Most lists of art commission sites rank them by how popular they are. That is the wrong first question for a working artist, because the sites do not charge the same thing and they do not send you the same buyers. We read every fee below at the source and ran the same $150 commission through each one. The gap between the worst and best result is $31.05, about a fifth of the piece.
The short answer. On a $150 commission, the main art commission sites leave a US artist $114.45 on DeviantArt without Core, $120.00 on Fiverr, $135.30 on Etsy, $137.85 on VGen or free Ko-fi, and $145.35 on Ko-fi Gold once its $12 monthly fee is covered. VGen and Ko-fi are where fan, OC and VTuber buyers already look. Fiverr and a gig page you own are where businesses searching for an illustrator end up. Pick by buyer first and fee second.
What are the best art commission sites?
The best art commission sites for a US artist in 2026 are VGen, Ko-fi, Fiverr, Etsy, Payhip and a gig page of your own, with DeviantArt and Artistree as niche options. They fall into three groups: commission-first communities, general marketplaces, and storefront tools that take payment but bring you nobody. The table shows what each one publishes.
| Site | What the artist pays | What the client pays on top | Who buys there |
|---|---|---|---|
| VGen | 5% plus processing (Stripe 2.9% and $0.30) | Currency conversion only | VTubers, streamers, OC and fan commissions |
| Ko-fi | 5% on commissions on the free plan, 0% on Gold at $12 a month | Nothing | Your existing followers |
| Fiverr | 20% of every order | 5.5% service fee | Businesses and first-time buyers browsing categories |
| Etsy | $0.20 per listing, 6.5% of the order, 3% plus $0.25 processing | Nothing | Shoppers looking for custom products and portraits |
| Payhip | 5% free, 2% at $29 a month, 0% at $99 a month, plus processing | Nothing | Your own audience, via your link |
| DeviantArt | 20% without Core, 0% with Core, plus $0.30 and 3.5% | Nothing | The DeviantArt community |
| FreelanceNation | 8%, 5% or 3% by plan, $9 to $49 a month | Nothing | Buyers searching for a service, plus your own shares |
| Artistree | Could not be read at source | Could not be read at source | Personal and character commissions |
The Artistree row is blank on purpose. Its pages returned a bot-verification wall to every method we tried, and the figures circulating for it come from blog posts, not from Artistree. We would rather leave a cell empty than put a secondhand number in a table you might price from.
Which art commission websites take the smallest cut?
Once processing is included, the cheapest art commission websites are the ones with a monthly plan and a 0% fee, but only after your sales pass their break-even. Here is the same commission at three sizes, from a $50 sketch to a $500 commercial piece.
| Site and plan | $50 sketch | $150 half-body | $500 commercial piece | Monthly fee |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| DeviantArt, no Core | $37.95 | $114.45 | $382.20 | None |
| Fiverr | $40.00 | $120.00 | $400.00 | None |
| Etsy | $44.80 | $135.30 | $452.05 | None |
| VGen | $45.75 | $137.85 | $460.20 | None |
| Ko-fi free, Payhip Free | $45.75 | $137.85 | $460.20 | None |
| FreelanceNation Starter | $46.00 | $138.00 | $460.00 | $9 |
| Payhip Plus | $47.25 | $142.35 | $475.20 | $29 |
| Ko-fi Gold, Payhip Pro | $48.25 | $145.35 | $485.20 | $12 and $99 |
| FreelanceNation Studio | $48.50 | $145.50 | $485.00 | $49 |
Two things stand out. The first is how tightly the middle of the table bunches: VGen, free Ko-fi, Payhip Free and our Starter plan all land within 15 cents of each other on a $150 piece, so for most artists the fee is not the deciding factor between them. The second is that the two expensive rows are expensive for different reasons. DeviantArt without Core is simply the highest percentage. Fiverr charges 20% and also adds 5.5% to your client's side, so the same $150 commission costs the buyer $158.25. If you are comparing Fiverr against other general marketplaces rather than commission sites, our breakdown of Fiverr's seller and buyer fees covers the rest of its fee schedule.
Is VGen or Ko-fi better for commissions?
VGen is better if you want new commission clients, and Ko-fi is better if you already have followers who want to pay you. VGen is a commission marketplace with its own buyers and a request flow built for briefs, references and milestones. Ko-fi is a payment page for an audience you bring. On fees they are identical until you sell $240 a month, when Ko-fi Gold starts winning.
That $240 line is worth knowing precisely. Ko-fi Gold costs $12 a month and removes a 5% fee, so below $240 of monthly commission sales the free plan is cheaper and above it Gold is. VGen has no paid tier, so its 5% applies at every volume. An artist doing $1,000 a month in commissions pays VGen $50 in service fees, where Ko-fi Gold would cost $12. Whether VGen's buyers are worth the difference depends on how many of those buyers VGen found for you, and the honest way to answer that is to count where your last twenty clients came from.
Can you sell art commissions on Etsy?
Yes. Etsy allows custom and made-to-order listings, and portrait and pet portrait commissions are among its steadiest categories. You pay $0.20 per listing, 6.5% of the order total and, as a US seller, 3% plus $0.25 in processing, which leaves $135.30 on a $150 piece. The listing fee is charged whether or not the item sells.
The trade-off is the buyer. Etsy shoppers are browsing products, so they tend to send short briefs and expect a product-style turnaround. That works well for a repeatable commission with a fixed format, such as a pet portrait at a set size, and less well for a character design that needs three rounds of sketches.
Is Fiverr good for art commissions?
Fiverr is good for art commissions when you need clients more than margin. It sends real buyers, many of them businesses, and it charges for that with 20% of every order plus a 5.5% fee on the client's side. It suits an illustrator building a first client list and is expensive for one who already has a waitlist.
Does DeviantArt still do commissions?
DeviantArt's own help center now titles its commissions earnings calculator a legacy feature, which is a clear signal to check what your account can actually offer before building a queue around it. Its current fee table still lists commissions at a 20% platform fee without a Core membership and 0% with one, plus $0.30 and 3.5% in processing. We could not read a first-party date for any change to the feature, so we are not repeating one.
Where is the best place to sell art commissions to businesses?
For commercial work, the best place is a page that ranks for the service and takes payment in one step. Authors hiring a cover artist, studios hiring concept artists and brands hiring a mascot illustrator mostly start in Google, not on a commission community. They are looking for a price, examples and a way to book.
That is the buyer a gig page is built for. On our art commission platform you publish three fixed tiers, the client pays at checkout before you start, and the page is indexable, so it can be found by someone searching for the work rather than for your name. The same buyers also browse our illustrators for hire, which is the demand side of the same marketplace. If you sell design work alongside illustration, the graphic design gig page follows the same structure. We will be honest about the limit: a gig page does not have VGen's community of fan commissioners, and if that is your market you should be on VGen too.
How much should I charge for art commissions?
Charge enough that the hours behind a piece clear what the same work pays on payroll. The US median for fine artists and illustrators is $26.68 an hour, or $55,490 a year, on 2025 federal data. That is an employed figure with no self-employment tax and no unpaid revisions, so a commission artist has to price above it to earn the same.
Run it on a real piece. A $150 half-body that takes six hours of drawing and an hour of messages and revisions pays $21.43 an hour before any platform fee, which is below the employed median. Take VGen's 5% and processing off and it is $19.69. Raise the price to $220 and the same seven hours pay $31.43 before fees. That single change is worth more than moving from the most expensive site in the table to the cheapest, because the whole fee spread on $150 is $31.05. Our freelance rate calculator does this arithmetic with your own hours, tax and time off.
Keep records from the first sale. Commissions paid through several sites turn into a messy tax year quickly, and a creator income tracker that pulls every payout into one ledger saves a long evening of reconciling in March.
When does a monthly plan beat a percentage fee?
A monthly plan beats a percentage fee once your monthly sales pass the plan's break-even, which is the monthly price divided by the percentage it removes. Below that line, stay on the free tier.
| Switch | Monthly cost | Break-even monthly sales |
|---|---|---|
| Ko-fi free to Ko-fi Gold | $12 | $240 |
| Payhip Free to Payhip Plus | $29 | $966.67 |
| Payhip Plus to Payhip Pro | $99 | $3,500 |
| FreelanceNation Starter to Pro | $19 against $9 | $333.33 |
| FreelanceNation Pro to Studio | $49 against $19 | $1,500 |
Most artists who pay for a plan early do it because 0% feels better than 5%. Run the division first. At $300 a month in commissions, Payhip Pro costs $99 to save $15.
The short version
Choose an art commission site by who buys there, then use the fee to decide between sites that reach the same buyers. For fan and character work, VGen and Ko-fi; for custom products, Etsy; for a first client list, Fiverr; for commercial clients who search, a page you own. Then look hard at your prices, because on the numbers above they move your income more than any platform can. If you want to see a page built for that last group, start with the art commission gig page and the tiers on it.