Updated 06/17/2016
Yes, you can sell your designs on Spoonflower!
In order to sell one of your designs on fabric you must become a verified seller, and have ordered at least a swatch of the fabric at some point in order to proof it. Once you’ve done so, you can go to the ‘fabric details’ page for your design and check the box on the lower right to make the design available for sale. You will earn up to 15% of the selling price (MSRP) for any fabric, wallpaper and gift wrap you sell, per our terms of service. The commission will be credited to your account in the form of Spoondollars that can be used either to purchase fabric on our site or redeemed via Paypal. It’s also possible to sell your Spoonflower fabric on your own sites, or on Etsy, as do many independent designers.
Displaying and/or selling your designs is ALWAYS under your control. The default settings for any designs you upload to Spoonflower are ‘private’ (not visible to others) and ‘not for sale’ until you make them for sale.
We’ve also seen a few questions generated by concerns over some specific wording in part 2 of our terms of service. That section, titled “User Conduct,” reads in part:
When you post designs to Spoonflower’s Web site, you keep your
copyright. You also control the account settings that determine whether
or not your design can be shared or sold on Spoonflower. In order to
maintain an Internet-based service Spoonflower is required to be able
to copy, crop, modify, reproduce, display and distribute your Content
worldwide. Spoonflower will only perform these actions to the extent
necessary to provide its service, but by submitting Content to
Spoonflower you grant Spoonflower a nonexclusive, worldwide,
transferable license to do so. If your Content is uploaded as a design
for fabric available on this Site, you grant to Spoonflower a
nonexclusive, worldwide, transferable license to create derivative
works of, modify, copy, sell, display and distribute the Content and
fabrics created from or based on such Content so long as such process
is an essential step of the print service we provide. If you choose to
make Designs available for sale on Spoonflower’s Web site, you can also
choose to remove them from sale at any time. All Designs uploaded to
our Site are private unless you specifically mark them as public.By
making your fabric Design public on the Site, you give Spoonflower the
right to display or print your Design, including photographing fabric
made from that design, for use in materials used to help market both
the Site and the designers who use the Site. Be aware that Google and
other search engines will also index public designs and the information
included in public user profiles.
Our wording here may well leave something to be desired, but please rest assured that we will never do anything with your designs without your permission. Running a web site requires us to modify, copy, display and distribute ALL the content on the site. Selling your design on fabric even just to you requires us to modify it and distribute it. Our system for creating a repeat of your design is actually a process that requires us to render a “derivative work,” for example. I am certainly not a lawyer, so my explanation here reflects a layperson’s understanding of the legal language, but one thing I can say with complete confidence is that we are creating Spoonflower to empower designers, not to exploit them.
See our handy seller infographic and learn more here.