How to Make and Sell Digital Stickers (GoodNotes-Ready)

To make digital stickers, draw each sticker on its own layer with the background hidden, export one transparent PNG per layer, trim every file to its artwork, and name the files so they sort. Then import the PNGs into a Goodnotes Elements collection, share that collection as a file, and zip both formats with a one-page import guide.

Checked October 2026 against Goodnotes Support on creating, using and sharing Elements and plans and limits; the Procreate Handbook on sharing and layers; Canva's help on transparent backgrounds and products for sale; Adobe on the Trim command; Apple's iPad Pro specifications and guide to ZIP files on iPad; and Etsy's digital listings help, fees policy and payment processing fees. Goodnotes now writes its name with a lowercase n; buyers still search for GoodNotes. The pixel sizes are our working rules, not a Goodnotes specification.

This is the build tutorial. Which packs are worth making, and why functional sets outlast decorative ones, is in our guide to digital sticker niches. If you are still choosing between stickers, planners, templates and other formats, start at the hub on creating a digital product.

What you will have at the end

One drawing session becomes a pack a stranger can install without writing to you: individual PNGs for any app, a collection file for Goodnotes, and instructions.

Before you start

How to make digital stickers: the eight steps

Steps 1 to 3: plan, canvas, draw

Write the pack down before you open the app. A list of 40 named stickers is a product; a canvas of things you felt like drawing is a sketchbook. Group the list by size class using the table in the next section, then set up a canvas in pixels that fits your largest sticker with room to spare. Draw each sticker on its own layer and name the layer as you go, because the layer is about to become the file.

Scale is the quiet part of quality. If the bill icon is drawn at 600 pixels and the rent icon at 900, they arrive in the buyer's planner at different sizes and have to be resized one by one. Keep every sticker in a size class at the same pixel height.

Expected result: one file with a named layer per sticker, all in one palette and consistent in size within each group.

Step 4: hide the background and export the layers

In Procreate, every artwork has a Background Color layer. The Handbook says to hide it "to create an artwork with a transparent background", which it calls "perfect for exporting art as a PNG". Then tap Actions, Share, and under Share Layers choose PNG. Procreate "treats each layer as a separate PNG file, giving you a folder full of PNGs", and only visible layers are exported, so hide your sketch and guide layers first.

Expected result: a folder with one PNG per sticker, each with a transparent background.

Step 5: trim every PNG to its artwork

Trimming removes the empty transparent area so the file ends where the drawing ends. In Photoshop the command is Image, then Trim, with Transparent Pixels selected; Adobe describes it as leaving "the smallest image containing nontransparent pixels". Other editors have an equivalent, usually called trim or crop to content. Leave a few pixels of even margin if your art has a soft edge, and apply the same margin to every file.

Expected result: each PNG is only as large as its sticker, and stickers of one size class share the same pixel height.

Step 6: name and check the files

Name files so they sort into the order a buyer would want: 01-header-rent, 02-header-bills, 10-icon-paid. Then check sizes. Goodnotes Free has a 5MB import file size limit, which the paid Essential and Pro plans remove, so keep every file a buyer imports under 5MB. A single sticker PNG is far below that. A collection file holding a hundred stickers may not be.

Expected result: a folder that reads like a table of contents, with no file near 5MB.

Step 7: build the Goodnotes collection file

Open Goodnotes and select Elements from the toolbar. Scroll to the end of the collection list, select the plus icon, enter a title, choose Import from, pick your PNGs and select Create. To turn that collection into something you can sell, select it, select Edit beside its name, then More and Share. Goodnotes Support says of the result: "The recipient can import the collection file." Split a large pack into several collections by theme, both for the 5MB limit and because a buyer scrolls a collection of 30 faster than one of 150.

Expected result: one collection file per theme, saved beside the PNG folder.

Step 8: zip, then test as a stranger

Zip the PNG folder. Zip the collection files separately. Then send the bundle to a device that has never seen the artwork, and follow your own instructions with nothing else to go on. Place stickers on white, dotted and dark paper, at normal zoom and zoomed in.

Expected result: a stranger gets from the download to a sticker on the page without asking you anything.

What size should digital stickers be? Pixels, not DPI

Size stickers in pixels, for the screen they will sit on. A tablet does not read the DPI number stored in a PNG, so "300 DPI" means nothing by itself on an iPad. It is still a useful way to do the arithmetic: at 300 DPI, a sticker drawn two inches wide is 600 pixels wide.

The ceiling comes from Apple's specifications: the 13-inch iPad Pro has a 2752 by 2064 pixel display at 264 pixels per inch. A sticker wider than the screen is carrying pixels nobody can see. The floor comes from zoom. People enlarge a page to write neatly, and a sticker built at exactly its on-screen size turns soft the moment they do.

One reason to keep the 300 DPI habit: the same artwork can later become a printable sticker sheet, which is a separate product with separate buyers and does need print resolution. Do not mix the two in one listing.

Digital stickers in Canva: what is allowed and how to export

You can build a sticker pack in Canva, but only from content that is yours, and only on a paid plan. Canva's help page on selling uses stickers as an example twice. A sheet of "20 individual basketball, football, and other sport-related elements from the Canva library", offered as individual PNG files, is not allowed: Canva calls it standalone use and says the individual downloads are "similar to selling clipart files". A sheet of "20 inspirational quotes he came up with", typed in Canva fonts, is allowed.

So Canva suits text stickers and your own uploaded drawings. To export, give each sticker its own page sized close to the sticker, keep the page background white or delete it, then choose Share, Download, PNG and turn on Transparent background. Canva limits that option to its Pro, Teams, Business, Education and Nonprofits plans. Choose All pages and you get one PNG per page.

The Goodnotes-ready bundle: what goes in the ZIPs

An Etsy digital listing takes up to five files of 20MB each, from a fixed list of file types that includes PDF, PNG and ZIP. The list has no Goodnotes format on it, and a pack is dozens of PNGs, so both travel zipped. The instructions stay outside the ZIPs, where a buyer sees them first.

Etsy shows your file names to buyers as uploaded, limits them to 70 characters and does not let you rename them later. On an iPad, Apple's guide says tapping a ZIP in the Files app creates a folder containing the files. Put that sentence in your instructions: the buyer who cannot find the stickers after downloading is nearly always looking at an unopened ZIP. Our page on file types Etsy supports has the complete list.

Always include the loose PNGs, even when the collection file works. They are the format every other note-taking app can place as an image, and the fallback if a Goodnotes update changes how collection files import.

How to sell digital stickers on Etsy

Create the listing with Digital files as the item type and upload the bundle. Three parts of the listing do most of the work for a sticker pack.

• The first lines of the description. State the app, the device and the format: transparent PNG stickers for Goodnotes and other note apps on a tablet, delivered as a ZIP, nothing shipped. The buyer who expected paper stickers is the refund request you can prevent.
• The images. Show the stickers in use on a planner page, then the full sheet, then the file list. If the pack is made for a specific layout, show that layout; our tutorial on making a digital planner covers building one to match.
• The terms. Sticker buyers are end users, so a personal-use license is the norm. Our terms of use template has clauses to adapt.

Then check the price against the fees. Etsy charges a $0.20 listing fee and a 6.5% transaction fee, and US shops pay 3% plus $0.25 for payment processing (checked October 2026). At an illustrative $3, those come to $0.73 and you keep $2.27. The fixed 45 cents is why single small packs are thin and bundles are not; the free Etsy profit margin calculator runs your own price.

Etsy is not the only shelf. Goodnotes runs its own Marketplace, but its creator sign-up page said applications were temporarily paused when we checked in October 2026. And once one pack sells, the work changes from drawing to building a line. Our Digital Products program covers that part: pre-selling a pack before you draw fifty more, pricing, and the upsell path from a first purchase to a bundle.

Troubleshooting: what buyers report and what caused it

• "The sticker has a big invisible box around it." The PNG was never trimmed. Trim the set and replace the ZIP.
• "There is a white square behind it." The background was visible on export, or the file was saved as a JPG. Re-export as PNG with the background hidden.
• "It goes blurry when I zoom." The sticker was built at its on-screen size. Rebuild from the original at the sizes in the table; enlarging the small PNG will not help.
• "I cannot find the stickers after downloading." The ZIP is unopened. Point them to the Files app, and see our fixes for downloads buyers cannot find.
• "Goodnotes will not import the file." The file is over 5MB and the buyer is on Goodnotes Free. Split the collection and re-upload.
• "The stickers are all different sizes." They were drawn at different scales. Normalise each size class to one pixel height.

Making and selling digital stickers: FAQ