and do it before the first order rather than after. That's what this is about.

Key takeaways

• Your own website keeps most of each sale, but you have to bring the buyers yourself.

• Bluethumb, Australia's big online art marketplace, has taken 35% commission plus GST (38.5% all up) since May 2025.

• Etsy charges a small listing fee, 6.5% of the sale including postage, and a payment processing fee on top.

• Australia Post parcels max out at 22 kg and 105 cm long, so big canvases usually need a courier or art freight.

• Australian Consumer Law covers online art sales too. A "no refunds" policy can't override a buyer's rights.

Where to sell art online: the main options

Is there one best place? Not really. Most people who sell art online end up with two or three spots, each doing a different job.

Your own website

This is the one you actually control. Your prices, your photos, your words, and no marketplace taking a third. Shopify, Squarespace, Wix, and WooCommerce all handle the checkout side; you pay for the plan and the payment fees, and that's about it.

The catch? Traffic. Nobody wanders onto a new artist's website by accident. You'll be pointing people there from Instagram, your newsletter, the sign on your market stall, everywhere. We made the full case for having one in our post on why you need an artist website.

Online art marketplaces

Marketplaces bring the buyers. That's what you're paying for. In Australia, Bluethumb is the name most people know, and it doesn't hide its cut. Its own commission update says the rate went from 30% plus GST to 35% plus GST on 9 May 2025. That's 38.5% of the sale, which puts it not far off a bricks-and-mortar gallery. Price accordingly.

Etsy

Etsy's a good fit for prints, small originals, ceramics, anything that slips into a mailing box. Its Australian seller page lists a listing fee of about AU$0.29, a 6.5% transaction fee on the sale price (postage included), and payment processing of 3 to 4% plus AU$0.25. Watch the offsite ads too. Sales that come through them cost 15%, and once you're selling a fair bit, they can stop being optional. The buyers are definitely there. A lot of them are shopping on price, though.

Instagram and Facebook

Brilliant for building an audience. Pretty clunky as a shop. Sales mostly happen in the DMs, which means invoices, bank transfers, and plenty of back-and-forth. Show the work and the process there, then send people somewhere they can actually press "buy".

What it really costs to sell art online

Percentages look harmless until you run a real sale through them. Say you've got a A$500 painting (this is before postage, GST or ads):

• Bluethumb: 38.5% all up, so you'd walk away with about A$307.50.

• Etsy: A$32.50 in transaction fees, somewhere around A$15 to A$20 for payment processing, plus the 29-cent listing fee. You'd keep roughly A$447 to A$452.

• Your own website: whatever your plan costs, plus your payment provider's fee, which differs a lot from one provider to the next.

See the gap? That's why plenty of artists use marketplaces to get found and their own site for the people who come back. One rule holds whichever way you go: keep the same retail price everywhere. Undercutting yourself on your own site gets up the nose of galleries and marketplaces, and it muddles collectors. Our guide on how to price your artwork does the commission and GST maths properly.

Photos do the selling.

When you sell art online, the photo basically is the artwork. Nobody can lean in to see the brushwork or pick up a bowl and turn it over. The picture has to do all of that.

Shoot in soft, even daylight. Keep the camera square to the piece. Add a close-up of the surface and one shot of the work in a room, so people get the size. And check the colour, because a painting that arrives bluer than it looked on someone's phone is the fastest way to a return. Our older post on making art pop online covers editing without going overboard.

Shipping art in Australia

Here's where trying to sell art online stops being theoretical. Before anything goes live, measure it packed. Not bare. Packed.

Australia Post's size and weight guidelines cap domestic parcels at 22 kg, 105 cm long and 0.25 cubic metres, and anything between 5 and 22 kg is charged on actual or cubic weight, whichever's higher. A big stretched canvas, boxed and padded, sails past 105 cm before you know it. At that point you're looking at a courier or a specialist art freight company, so get a quote before you set the price, not after someone's paid.

Packing is mostly common sense, plus a few things you only learn the hard way:

• Corner protectors on every frame and stretcher bar

• Glassine or plastic against the surface first, then bubble wrap; never press bubbles straight into paint.

• A box that's bigger than the work, padded on every side

• Tracking and insurance on anything you'd be gutted to lose

Tip: Weigh and measure the work fully packed before you quote postage, and jot the packed size in your listing notes. Telling a buyer it's A$25 to ship, then discovering it's a A$90 courier job, is the sort of lesson you only want once.

Refunds and the Australian Consumer Law

Selling online doesn't put you outside the rules. The government's business.gov.au guide spells it out: every business selling goods in Australia has to comply with the Australian Consumer Law. If a piece turns up with a major problem, say it's damaged or it isn't what you described, the buyer gets to choose a refund or a replacement. And a "no refunds" line in your shop doesn't change that.

Change-of-mind returns are a separate question. That's your policy to set, so set one, write it on your site and your listings, and stick to it. (General information only, not legal advice.)

Landing your first online sale

The first one's the hardest, and it rarely comes from a stranger. Usually it's someone who already follows you, saw your stall at the markets, or knows your cousin. So don't post a single piece and sit there refreshing. Put up a small group that hangs together; five or ten works, with sizes and prices that are easy to find. Tell the people who already like your work where to look: a newsletter, a few posts, a sign at your next market. Then reply quickly. Someone who asks about a painting on Sunday night has often moved on by Wednesday.

If you sell art online, think slow build, not big launch. A few sales become repeat buyers. Repeat buyers become the people who tell their mates.

Keeping every channel in sync

The thing that keeps people up at night when they sell art online in more than one place? Selling the same original twice. It's easier than it sounds. The painting goes on your website on Saturday morning, and by the arvo someone's bought it again on a marketplace you forgot to update.

The fix is boring, but it works: one record per piece, sitting behind every channel. In ArtFlow you can publish work to Shopify, WooCommerce, Squarespace, Wix or Square POS from the same catalogue, so the details and the status live in one spot. Each piece can also get its own public page with your price and a way for buyers to get in touch, and nothing goes public until you turn it on. The features page shows how the pieces connect. For more on how buyers actually find and choose work, our earlier post on the independent artist and the buyer's journey is a good next read.

Questions about how to sell art online

• What's the best website to sell art online in Australia? Depends on what you make. Your own site keeps the most money. Bluethumb brings art buyers to you for 38.5% of the sale. Etsy suits prints and smaller pieces. Plenty of artists use more than one.

• How much does Bluethumb take? Since 9 May 2025 it's 35% plus GST, which works out to 38.5% of each sale.

• How do I post a large painting in Australia? Australia Post stops at 105 cm long and 22 kg. If it's bigger than that once it's packed, you'll need a courier or an art freight service.

• Do I have to refund artwork I've sold online? If it arrives damaged or isn't as described, yes, the buyer's entitled to a remedy under the Australian Consumer Law. Change-of-mind returns come down to the policy you set.

• Should my online prices match my gallery prices? They should. Keep one retail price everywhere and build the commission into it, rather than charging different amounts in different places.

The short version

To sell art online without the chaos, pick a few channels that suit your work, know exactly what each one takes, and keep one price across all of them. Sort the shipping and the refund policy before the first order, not after. Good photos will do most of the heavy lifting. And if you want one place where every piece, price, and listing stays straight, start a free ArtFlow account and catalogue your work before you list it anywhere.