How You Get Paid

A real-world example of what happens when your design sells. No surprises. Here is exactly how the money breaks down.

ZERO COST TO YOU
How It Works (The Short Version)
1
You Submit

Upload your design. We handle everything else: printing, shipping, customer service, listings on our own brand website, Amazon, Etsy and TikTok Shop.

2
Someone Buys

A customer finds and buys a shirt with your design. The sale price depends on the marketplace.

3
Costs Come Out

Printing, shipping, marketplace fees, and taxes are subtracted. What is left over is the profit.

4
You Get Your Cut

Your share of the profit is added to your wallet. Request a PayPal payout once your balance reaches $25.

Your Profit Share Depends on Your Tier

The more work you put in, the bigger your share.

Click on each tier to see its payout example below.

Tier 1

One design that works on light and dark shirts (plus a dark-shirt version only if it needs one)

50%

of the profit is yours

Just Type Your Idea.
No Image Needed!
Tier 2

Description / Idea Only

25%

of the profit is yours

Real Sale On Our Own Website

Tier 1 partner (50% profit share)

Best paying
What Amount
Customer pays for the shirt
A Comfort Colors tee on our own brand website 		+ $21.99
Customer pays for shipping
We charge exactly what shipping costs us. No markup, so it is a wash 		+ $4.75
Total revenue $26.74
Now here is where the costs come out...
Printing partner (shirt + printing)
Our global printing partner, who prints and ships the shirt (Comfort Colors 1717) 		- $10.87
Shipping (to the customer)
What it actually costs to mail it 		- $4.75
Card processing
PayPal takes 3.49% + $0.49. There is no marketplace fee here, because the shop is ours 		- $1.42
Profit (what is left after all costs) $9.70
YOUR earnings (50% of profit) $4.85
Sales tax is collected from the buyer and sent to the government. It does not affect your profit.
What This Means For You
"Wait, only $4.85?"

Yes. Selling one shirt does not make you rich. But here is the thing: you did zero work after submitting. No printing, no packing, no customer emails, no returns. You simply submitted an idea and moved on with your life.

This is a numbers game

One design making $4.85 per sale is not exciting. But what about 20 designs, each selling a few times a month? That is $400-$800/month in passive income, for designs you already submitted.

Share it and it sells faster

Once your design is live, you get links to your product on our brand website, Amazon, Etsy and TikTok Shop. Share those links on your social media, in group chats, or anywhere. The more eyeballs, the more sales. You become the marketing.

You risk nothing

It costs you $0 to submit a design. We pay for the listings, the printing, and the shipping. If it does not sell, nobody loses money. If it does sell, you earn money. There is literally no downside.

Same Shirt, All Four Places We Sell It

Your design goes up on our own brand website AND on Amazon, Etsy and TikTok Shop. Each one charges different fees, so what you earn varies by where the shirt sells.

Our own
website
BEST PAYING
 Amazon Etsy TikTok Shop
Shirt price $21.99 $25.99 $17.99 $21.99
Shipping charged $4.75 (at cost) $0.00 (free) $5.99 $0.00 (free)
Total revenue $26.74 $25.99 $23.98 $21.99
Printing partner cost - $10.87 - $10.72 - $10.87 - $10.87
Shipping cost - $4.75 - $4.75 - $4.75 - $4.75
Marketplace fees - $1.42 (card only, 3.49%+$0.49) - $4.42 (17%) - $2.73 (9.5%+$0.45) - $1.10 (5%)
Profit $9.70 $6.10 $5.63 $5.27
Your cut (Tier 1, 50%) $4.85 $3.05 $2.82 $2.64
Every column above is the same shirt: a Comfort Colors 1717 in sizes S to XL. Sales tax is collected from the buyer and remitted to the government. It does not affect your profit.

Why does our own website pay you the most? Because nobody takes a cut of it. On a marketplace we pay a referral fee for the privilege of selling there: Amazon 17% on apparel over $20 (10% from $15 to $20, 5% below that), Etsy 9.5% + $0.45, TikTok Shop 5%. On our own storefront the only deduction is card processing, 3.49% + $0.49 to PayPal. That single difference is worth more than everything else on this page put together, which is why the same shirt pays you $4.85 on our site and $2.64 on TikTok Shop.

Shipping works differently on each too. Amazon and TikTok Shop bake it into the price (free shipping for the buyer), Etsy charges it separately, and on our own site we charge the buyer exactly what shipping costs us, so it neither adds to nor eats into your profit.

The printing cost is $0.15 lower on Amazon and on our own site because those orders do not carry the printed packaging insert card that ships inside Etsy and TikTok Shop orders.

The Real Question: What If You Keep Submitting?
5 designs live

~2 sales per channel per month

~$135/mo

doing nothing

20 designs live

~2 sales per channel per month

~$535/mo

doing nothing

50 designs live

~2 sales per channel per month

~$1,335/mo

doing nothing

* Tier 1 average of ~$3.34/sale = your cut on our own website + Amazon + Etsy + TikTok Shop divided by 4. Assumes each design averages 2 sales per channel per month, so 8 a month in total. These are illustrations, not a forecast: what a design actually earns depends on the design, the niche, which channels it sells on, and how much you promote it. Plenty of designs sell less than this. Some sell nothing at all.

What The Other Places Pay

You have other options for a design. Here is what each one hands you for one sale of a roughly $20 to $22 t-shirt, so the numbers are the same kind of number.

Where the design lives You bank, per sale
YourOtherJob, Tier 1, on our own website
The $21.99 Comfort Colors sale broken down above 		$4.85
YourOtherJob, Tier 1, averaged across all four channels
Our site plus Amazon, Etsy and TikTok Shop, where the marketplace takes its cut first 		$3.34
Amazon Merch on Demand
Creator tier royalty on a $19.99 tee. Amazon changed this in June 2026: the higher tiers ($4.88 and $5.27) need 15% and 35% of your sales to come from traffic you send 		$2.44
Redbubble, standard account
A 20% markup earns about $4.00 on a $24 sale, then the account fee takes half of it 		about $2.00
Society6, and the Threadless marketplace
A flat 10% of what the buyer pays 		about $2.00

Other platforms' rates were checked in September 2026 from their own published terms, and they do change. Ours are the same numbers used everywhere else on this page. We are comparing what you actually receive, not headline percentages: a share of profit and a share of the sale price are different measures, and the dollar you bank is the one that matters.

Common Questions
No. It is 100% free to submit. We cover the first 8 months of listing fees, printing costs, and shipping. You just upload your design. If it never sells, you lose nothing.
Submitting a design is completely free, and it always will be. We cover every cost for the first 8 months: listing fees, printing, shipping, everything. You pay nothing.

After 8 months, if a design has not sold, the listing expires. That is it. No charge, no penalty. But if you believe in your design and want to keep it live, the auto-renew toggle lets you use a small amount from your wallet ($0.40) to extend the listing for another 8 months.

It is entirely your choice. If you are confident your design just needs more time to find its audience, turn it on. You are investing a tiny fraction of your earnings to keep it in front of buyers. If you would rather not spend wallet funds on it, leave it off and the listing will simply deactivate. No pressure either way. Your wallet will never go negative. If your balance is not enough, the design quietly expires on its own.
Yes. Your Wallet page shows every single transaction: what sold, on which marketplace, the exact sale price, all costs, and your earnings. Full transparency, every time.
You absolutely can! But here is what you would need to handle yourself: setting up a shop, writing SEO-optimized titles and descriptions, managing print-on-demand accounts, handling customer service, processing returns, running ads, and keeping listings updated across multiple platforms. We do all of that for you. It took us over 2 years to build the automation that powers this service at scale, so you do not have to. You just design and share.
Nothing happens. You do not owe anything. If your design has not sold in 8 months, the listing will expire unless you have auto-renew enabled. We cover the first 8 months. After that, you can use your wallet funds to cover the $0.40 per listing for an additional 8 months. Your wallet will never go negative. If your balance is insufficient, the design will simply be deactivated. You will get an email 30 days before a listing expires so you have time to enable it if you want. The best strategy is to keep submitting. More designs means more chances to sell.
Yes, for now. As we grow, we will be introducing more products across more targeted and niche storefronts. T-shirts are just the beginning.
The front. We will be adding the capability for back-of-shirt designs in the future.
Marketplace algorithms and search engines need time to index, rank, and surface your products. It is not uncommon for a product to go 6-12 months before its first sale as it climbs in search rankings. Turning off a listing resets that progress. When you relist, you start from scratch.

If a design has not sold in 8 months, it will expire unless you have auto-renew enabled. We cover the first 8 months. After that, $0.40 is deducted from your wallet to keep the listing alive for an additional 8 months. Your wallet will never go negative. If your balance is insufficient, the design will simply be deactivated. We strongly encourage leaving auto-renewal enabled.
We use a rated and intricate keyword evaluation process to write SEO-optimized titles, descriptions, and tags for every marketplace. We research trending search terms, competitor listings, and marketplace algorithms to give your design maximum visibility. We also use proven mockup templates that have been tested to maximize click-through and conversion rates. This is not a generic template. Each listing is crafted for maximum exposure.
Yes. Every design goes through trademark screening before it goes live. We check against registered trademarks and marketplace-specific policies. If a design conflicts with an existing trademark or risks a takedown, we reject it. We also run quarterly trademark checks on all active designs. If a new trademark is registered that conflicts with a live design, we take it down to keep our stores in good standing. Being first to publish also helps establish copyright on original work.
No. We review every submission for quality, originality, and marketability. Not everything makes the cut. This is intentional. By curating what goes live, we maintain the quality and reputation of our stores, which drives more sales for everyone whose designs are approved. If your design is not approved, all rights revert to you immediately.
When your design is approved, our team may refine it to make it more sellable. That could mean adjusting a font, tweaking colors, or improving the layout. We may also create variations: versions with different wording, color schemes, or alternate treatments inspired by your original concept. For example, if your design says "Bookworm Bitches," we might create variations like "Bookworm Club" or "Read More Books" with the same visual style.

Every variation is tied to your original submission. You earn the same profit share percentage on every sale of your original design and every variation created from it. Your one idea can become an entire product line, and you earn on all of it. This is covered in detail in Sections 8 and 9 of the Terms of Service and the Partner Agreement you sign when you submit your first design.
A lot more than you think. Setting up shop on Etsy alone means listing fees, SEO research tools ($30-$100/mo), professional mockup creation, trademark searches, ad spend, and hours of writing optimized titles and descriptions. Add Amazon and TikTok Shop and you are managing three separate storefronts, each with their own rules, fees, and algorithms. Then there is printing, shipping, customer service, returns, and reviews. Most people who try it themselves spend hundreds of dollars and hundreds of hours before making their first sale, and many never do. With YOJ, you skip all of that. We have spent over two years building the systems and automation to do this at scale. You just design and share.
Yes. We do not just list your design and walk away. We invest real money in listing fees, printing infrastructure, professional mockups, SEO tools, and ad spend. We invest real time in keyword research, listing optimization, trademark screening, and customer service. You invest your creativity. When it sells, we both win. That is a partnership.
Nothing here is under the table. We are a legitimate business and we report everything to the IRS. Your earnings are royalties for licensing your artwork to us. If you are a US person and earn $10 or more in a calendar year, we will issue you a 1099-MISC (royalties, box 2) for tax filing purposes. If you are outside the US, we collect a Form W-8BEN instead, and US tax may be withheld only from the share of your earnings that comes from sales delivered inside the United States. We recommend earmarking a portion of your profits for taxes, but everyone's tax situation is different.

This is not tax advice. Please consult your accountant or tax professional for guidance specific to your situation.
We cover the first 8 months of listing fees at no cost to you. After that, the listing will expire unless you have auto-renew enabled, which uses $0.40 from your wallet to extend it for another 8 months. Your design files remain in our system for as long as the listing is active. If a listing expires and is not renewed, we retain the commercial license per the Partner Agreement, but the product is taken down from all marketplaces. You will always be notified 30 days before a listing is set to expire.
Shirt colors are preset on each product type to work with our automated production pipeline. That is why Tier 1 asks for one design that works on light and dark shirts, plus a second version for dark-colored shirts only if the first one does not show up on them. During submission, our site shows you a preview of what your design looks like on each available shirt color so you can see the result before you submit.
Every design goes through our screening process before approval. We check for trademark conflicts and review for originality. When you submit a design, you represent and warrant that it is your original work and does not infringe on anyone else's intellectual property. If a third party files a valid claim, the design is taken down and the partner is responsible per the indemnification clause in the Terms of Service. We take this seriously because it protects our stores, our partners, and the integrity of the platform.
PNG with a transparent background is the preferred format. This gives us the cleanest result when placing your design on different shirt colors. If you submit a design with a white or colored background, we may need to remove it, which can affect quality. For Tier 2 (idea/description only), no image is needed at all.
We run quarterly trademark checks on all active designs. If a new trademark is registered that conflicts with a live design, we take it down to protect our stores. You keep any earnings from sales made before the takedown. If the conflict is with a trademark that existed before your submission, the partner is responsible per the Terms of Service. If it is a newly registered trademark that did not exist when you submitted, there is no penalty to you. We handle the delisting process either way.
Submit a Design Now

It takes less than 5 minutes. Zero cost. Zero risk.

Still weighing it up? Read the blog for how the marketplaces, the fees, and the payouts actually work.

* Profits shown are based on current listing prices. Products are priced to compete across marketplaces and can change accordingly. Profit margins may vary, but we will always be fully transparent on all costs and your earnings.