Selling digital stickers on Etsy (results from my first year) (2026)

Most of what you'll find online about selling digital stickers on Etsy is wildly optimistic. I want to tell you what it was actually like for me, and what my experience was starting my shop and running it for eight months, and share my results with you. On the bottom of the post I've also added my thoughts on selling on Etsy in 2026.

If you're new here, hi! I'm a neurodivergent creative who writes about digital design, passive income from hobbies, and figuring out how to run a small business without burning out. Glad you found me! 😊

*This post contains affiliate links.

A new creative outlet

Like many others, the pandemic year of 2020 resulted in a lot of extra time at home.

Half a year in, after quitting my part-time job in retail in January due to health issues, I yearned for some creative fun! So I started playing around with Photoshop and Keynote, creating textures and illustrations.

Unable to draw or paint and plagued by impatience, I realized that creating digital products on my computer could be the right outlet for my creative energy. Some time later, I started a shop on Etsy after being inspired by YouTubers who made it seem easy to succeed and making lots of money there. Spoiler: It wasn't.

Opening the shop

When you open your shop on Etsy, it's recommended to have 10 listings when launching. This is because the Etsy algorithm gives new shops an extra boost, and more listings will increase your chances of selling a product. But I couldn't wait until I had the recommended 10 listings; I was too eager to get started! Patience is a virtue, as they say, and sadly that's not a strong quality of mine.

I had six digital sticker sets that I was genuinely proud of, and I couldn't wait to share them with the world.

But it quickly became clear that Etsy was not as effortless as the "get rich quick with digital products" YouTubers made it look.

Click to visit my Etsy shop (the link opens in a new window). You get 20% off all my products by using the code BLOGREADER.

As I write this, my shop has been live for about eight months. With 37 sales and 17 five-star reviews, I've felt a sense of fulfillment seeing my cute, girly, and colorful stickers resonate with customers who appreciate my artistic style, even though it's not that many sales. I feel so happy every time my Etsy app makes the "ka-ching" sound, and it's funny how I can get so excited by making 3 bucks, but I do!

The first sale

In just two days after opening, I made my first sale, thanks to strategic advertising efforts with a modest budget of $1 a day for a week. The extra boost the algorithm gives new shops is no joke, and the sales kept ticking in slowly but steadily. Now eight months in, I've seen a decline in traffic, and I'm currently working on improving my listings and their SEO. While my revenue now stands at $53, the ad costs ate into most of that though, leaving me with a lot of experience but not much actual money.

Enjoying the process

I've found my niche in digital washi tapes for digital planners, which I genuinely love making. I'm working on sticking with the process rather than giving up when things don't go my way, which I've absolutely done before. Many times.

I'll continue making new products but also create new listings based on older stickers I've already made and put them together in different ways. Currently, I'm working on an autumn digital sticker set. I just looked through my hard drive for any stickers I've created in autumn colors from different sticker sets and made four new stickers, and I'll launch this sticker set as a new listing. This is an excellent way of saving time and giving products that didn't sell so well another chance in new packaging.

👉 Psst: You might also like my How to make a digital planner to sell on Etsy post!

Eight months in

Although I hoped to make more in my first year, the most important thing for me is to create something to put out in the world which can generate passive income in the long run. The current 20 products I have listed on Etsy are my intellectual property, and I have nothing to lose in trying to grow my shop further. I've made some mistakes, but I constantly learn new things about how Etsy works and update my designs and listings. And writing this blog might also lead to some traffic to my shop :)

Update from 2026

I didn't stick with it. Not long after this was written I decided to focus all my attention on Creative Fabrica, which I actually have stuck with for years now. I was looking to make passive income, and realized that Etsy couldn't really offer it: there's customers sending you messages, if you don't make enough money you have to pay bills to keep your listings up, and I found the process of making listings very time-consuming and boring.

Creative Fabrica on the other hand actually is completely passive, once the listings are up. Yes, you probably have potential to make more on Etsy (due to Creative Fabrica's membership downloads vs. actual sales), but these days Etsy is flooded with AI content and the algorithms have changed. It's harder now than before to get organic traffic from people just using the search bar. I might pick up my shop again at some point, but right now I'm focusing on other things.

If you want to see what I make, you can browse my Creative Fabrica shop here. And I've written about my first two months on Creative Fabrica if you're curious how that compares.

Have you tried selling on Etsy, or are you thinking about starting? I'd love to hear in the comments! 😊