This page What Royalty Rate Do You Recommend I Use? suggests a royalty of 5-10% which is pathetically low, but if you read the whole entry and between the lines, it's clear that 1) it's not mandatory, you can set your royalty to whatever you want 2) lower royalties = lower overall prices = Zazzle looks more affordable to shoppers 3) using that low 5-10% benefits the customer not you There's a common theory that higher royalties might keep one down in search results. So i just wanted to do a random search to see what royalty percents were in the top results. That by itself proved interesting and then it spiraled into a deeper dive looking at the other factors that most likely weigh in to where something "places" in results.  I searched (on the US domain) for three keywords + product type. I.E. [keyword1 keyword2 keyword3 product_type] NO QUOTES, and then used the "Refine by Category" filter to narrow results down to just that actual product type. That gave me just over 200 results, a number easy to manage for comparison purposes.  I then noted the details for the top 20 results. In the four days I've been compiling the stats on the results, the search results fortunately remained exactly the same. And then I was given the idea to do the same search on other domains. So I did UK and Canada and noted where items placed there compared to searching on the US domain.  Of the top 20 results, I was only able to obtain all the stats for 7 of them. That's 35%. Not enough to draw any "scientific" conclusions, but still super interesting and able to provide some insight.  The first thing to jump out is that in most cases there is an astounding difference in placement depending on domain!  Designers of all Pro levels were included in the top 20. There were two with a generic Pro badge which means they could be anywhere from Basic to Diamond. None of the results were from Designers without at least the basic Pro badge. Does that mean anything? I honestly have no idea.  Royalties ranged from 10 to 25%. Views ranged from 11 to 347. Creation dates ranged from 2014 to 2024. Looking at the meta data: * All of the results have all three of my search keywords somewhere in the meta data. * One of the top 20 (#16) has all three keywords in the title, in the same order I typed them in search * Five of the top 20 have two of the three keywords I searched for in their title, in the same order I typed them in * Ten of the top 20 have none of my keywords in their title, they only appeared in the tags This list is missing 65% of the data but is still interesting and my own personal conclusions, right or wrong, are, in no particular order:: * number of views alone doesn't seem to be a heavily weighted factor * even number sold won't by itself put you at top of results * likewise, Pro level or zRank alone won't put you at the top * having a personal cover image is still relevant/important * royalty % by itself is not keeping items down in search * last sold date might be an extra-weighted factor with more recently sold items placing better * where your strongest keywords appear and in what order compared to what a shopper types in is important So that's it. My conclusions here are just my own opinions based on the limited data of this search, you all may draw your own different conclusions.  ... View more

Hi creators. I just came across an account that seems to be selling mostly blank products - I mean not even solid color ones - totally blank. And this is Pro Bronze Creator. Is it really that simple? I starting to doubt in all I know about this platform. Despite all my efforts I am only Pro. I am really confused right now. Do people really buy those products from creators and not directly from zazzle? **Identifying link removed for breach of community guidelines**   ... View more

Question for anyone who has received Zazzle’s approval to create embossers: How long did it take you to get approval to create embossers after you submitted your application? I applied about a week ago, and I haven’t received a response yet. Thanks for your feedback! ... View more

I posted on this before and decided to message Zazzle to see if we could charge a customer a fee or direct them to another site (Like Etsy) to purchase the design and then use it on Zazzle.  None of the referral links have ever worked for me for custom designs and instead of just saying no I wanted to explore other options.  I emailed Zazzle and their response was to send me back the referral policy again.  Are there even live people looking at our email request or is it all AI? So i asked in the chat option.  This was the response: Zazzle does not allow you to directly charge a fee for custom work, but customers can message you directly to inquire about additional customizations before purchasing a product with your design. and No, Zazzle's guidelines state that you cannot direct customers to a different site to purchase your work if it is to be used on Zazzle. This includes promoting external websites, products, or services within messages or designs. So, from now on unless it is quick, I will just have to say I don't do custom work.  Really is a shame that Zazzle can't support us with this.     ... View more

Well, they had the Terms Agreement change - which forced us to lower our royalties... I wonder if Zazzle would ever force the printers and substrate providers to lower the original price of the goods? That would be effective in selling my products more than me sacrificing a few percentage points off my markup.  For instance a Placemat (1) $12.67? Lamp $43 - $87? Pillows $28 - $78... BEFORE any markup? How about it Zazzle?? Give us some wiggle room to add our markup. LOVE to hear your thoughts...      ... View more

I was wondering if Z has lowered prices.  I see some things that seem lower Than I remember. But maybe its just me, I have been away from my store since Xmas   Ty Peter222 ... View more

Customers are flooding the reviews section with negative reviews that should have been an email or call. "I've never received" "It's not working" "It arrived damaged" "Colors are off" "I've received less than I paid for" type of reviews should not be left there forever, but handled by support. Dear Zazzle, please check low star ratings, because most of those issues can be solved by customer service. If customers are so... (I can't find an appropriate word, I don't want to call them lame), you have to take action. Those reviews are unnecessarily causing a bad reputation for Z - not just the designers - in the long term. ... View more

HI, So like many of you I am seeing no referral fees after sending customers direct links.  I recently created custom products for a few customers per their request.  One customer used the link I sent to their email and the other used the link from Zazzle messenger.   Both sales showed as 3rd party and I received a few dollars for over an hour of work.  Very discouraging and Zazzle CS responded to my email asking about the referral fee with the policy. So I expect them to say "well they were already on Zazzle when they messaged you so they are now 3rd party sales." I want to be able to respond to custom requests and make enough money to cover my time.  How do the rest of you do this?  Are we allowed to ask for a separate payment, like using paypal, for our time? I am not sure if Zazzle allows this. I have an etsy shop and even thought about selling them the digital design there and they can use it to make their own Zazzle product.    ... View more

Welpers, it ain't just Z slapping designers with additional fees. Standard accts on rb have had fees for awhile, but premium and pro haven't. Looks like standard will now have 50% of their commissions clawed back. Effective 9-1 Premium accts, which have had no fee, will be charged 20%. Pro accts, however, won't get charged a fee. In addition, they are also implementing some kind of excess royalty fee if commission is set over 20%. blog.redbubble DOT com/2023/04/how-account-fees-may-apply-to-you/ Another pod that pays set commissions on sales reduced those amounts a good while back. I won't be surprised to get an email about them making harsher changes as well. Guess it's about time to consider alternative ways to earn money. My bills don't go down but what I'm earning does and it stinks. ... View more

under review by our Content Management team now into the 7th day why so long for this should be 3 days or less Submitted on 8/2/2025. ... View more

Yesterday I worked on a new birthday invitation for about 3 hours.  I wasn't sure what font I wanted so I tried out several.  I would select a font, work with it a bit then look for a new one.  Every time I went to look at a new font it required clicking 5 times, just to get over to "All Fonts". In the 3 hours I was working on that card I must have clicked a hundred times, all trying to get back to "All Fonts".  Zazzle, please go back to the previous font tool or at least move "All Fonts" to the front of the line.  I appreciate trying something new, but this repetitive clicking is time consuming, aggravating and is not working.   ... View more

I would love to be able to design knee socks -- especially for children (but maybe adults, too). And plus-size socks would be helpful, too, for customers with extra wide calfs (like me). Having just one style of socks is limiting. Thanks! ... View more