An ecommerce platform built for artists who actually sell their work
Etsy takes 6.5% plus fees on every sale. Most platforms force you to bolt on a third-party app for downloadable files. Axnify ships file delivery, high-res preview protection and digital invoicing as standard — for £0/mo on Starter.
Why the platform you choose matters more for digital art than for anything else
Most ecommerce platforms were designed for physical-goods sellers — t-shirts, mugs, candles. They assume you have a warehouse, a shipping label printer and a courier pickup schedule. When you try to sell a 50 MB Procreate brush pack or a £400 numbered giclée print through the same interface, every product page is fighting against you. The weight field. The shipping rule editor. The 'in stock' counter that doesn't understand 'limited edition of 100'. You spend half your setup time turning OFF features you don't need.
Then there's the platform tax. Etsy charges a 6.5% transaction fee plus payment processing plus listing fees plus optional ad fees that, in practice, are barely optional if you want anyone to see your work. Gumroad takes 10% on every sale. Sellfy's 'unlimited' plan caps you at 2,000 products. The sum of these compounding costs is that an artist selling £40 prints on a marketplace nets about £30 — and the marketplace owns the relationship with the buyer. Build a 5,000-customer following and a single algorithm change tomorrow can vapourise it.
Axnify exists in the gap between 'pretty website builder' (Squarespace, Big Cartel) and 'industrial commerce platform' (Shopify Plus, BigCommerce Enterprise). It's the platform you'd build for yourself if you had three weeks and a Go developer: native file delivery, watermarked previews, real variant inventory for limited editions, custom domain on the free tier, and the customer list is yours.
Why digital artists outgrow generic platforms
Marketplace fees compound on every sale
A £40 print on Etsy nets you about £33 after listing, transaction and payment fees — before you've spent anything on ads. Sell 100 a month and you've handed over £700+ for the privilege of being one of 5 million sellers in an algorithm-driven feed. Across a year that's £8,400 — enough to fund a part-time studio assistant or print three new collections.
Digital delivery is an afterthought everywhere else
Shopify and BigCommerce assume you ship boxes. Selling a downloadable file means a paid third-party app (£10–£25/mo each), separate analytics dashboards, clunky link-expiry rules and inevitable customer-support headaches when a download link fails six months later because the app's free tier ran out of bandwidth.
Your preview images are easy to right-click-save
Without theme-level watermarking and proper image sizing, your best work becomes free stock photography for the rest of the internet. Most platforms expose your high-res originals directly because they were never designed with art protection in mind. By the time you notice your illustration on a print-on-demand site you don't own, the damage is done.
Tax on digital goods is genuinely confusing
VAT MOSS in the EU, US sales tax on digital downloads in the post-Wayfair era, EU country-by-country rates with thresholds and reverse-charge rules — generic platforms either ignore this entirely (your problem at year-end) or charge you extra for it via add-on apps. Either way you're the one who has to figure out whether to charge VAT on a digital sale to a buyer in Germany.
What you get with Axnify
Everything below is included from the free tier onward — no app store fees, no per-download add-ons, no upgrade-to-unlock gates on core functionality.
Native digital product support
Upload a file, set a price, done. Customer gets a time-bounded download link after payment. Re-download from their account dashboard up to your configured limit. Files served from signed, expiring URLs that never expose the underlying storage path.
Print-on-demand friendly
Sell limited-edition physical prints alongside digital downloads from the same product page. Variant per size + medium + frame, with separate inventory per variant. The 'Original' variant can have stock = 1; the print variants can have stock per edition.
Watermark preview themes
The default art-store theme renders preview images with a configurable overlay. Source files stay in private storage with signed, expiring URLs — never directly addressable. Right-click 'Save image as' on a preview gives the buyer the watermarked PNG, not your master file.
Commissions & custom orders
Built-in quotes module: customer requests a custom piece, you reply with a quote, they pay through the same Stripe integration, you deliver. No more cobbling PayPal invoices together with emailed Dropbox links and chasing the balance.
Real merchant ownership
Your customer list is yours. Export to CSV anytime. No marketplace algorithm deciding whether your work gets seen this week. You own the domain, the SEO, the email subscriber list, the analytics — everything you need to grow without depending on someone else's homepage.
Worldwide tax handled
VAT and US sales-tax rules pre-loaded; charges automatically for digital goods in the right jurisdictions. Invoices generate as PDFs with the buyer's required tax fields, your business details and a 13-month archive in case you need to reconcile during your accountant's audit window.
Buyer's guide: what to look for in a digital-art ecommerce platform
If you're evaluating platforms for a digital-art store, here's the checklist that actually matters in practice — independent of which vendor wins on it. Use it to grill Axnify, Etsy, Shopify, Sellfy, Big Cartel and anyone else you're considering.
First, native digital delivery without an app. If the platform's pitch starts with 'add the [app name] from the marketplace,' factor that subscription into the per-month cost. Apps that handle file delivery typically charge £10–£25/mo and have their own bandwidth caps that bite at the worst possible moment.
Second, variant inventory for limited editions. Selling 50 numbered prints means inventory = 50 for that variant, and the listing must auto-go to 'sold out' when stock hits zero. Platforms that only support 'unlimited / out of stock' booleans force manual workarounds.
Third, image protection at the theme level. Look for watermarking, right-click-disable as a setting, and signed URL serving. If the platform's storefront returns your high-res image directly when you inspect the page, anyone can save it.
Fourth, tax for digital goods in your target markets. Selling to EU buyers from outside the EU? You need VAT MOSS support. Selling to US buyers? Post-Wayfair, digital downloads are taxable in most states. The platform should know this and apply rates automatically per buyer billing address.
Fifth, payout speed. Stripe pays out on a 2-7 day rolling window. Marketplaces (Etsy, Society6) often pay monthly with a hold. If you're cash-flowing print production for the next order, the payout cadence matters.
What artists are selling on Axnify
Limited-edition prints
Hand-numbered editions with inventory limits per size. When the run sells out, the listing auto-shows 'sold out' — no manual archive. Buyers see how many remain ('12 of 50 left'), which is a proven conversion lift on scarcity-driven products.
High-resolution digital downloads
Wallpapers, illustrations, vector packs, Procreate brushes, 3D models. One product, many variants (resolution / aspect ratio / file format), one download link per buyer. Storage included: 2 GB on Starter; unlimited on paid plans.
Originals + reproductions on one product page
Original on Variant A (1 in stock, framed, £800). Giclée prints on Variants B–E (£40–£150, edition of 50 each). The customer picks; you fulfil accordingly. Stripe routes the payment; your fulfilment process picks up the rest.
Patreon-style memberships
Recurring billing for monthly download packs, behind-the-scenes content or work-in-progress timelapses. Members log in, download, repeat. No more chasing Patreon's cut and managing two platforms for one creator business.
How we stack up against the platforms art sellers usually try
Detailed feature-by-feature comparisons:
Free until you outgrow it
Free tier covers up to 50 products. The platform fee is 1.5% on Starter. When your art store is doing real volume, paid plans drop the fee — to 0.75% on Pro, 0.25% on Business and 0% on Enterprise — at £30k/mo GMV that saves you £150/mo, more than the subscription cost.
See full pricingCommon questions from digital artists
Can I sell originals and downloadable prints from the same product page?▾
Yes — use variants. One product, multiple variants where each has its own inventory and price (original = 1 in stock, prints = unlimited or numbered editions). Customer sees one product listing with a variant selector; you see clean per-variant stock and revenue reporting.
How are downloads delivered after a customer pays?▾
After successful payment the customer receives a personal download link, valid for a configurable time window and download count (default: 30 days, 5 downloads). Files are served from signed, expiring URLs in private storage that never expose the underlying path. If the link expires, the buyer can re-issue it from their account dashboard.
What happens if my file is very large (4K wallpapers, multi-GB Procreate sets)?▾
Axnify gives you 2 GB of total file storage on Starter and unlimited on paid plans. Delivery uses ranged HTTPS so large files resume cleanly on flaky connections — important for buyers on mobile or in regions with intermittent broadband.
Do you handle VAT on digital goods sold to EU buyers?▾
Yes. Per-country digital-goods VAT rates are pre-loaded and update automatically. Invoices include the buyer's billing-country VAT and your VAT number when one is configured. The platform also flags when a buyer's billing address means you should NOT charge VAT (e.g. B2B reverse-charge within the EU).
Can I migrate from Etsy / Gumroad / Sellfy?▾
Yes. The product importer accepts CSV exports from Etsy and Gumroad and the JSON exports from Sellfy. Variants, prices and digital files come across; reviews and customer accounts need a separate import step. For Etsy specifically, we have a step-by-step guide that walks through the CSV format gotchas.
Will my Google ranking suffer if I move from Etsy?▾
No — your own domain on Axnify is yours forever. Set up 301 redirects from your Etsy listings (where you have control) and Google passes the ranking signals to the new URLs. Many artists actually rank higher after moving because they're no longer competing with 4 million other Etsy listings for the same long-tail keywords.
Can you help me move my data from another platform?▾
Absolutely. Email support@axnify.com with the export file from your current platform — we accept Shopify, WooCommerce, Etsy, Squarespace, Big Cartel, Gumroad, Sellfy and most other common formats. Our team handles the migration of your products, variants, customers and orders end-to-end, free of charge for standard imports.
Start selling your art on your terms
Free to start. No credit card needed. Just 1.5% platform fee while you're on the free tier.