Commission and fees

The headline numbers

Art Collective takes a flat 10% commission on paid plans (Starter, Professional, Studio) and 15% on the Free plan. There are no listing fees, no relist fees, no success fees, no "premium placement" charges. Commission is only taken when an order completes — if your listing never sells, you pay nothing on it.

What the commission covers

Commission is what keeps the platform running. Specifically, it covers:

• Payments. Taking the card, holding the funds until delivery is confirmed, and transferring to your bank.
• Fraud protection. Stripe Radar + our own risk review catch most bad orders before they touch you.
• Support. Collector and artist support over email, seven days a week.
• The 14-day buyer guarantee. The return window that makes collectors more willing to spend real money — and the dispute resolution when something goes wrong.
• Marketplace infrastructure. Hosting, Discover, the mini-site builder, messaging, analytics, currency handling, VAT configuration, and the tooling you use every day.

What you keep on a sale

Here's the worked example from the pricing page, with the full split shown:

• List price: £500.00 (set by you)
• Shipping you charge: £25.00 (set by you, 100% yours)
• Collector pays at checkout: £525.00
• Platform commission (10% of list price): −£50.00
• You receive: £475.00 + your £25 shipping = £500.00

Stripe card-processing fees apply to the transaction itself — those are Stripe's standard fees (roughly 1.5% + 20p in the UK for standard cards, higher for non-European cards) and we don't mark them up. They're deducted by Stripe before funds land in your Connect balance.

What we don't charge for

• Listing an artwork
• Relisting an artwork after a sale or cancellation
• Editing your listings, mini-site, or profile
• Collectors messaging you, or you messaging collectors
• Shipping costs — you charge what your shipping actually costs, and you keep 100% of the shipping charge
• Getting paid out

Subscription vs. commission — the difference

These are two separate things and both help you decide which plan fits.

The subscription (Starter £8/month, Professional £18/month, Studio £45/month) buys you listing space and the tools on each plan — more listings, lower commission, more features. It's paid monthly regardless of whether you sell.

The commission (10% or 15%) is paid only on completed orders. If you sell zero in a month on a paid plan, you owe nothing in commission.

See the pricing page for the full plan breakdown, including the pre-launch offer that keeps your Starter subscription free for life if you're in the first 100 artists to sign up.