I’ve been watching the marketplace flood with products priced at 5–10% royalty, and I need to speak up not just for myself, but for all of us who put real time and care into our work.
When royalties drop that low, it doesn’t just affect the creator setting them. It affects everyone. It teaches customers to expect handcrafted designs for cheap prices. It makes those of us who value our time and skill look “expensive,” when in reality we’re just pricing fairly.
Let’s stop with the Walmart clearance royalties. They’re dragging down the marketplace and making it harder for creators to earn what their work is worth.
For example, a 5x7 invitation at 18.7% royalty sells for $2.98. At 18.8%, it’s $3.03. That’s still far below what similar templates sell for on Etsy often $7 or more. And those Etsy creators aren’t just charging more they’re helping customers understand the value of the creative process.
A creator I spoke with recently dropped her royalty to 10% just to stay competitive. But with Zazzle’s 50% marketing fee, she’s earning just 13 cents per invitation. That’s not sustainable. That’s not competitive. That’s the clearance aisle at Walmart.
I spend hours creating my invitations. First, I do the artwork, then I choose the wording, the font, and even the ink color. There’s no button that magically generates a finished design. It’s all done by me. When artists underprice that kind of labor, it sends the wrong message to buyers and it hurts the creative process we all depend on.
I’m not here to tell anyone what to charge. But I do think we need to talk about what our work is worth and how we can support each other in setting fair royalties that reflect the time, skill, and care we put into every product.
Please stop devaluing your creations. That’s not being competitive it’s being cheap. And it sends the message that there’s no labor involved in our artwork.
There’s always going to be designers who devalue their work in order to undercut the competition. Especially now with the cheap massed produced AI generated stuff. Yes it will deter some customers who are looking for bargain basement prices, but our higher prices will attract the customers who value quality. Higher prices almost always imply higher quality in consumer consciousness.
I think it would be really helpful if Zazzle offered menu / search options that make higher-priced designs easier to find. Customers seeking premium-quality items would appreciate not having to sift through pages of results to locate them.
I see that it’s all the way on the right side of product page - an area that is proven to get less visual attention than the right . For example, I didn’t even realize it was there.
Just to clarify: I design exclusively with DALL·E 3 AI tools, and I only work in watercolor. I’m extremely picky sometimes it takes hours to get the artwork I want, and I often walk away and come back the next day to refine it. So, when you refer to “cheap mass-produced AI generated stuff,” I find that comment not very nice. Thoughtful design takes time, no matter the tools.
Authenticity isn’t about the medium it’s about intention, consistency, and the integrity of the work. Whether it’s hand-painted, AI-layered, collage-built, or sourced from Creative Market, what matters is how well it holds together not how quickly it was thrown together.
Using AI Tools Doesn’t Make Me Less of an Artist I use AI tools to create watercolor-style images. The process is not automatic. I rarely get usable results on the first prompt. It takes time, technical adjustment, and visual refinement.
I control the tone, composition, and final output. I reject results that don’t meet my standards. I iterate until the image fits the intended purpose. The tool doesn’t understand context or audience. I do.
Using AI shifts the medium. It doesn’t remove the role of the artist. The decisions come from me. The tool responds to input it doesn’t lead. I use AI tools. I’m still the artist. I do not create stuff.
Authentic art coming from artificial intelligence? That’s an oxymoron, and it explains the negative feelings that many fine artists have against its use.
As a customer looking to purchase products on Zazzle, I would expect to pay more for authentic art, especially when anyone can create artificial art themselves. I would like to see a filter added to Zazzle’s search engine that customers can use to filter out — or display products created with AI. Just adding a note that AI was used to create the artwork is not a sufficient identifier. Customers need to know what they are buying and if it’s worth the investment - in their opinion.
Hi, I’ve not been here in awhile because I have closed up shops and left Zazzle. But I may have an insight into why you are seeing products products priced at the 5 - 10% royalty level.
Many high profile designers here are Zazzle’s preferred designers at the moment. Simply put, those designers who are designing a certain aesthetic Zazzle wants to use as their “face” in their own marketing are asked to keep their royalty rates at those 5% and 10% levels. Those designs tend to end up being found on the first several pages of the MP search, landing pages and special themed pages.
It’s also no secret that many designers do not like to promote for various reasons. They rely heavily on the MP to do the work. They see their only recourse is to have lower royalty rates if they are going to get noticed by customers searching the MP. We know this tactic is flawed in many ways but it is their reality.
I think your advice is sound but if designers don’t have the confidence in their own designs, they have less self confidence to believe it can work for them. They are being held back by fear of course, and fear is not easy to overcome. So they price their products low in hopes of catching the eye of a potential customer.
And lastly, it’s also a known fact that some designers think Zazzle’s prices are too expensive. We know that is also flawed because they are not. But the designers own biases of what other people will spend is based on their own fear of what, they themselves, would pay.
I’m not sure of your motivation is with this second post on this topic, however I just thought I’d pipe in and give you insights into the designers minds I’ve seen in my 15 years of being on the Z forums. Forgive me if I you knew this information already.
Authenticity isn’t defined by the medium it’s defined by intention, consistency, and the integrity of the final work. Whether a design is hand-painted, digitally layered, collage-built, or AI-assisted, what matters is how well it holds together not how quickly it was made or what tool was used.
Most graphic designers today use digital tools. Airbrush effects, scanned textures, stylus work, and layered compositions are standard practice. Some artists paint directly on their laptops using stylus-based software. Others paint offline and scan their work. These are all tools. The medium doesn’t determine authenticity the discipline and clarity of the work do.
I know of a watercolorist in Australia whose invitations are exquisite and I admire her artwork. She’s begun using AI because platforms like Zazzle make it nearly impossible to earn what her work is worth. Her invitations should be priced at $10+, but the Zazzle market doesn’t reflect that value.
AI is just one more tool. It doesn’t replace artistic judgment or design discipline. If anything, it requires more calibration to use well. I support transparency, but I also support nuance. A filter might help some customers but it shouldn’t be used to dismiss the integrity of work created with digital tools, AI included.
For the record, all AI-created images on Zazzle carry a “generative content” tag. In my own listings, I clearly state “AI image designed by Susang6.” I’m transparent, and most creators are. Customers already know what they’re buying. And there is strong demand for AI art it’s new, it’s trendy, and many people genuinely enjoy it.
I am assuming that you think that “anyone can create artificial art themselves,” and that AI-generated work shouldn’t be considered authentic. I’d like to challenge that assumption.
Take my red truck design, for example. It wasn’t generated with a single prompt. It was built through layered iterations, calibrated staging, color adjustments, I balanced the design and it took me 6 hours to create using AI tools. If it’s as easy as you suggest, I invite you or anyone curious to try replicating it. Then tell me how easy it was to do, and that anyone can do AI art.
AI is not a shortcut. It’s a tool that demands clarity, discipline, and design judgment. The final product only works because it’s been shaped with intention not because it was “easy.”
Authenticity isn’t about the medium. It’s about the work.
Please refrain from cheating…using a copy of the image to recreate it …recreate honestly using your own prompts from start to finish. That is the only way you will learn to appreciate AI art and know that it’s not an “easy tool” .
A filter should be used to dismiss work that customers don’t want to buy - just a like a search engine is used to dismiss work that customers don’t want to buy.
The point is that not everyone views AI art as art. And those folks shouldn’t be called out when they don’t see the value in it, especially when they were speaking generally and not addressing anyone in particular.
You said a filter should be used to “dismiss work that customers don’t want to buy.” I’d like to ask: why do you assume customers don’t want to buy AI-generated art?
The market doesn’t support that assumption. For years, my bestsellers were built from original work: I painted offline and scanned, I took my own wildlife and floral photographs, and I created digital collages from scratch. That work was deeply personal and technically layered. But over time, customer demand shifted. Now, my top-selling products are AI-assisted designs whimsical wildlife cards, retro invitations, and seasonal illustrations. These aren’t niche they’re trending across categories.
Suggesting a filter to exclude AI work implies it lacks value. But that’s not what customer behavior shows. If anything, the demand is growing. So I’d genuinely like to understand: what data or experience led you to believe customers don’t want it?
Of course, not everyone values the same things. That’s the beauty of a marketplace: customers they get to choose what they like.
But that’s also why I’m concerned about the idea of a filter based on process rather than quality or demand. If “some” don’t value AI work, they’re free to scroll past it just like others scroll past watercolor, photography, graphic or typography. That’s how search and sorting already works.
What worries me is when “some” try to preemptively remove work from visibility not because it’s low quality, but because it doesn’t align with their personal definition of art. That’s not protecting customers. That’s gatekeeping.
I’m not asking anyone to like AI-assisted work. I’m asking that we let customers decide what they value just like they always have.