How to Make Money Selling Printables

If you’re looking for a way to make some extra money, selling printables online might be the perfect option for you. In this article, we’ll discuss how to make money selling printables, including how to create your printables, what platforms you can sell on and how to promote your printables.

There are hundreds of ways to make money online. But, one of the most popular (and one of my favourite) ways to make extra money is by selling digital printables.

Printables are items that you download in PDF format and then print out either yourself or through a professional printer. These include anything from colouring pages, worksheets, puzzles, wedding invitations, monthly calendars, habit trackers and more.

If you’ve got some design skills – seriously, it doesn’t take much – making these printables is an easy way to earn some extra cash without having to deal with any pesky shipping issues or customer service hassles.

A lot of these printable files are created in programs like Canva, PowerPoint, Affinity Publisher, Adobe Photoshop, InDesign or Illustrator, so it’s helpful to have some knowledge of these programs.

But, if you’re not confident in your design abilities… don’t worry, because there are numerous resources and templates available to make producing printables oh-so-simple.

What are printables?

Printable is just a word for any type of design that you can print on paper, whether it’s a colouring page, an invitation or even a daily to-do sheet.

Put simply, Printables are designs that can be printed onto paper instead of displayed digitally. This includes anything from colouring pages to invitations or artwork.

The name “printable” comes from the fact that these types of designs can often be printed out at home using standard printing equipment.

What type of printables can you sell?

There are hundreds of different printables you can sell online to make money. And depending on what your passions are, you can craft a lot of different products to sell.

For example, if you love kids crafts then maybe you’ll want to create colouring pages featuring cute animals. If you’re interested in budgeting and are a stickler for keeping track of your money, finance trackers may be ideal for you to create.

Below are a few printable examples to get your ideas flowing:

Wall art
Invitations
Planners
Kids/adult colouring pages
Workbooks
Calendars
Educational pages
Finance & budget trackers
Habit trackers
Workout trackers
Journal pages
Faith planners

There are all sorts of different printables that you can create and sell to make money. The key is to discover what you’re most passionate about and start from there.

Want to sell printable planners? Launch your printable planner shop faster and easier with The Canva Template Kit. The Canva Template Kit is designed specifically for people who want to start and build a business selling printable planners on Etsy without the huge graphic design learning curve!

Choose your software

What type of software should you use to design printables? Well, that all depends on what kind of printable you’re creating and what software you’re most comfortable using.

If your goal is to create colouring pages, then I recommend using Adobe Photoshop or Illustrator.

For workbooks, I suggest Adobe InDesign because it offers the most control over creating multiple page documents.

And if you’re designing planners, calendars or wall art, then I highly recommend using Canva.

Generally for beginners, I always recommend starting with Canva. Designing in Canva is easy enough for anyone to learn (even with limited design experience). And the best part about it is that there are tons of free elements and graphics that will make your creations stand out.

Get a free 30 day trial of Canva Pro and start creating pritnables today!

If you’re serious about starting an online business selling printables, then you must check out the E-Printables Course by my friends Julie & Cody of Gold City Ventures. This course is a must for anyone who is looking to make money selling pritnables.

Add your design elements & create your printables

Once you’ve decided what software you want to use, the next step is designing your printables. If you’re not too sure where to start, I recommend heading over to Etsy and Pinterest for inspiration.

Now it goes without saying that before you start creating and selling your work online, you need to make sure that it’s 100% original. Copyright laws are no joke, so definitely make sure they’re uniquely yours.

Okay so when it comes to designing your pritnables, the key here is to think about the types of designs people might be looking for and add elements/clipart or styles that stand out.

Check out these design marketplaces to find designer elements, graphics and fonts (with commercial rights included) to use in your printables:

If you want to watch a step-by-step video on how I created a printable daily planner, then check out this video here.

Create your mockups

If you want to make your printable standout, then you need to be using mockups.

A mockup is simply an image of a physical product (aka the paper) with your design on it. So for example, if you’re designing an invitation then maybe add in some flowers and other props to make it look more authentic.

Or for a printable planner, use mockups that show people using or holding your designs in their hands or shown inside a planner binder.

For my own pritnables, I create my mockups with premium photography using my monthly Haute Stock membership or mockup photo bundles from Creative Market. I’ve also used the mockup generator tool inside of Canva.

Creating nursery artwork to sell? Check out these premium stock images bundles from Creative Market.

How much should you charge?

Once you’ve created your printable design, the last thing you need to do is set a price.

It goes without saying that there are no fixed rules when it comes to determining how much your work should cost. But here are some things to take into consideration when setting your prices.

• How long did it take you to create your printables?

• What are the advantages of buying your work over other sellers’ products?

• How are people likely to find your work? Do they have to seek you out, or will they stumble across it while browsing Etsy for example?

The main thing is to think about your time and effort versus what customers might be willing to pay. If you feel your product is unique and of high quality, then charge accordingly.

Another thing to consider is combining printables into a bundle so you can charge more. A daily to-do list, for example, might cost about $5.00 on its own. Whereas a planner binder bundle might sell for around $30.00 or more.

Where should you sell your printables?

There are a few different places you can sell your printables online. Here are a few suggestions for you:

Etsy

Etsy is a great platform for handmade items and digital downloads. You can create a shop on Etsy and list your printables for sale, or simply add them to your existing shop.

It’s free to open up an Etsy Sellers account and it only costs 20c per listing to upload your printables to your Etsy store.

The great thing about selling on Etsy is that it already has a built-in consumer base, so you don’t have to actively search for customers to buy your printables.

Ready to start selling printables on Etsy. Click here to get 40 free listings when you open your new Etsy shop.

Creative Market

Creative Market is another great option for selling digital products and printables.

As designers themselves, Creative Market has built a marketplace that gives you more control over the products you’re selling, including:

A fair revenue split (commission rates vary per shop/per product)
No frustrating review process every time you want to sell a new product
Set your own prices
A commitment to get your products the promotion they deserve. They’ve also built all the tools you’ll need to track your sales, manage your shop, engage with your customers, and handle support – all in one spot.

Learn more about becoming a seller on Creative Market here.

Teachers Pay Teachers

Are you an educator? Then you might want to consider selling educational printables on Teachers Pay teachers.

Teachers Pay Teachers (TPT) is a marketplace and social network for educators to buy and sell original, quality resources at affordable prices.

TPT provides a place where teachers can easily purchase the content they need from other teachers around the world without breaking their budget or running afoul of copyright laws.

You can open a basic TPT seller account for free. Any money you earn on the basic account, you’ll get 55% of your earnings with a $0.30 transaction fee for each item sold.

Shopify

Shopify is a platform that lets you create your own online store. You can use Shopify to sell physical products, digital products, or both. So perfect for printable sellers.

Shopify also has a built-in payment processing system, so you don’t have to worry about setting up a separate payment processor.

Plus, it’s easy to set up and manage your shop from the Shopify dashboard.

Shopify is the platform I’ve used for my online store, selling digital products. I love that there are plenty of free and paid themes that can be customized quite easily, so you can make your online store truly unique. Shopify also integrates with a tonne of apps too which makes adding your digital downloads a snap.

You can start a free 14 day trial of Shopify to get your store set up and ready to go. There are a few different plans available but the basic $29.00 per month plan is perfect to get you started.

If you’re ready to start selling your printables on your own Shopify store, I’ve got a handy step-by-step video tutorial you can check out here.

Your Own Blog

Lastly, you can sell your printables through your own blog. If you want to give it a go, then I recommend setting up a WordPress blog with a premium theme (like this one I used from 17th Avenue) and then adding the Woocommerce plugin so you can sell your printables.

With the Woocommerce plugin, you can sell both physical and digital products with ease. You can also create multiple product variations and bundles to help maximize your margins.

If you’re interested in creating and selling printables on your own blog, then your going to want to check out Suzi’s course, Printables by Number. This course will cover everything you need to know about generating highly converting printables, from how to make them to how to sell them on your blog.

Promote your printables online

Once you’ve created your printables, it’s time to start promoting them.

There are a few different ways you can do this, but my favourite and recommended ways are through Pinterest, your own website or blog and/or through Etsy ads.

Promoting on Pinterest

You can create static pins, video or animated pins, and even Pinterest Ideas (similar to Instagram Stories) on Pinterest. The thing I like best about Pinterest is that it’s a visual search engine rather than a social networking site. Meaning that people are using the Pinterest search bar to find exactly what they are looking for.

Another reason why I love Pinterest is that it is a visual platform. Use your amazing mockup images to show off your amazing printables and attract (mostly) female, printable loving customers to your designs.

Promoting through your website or blog

If you have an active blog or are ready to start one, this is another great place for sharing your printable designs online.

When it comes to selling your printables on a blog, there are many benefits which include:

You can create multiple blog articles to help showcase your products people who visit your site.
You can add calls-to-action to your blog posts and landing pages, so people know what you want them to do next (like buy a printable).
It doesn’t require any special skills other than knowing how to use WordPress and the Woocommerce plugin (which again, Suzi covers in her course).
Selling on your own blog also gives you more control over what type of products you sell and how they are priced.

Running Etsy ads

Etsy ads is a great way to promote your printables if you have the time and budget to dedicate to them.

The thing I love about running Etsy ads is that they are highly targeted and you can start a campaign for as little as $1.00 per day.

With Etsy ads, you can reach people looking for a specific product. Of course, your printable designs need to be tagged correctly with all of the correct keywords so people who are searching for printables will find your designs.

To get started with Etsy ads, click here to watch part one of my 7 day Etsy ads experiment.

Now that you know what type of printable to create, how to create and promote your printable designs, you’re now ready to start making money selling printables online.

Happy designing and creating!

I hope this article on how to make money selling printables online was helpful!

If you enjoyed reading this blog post, you might want to check out these other articles I have lined up for you: