The best digital products for artists are assets you already make while working: brush sets, texture packs, stamp sets, colour palettes and line art. Each needs a narrow use, a demo piece and a one-page license that allows finished artwork and forbids sharing the files. The catalog below lists 12 products with what goes in the download, why each works and how to adapt it.
The best digital products for artists are the assets you already make while you work: brush sets, texture packs, stamp sets, colour palettes and line art, each sold as a file with a short license. They turn drawing skill into something that sells more than once, and nobody sends you a brief or asks for a fourth round of revisions.
Checked on 11 October 2026 against the Procreate Handbook on sharing brushes and palettes, Procreate's brand use and trademark guidelines, Creative Market on its license tiers and shop earnings, Gumroad Help on PDF stamping and license keys, and ArtStation's earnings page. This page carries no sales or earnings figures.
A commission sells your time once. An asset sells a piece of your process to everyone who wants to work the way you do. This page is the catalog of what to package. For the build itself, from validating an idea to pricing and delivery, follow our guide on how to create a digital product.
Digital products for artists: the asset-first catalog
Start with what a finished piece leaves behind. One painting session produces several sellable files before you draw anything new.
- 01Paint one study
A finished piece in the medium you know best.
- 02Save the brushes
The custom brushes you built for it become a set.
- 03Scan the surfaces
Paper, washes and grain become a texture pack.
- 04Export the palette
Its colours become a .swatches file.
- 05Pull the line art
The inked layer becomes a practice or coloring page.
- 06Share the file
The layered original becomes a process file.
The full catalog has twelve products. The first five are the asset-first core; the rest reuse the same skills for a wider audience.
| Product | What is in the download | Why it works | How to adapt it |
|---|---|---|---|
| Brush set | A .brushset file for Procreate or an .abr file for Photoshop, plus a stroke chart | Buyers pay to get your mark-making without the trial and error | Build 10 to 15 brushes around one medium you really use: gouache, risograph, comic inking |
| Texture pack | High-resolution PNG or JPG scans: paper, grain, halftone, paint washes | Opens in any app that places an image, so one pack serves every buyer | Scan real materials from your desk and group them by use: overlays, backgrounds, edges |
| Stamp set | Stamp brushes: foliage, stars, hands, lettering guides, grids | Saves repetitive drawing, and a beginner can use it on day one | Pick one subject you draw constantly and make 20 to 40 clean stamps of it |
| Colour palette pack | .swatches files for Procreate, plus a PNG reference card | Quick to make, an easy add-on, and a natural free sample | Pull palettes from finished pieces and name them by mood or subject |
| Line art pack | PDF and PNG outlines: coloring pages, inking practice sheets, flash-style sheets | The buyer finishes the art, so your drawing is the product | Choose one audience: adult colourists, children, or artists practising line work |
| Clipart set | Transparent PNGs in one style and palette, with a license PDF | Bought by other sellers for stickers, cards and planners | Draw one themed set per buyer project |
| Seamless pattern tiles | Repeating tiles as PNG or JPG, with a scale guide | Pattern buyers are makers: fabric, wrapping paper, stationery | Turn your recurring motifs into six coordinating repeats |
| Printable art | Print-ready JPG or PDF files in standard frame ratios | The one product here bought by people who are not artists | Offer one piece in several ratios and say plainly that it is a digital file |
| Process file | A layered source file with a written or recorded walkthrough | Learners want to open your file and see how it is built | Share one finished piece per style, with layers named and grouped |
| Mini class or workbook | A PDF workbook, often with a brush or palette included | Teaches the skill behind your style and pairs with every asset above | Teach one narrow thing: skin tones, foliage, soft edges |
| Canvas and layout templates | Comic panel grids, sketchbook spreads, character-sheet layouts | Removes setup, the dull part of starting a piece | Template the layouts you already reuse |
| Hand-lettered font | An OTF or TTF font file with its own license | Turns an alphabet you drew once into an installable tool | Start with one display face before a full family |
Three of these have their own guides here: how to make clipart to sell, coloring page niches that sell for line art, and how to make and sell fonts. If your background is layout and branding more than drawing, the list of digital products for graphic designers fits better.
Digital product ideas for artists: which one fits your work
Two questions sort the catalog: is the product a tool or finished art, and does the buyer make art for fun or sell their own work? The answers decide the price range, the license and where you list.
The top row asks more of you: professional buyers read the license, expect clean files and email when something breaks. The bottom row reaches more people. The left column is the easier start, because the tools already exist on your iPad.
What separates a pack that sells from one that sits
Narrow packs with proof beat large packs with none. A buyer cannot test a brush before paying, so the listing has to show what it does and who it is for.
- "200 mega brushes" with no stated use
- Preview is a grid of brush names
- No license, or "message me for commercial use"
- Built for one app version and never updated
- A generic keyword for a name
- 12 gouache brushes for picture-book illustration
- Preview shows strokes and a finished piece made with the set
- One-page license: sell your artwork, never share the files
- Install guide included, retested after app updates
- A distinctive name you can search for when checking for copies
The patterns behind the right-hand column:
- One medium, one job. A set built around a single look is easier to demonstrate and easier to find than a general toolkit.
- The demo is the sales page. Make one finished piece using only the pack, and record a short process clip of it.
- Include the boring files. A stroke chart, an install note and a license PDF answer most questions before they are asked.
- Sell in a ladder. A free palette or three sample brushes, then the full set, then a bundle with a workbook.
The license file buyers expect
A brush or texture license does two things: it lets the buyer sell whatever they make with the tool, and it forbids passing on the tool itself. Three established asset shops publish theirs, and they agree on that core. The summaries below come from the public license pages of Bardot Brush, True Grit Texture Supply and RetroSupply Co., read on 11 October 2026.
| Shop | What its public license says | What to copy |
|---|---|---|
| Bardot Brush | Install on multiple iOS devices that belong to you. Use in any personal or commercial work and sell end products made with the brushes. No selling, giving away or redistributing the brush files, or edited versions of them. | One plain license that fits on a single screen |
| True Grit Texture Supply | One user per license bought, two devices per user. Commercial and non-commercial use. No sub-licensing, resale, sharing or redistribution. No training of generative AI. No reverse-engineering to create a similar product. Extended license for companies above $250 million in annual revenue. | Per-user pricing and an explicit AI-training clause |
| RetroSupply Co. | Users set at purchase, two devices each. Personal and commercial use, with physical products for sale up to 250,000 units. No resale, sub-licensing or sharing. No use in machine learning or AI training datasets. Extended license above $200 million in annual revenue. | A unit cap, and an extended tier for very large buyers |
Finished art sold to other sellers works differently, because the buyer redistributes your art inside their product. Creative Market's tiers are the reference: its Commercial license allows up to 5,000 end products for sale and requires the result to differ significantly from the original asset, and its Extended Commercial license allows up to 250,000. Neither allows reselling the asset in a way that competes with the original.
- Who may use it: one person, and on how many of their own devices
- What they may make: personal and commercial artwork created with the asset
- Whether end products can be sold, and any unit cap
- What is never allowed: sharing, reselling or giving away the files, edited or not
- No using the asset to build a competing brush, texture or stamp product
- Your position on AI and machine-learning training
- How teams and studios buy extra seats
- A contact address for license questions, and a version date
Write it in plain sentences and keep it identical across your shop. Our terms of use template for digital products gives a structure to start from. This is general information, not legal advice.
Selling brushes for Procreate: formats and the naming rule
Procreate packages a single brush as a .brush file, a set as a .brushset file and a whole library as a .brushlibrary file, and it imports Photoshop .abr brushes. Palettes export as .swatches files, and Procreate imports Adobe .ase and .aco colour files. Buyers import them by dragging the file into Procreate, so one line of install instructions is enough.
On ownership, Procreate's guidelines say the original work you create in its apps belongs to you. That does not cover third-party material or the sample projects inside the app. We could not find a Procreate page that addresses reselling edited versions of its default brushes, so treat that as unanswered and build each brush from your own shape and grain images.
The theft-protection setup
You cannot lock a brush file: a .brushset copies like any other file. What you can build is a routine that makes copying less likely and takedowns quick.
- 1Ship the license in the download
A one-page PDF in every zip and the same summary on the listing. It sets the terms you point to when someone shares the files.
- 2Keep dated source files
Layered originals, the shape and grain images behind each brush, and your export dates. They are your proof of authorship.
- 3Show results, not sources
Preview strokes and finished art at screen size. Do not post the grain or shape images at full resolution.
- 4Use the delivery features you have
Gumroad can stamp the buyer's email onto PDFs. Its help page says license keys will not limit access to media or ebook files.
- 5Give each pack a searchable name
A distinctive name makes copies easy to find. Search it with the words free download once a month.
- 6Report copies in batches
Use each marketplace's reporting tool, with links to your original listing and to every copy.
When a copy does appear on a marketplace, the formal route is a copyright notice. Our walkthrough of a DMCA takedown on Etsy covers the notice, the evidence and what happens if the other seller objects.
Where artists sell assets, and what each platform keeps
Pick the platform by who brings the buyer. A marketplace with its own search suits a new shop; a storefront suits an artist with followers.
| Platform | What it takes (checked October 2026) | Fit for art assets |
|---|---|---|
| Etsy | 9.5% + $0.45 on a plain sale for a US shop; 12% to 15% more when Offsite Ads bring the buyer | Search traffic for clipart, printables, stamps and palettes. Five files of up to 20MB per listing. |
| Gumroad | 12.9% + $0.80 on a direct card sale; a flat 30% through Discover | Best with your own audience. Stamps PDFs with the buyer's email and handles sales tax as merchant of record. |
| Creative Market | Shops earn 50% of list price by default; rates vary by shop and product | Design buyers and a built-in license system: Personal, Commercial (up to 5,000 end products) and Extended Commercial (up to 250,000). |
| ArtStation Marketplace | 5% selling fee for Pro members or 12% for non-Pro, plus $0.30 per item; a promotion fee applies to referred sales | A portfolio site with a marketplace attached, so buyers are artists looking for brushes, references and tutorials. |
The Etsy file limit comes from its help page on managing digital listings. For the per-sale arithmetic across eight platforms, see our digital product platform fees comparison.
Can you sell art printables instead?
Yes, and it is the one product in the catalog that reaches people who do not draw. A printable is a finished piece sold as a print-ready file, which the buyer prints at home or at a print shop. It needs standard frame ratios, a clear note that nothing is shipped, and previews that show the art on a wall.
Printables compete on subject and style, not on technique, so they suit artists with a recognisable look. Our guide to selling printables on Etsy covers file setup and listings. If you would rather the buyer received a physical print, compare the two models in print on demand vs digital products first.
Is this passive income for artists? No: here is the upkeep
An asset shop is less work per sale than commissions, and it still has a monthly workload. Plan for four recurring jobs:
- Compatibility. Retest every pack after a major app update, and re-export if something changed.
- Support. Install questions arrive however good the instructions are. Keep one saved reply per app.
- Copy checks. The monthly name search and any reports that follow.
- New work. A shop with one pack goes quiet. Each new pack needs its own demo piece, and that is drawing time.
None of this is heavy, and none of it is optional.
Build your first pack this week
- Pick the asset you already have. The brushes, textures or palette behind your last three finished pieces.
- Check paid listings. Search the asset type on two marketplaces and note what the top results include, how they are previewed and what they charge.
- Narrow it to one use. One medium, one subject or one kind of artist.
- Package it. The files, a stroke chart or preview sheet, an install note and the license PDF.
- List it once and show it once. One marketplace, one finished demo piece and one process clip.
Step two is where most packs are won or lost. Our Digital Products program goes deeper there: its validation module covers competitor analysis and pre-selling an idea before you spend a week building it.
Digital products for artists: FAQ
What digital products can artists sell?
Artists can sell the tools and by-products of their own work: brush sets, texture packs, stamp sets, colour palettes, line art, clipart, seamless patterns, printable art, layered process files, short classes, canvas templates and hand-lettered fonts. The first five are the quickest to package, because most working artists have already made them for their own use and only need to tidy, document and license them.
Can I sell brushes I made in Procreate?
Procreate's guidelines say the original work you create in its apps belongs to you, which does not cover third-party material or the sample projects inside the app. Brushes export as .brush files and sets as .brushset files. You may say a set is for use in Procreate, but not put the Procreate name in your product, shop or handle name. We found no Procreate page on reselling edited default brushes, so build from your own shape and grain images.
What license should come with a brush or texture pack?
A one-page license that says who may use the pack (usually one person on their own devices), that they may make and sell artwork created with it, and that the files themselves may never be shared, resold or given away, edited or not. Established shops add a clause against using the pack to build a competing product, and some now exclude AI training. This is general information, not legal advice.
How do I stop people sharing my brushes for free?
You cannot fully stop it, because a brush set is a file and files copy. What works is a routine: ship a clear license in every download, keep dated source files as proof of authorship, give each pack a distinctive name, search for that name with the words free download once a month, and report copies through each marketplace's reporting tool. Stamping buyer details onto PDFs helps for guides and workbooks.
Where should artists sell digital products?
Etsy suits clipart, printables and stamp sets, at 9.5% plus $0.45 per plain sale for a US shop. Gumroad suits artists with their own audience, at 12.9% plus $0.80 per direct card sale. Creative Market pays shops 50% of list price by default and supplies the license system. ArtStation Marketplace charges a 5% or 12% selling fee plus $0.30 per item. Checked October 2026.
Do I need a large following to sell art assets?
No. Marketplaces with their own search, such as Etsy and Creative Market, can show a pack to buyers who have never seen your work. A following matters more on a storefront like Gumroad, where you bring the buyer yourself. In both cases a demo piece made with the pack does the selling, so plan one finished artwork and one short process clip for every product you list.
Your process is already a product. Package it so it sells.
The Digital Products program, included in All Access, covers validating which pack buyers want, pricing it, building a free sample that grows an email list and launching to it. The other three programs, live coaching and the private community come with the same subscription.
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