Overseas art platforms — commissions, shipping and what is left

If you have ever thought about putting work on an overseas platform and then stopped, the reasons are usually the same.

You have to write the description in English. You do not know how shipping works when something sells. Being rejected would sting. So you tell yourself you will do it "when you are more ready."

Everything looks large before you try it. In practice most of it is procedure, and procedure can be learned. That is today's subject.

They differ by how you get in

Overseas platforms divide by threshold, and knowing that settles where to begin.

Open to anyone. Saatchi Art is the example: no jury, make an account, upload. No threshold also means many competitors.

Juried, or entered by recommendation. Singulart takes applications and runs an internal review — and in practice a good number of artists arrive through a recommendation from someone inside the field.

Through galleries. Artsper is built on a gallery network rather than direct artist uploads.

General marketplaces like Etsy and Amazon exist too, but those are closer to selling products than to art distribution. They do not belong beside originals in this comparison.

Singulart — now paid, and full of tools

Singulart moved from free to paid about a year ago. There are more tools above the basic tier, and those cost extra.

The platform runs in euros. Sales happen in several currencies, and the artist can be paid out in the currency they choose — which is not a small thing in a bad exchange-rate season.

Newer systems have widened what an artist can see: which countries the traffic comes from, and which works are drawing attention, as statistics. That feeds real decisions about what to show and what to make next. Discounts are managed by the artist directly.

And a collector can propose a price to the artist, with Singulart brokering it. That means you do not have to haggle directly — and also that someone stands in the middle.

The commission rate is not on their public pages. Search and you will find anything from 28% to 50%. From the outside it cannot be verified, so it has to be read in the contract.

Saatchi Art — published rate, and a different route through prints

Saatchi Art states its commission in the help centre: on originals it takes 40% and the artist keeps 60%. It rose from 35% in 2026.

At that scale there is a lot of programming. Curated collections run continuously, and every year it names its Rising Stars. In 2026, two thousand artists came through an open call and thirty were chosen — recent art-school graduates and self-taught early-career artists.

What is distinctive here is the open edition print. Without selling the original, an uploaded image can be ordered by a customer as canvas, paper, photographic print or framed work, and the artist takes a share on the image. One caution: prints divide profit, not the sale price — the figure after production costs. Check the percentage in the help centre itself; the numbers circulating outside disagree.

Payment comes by cheque, bank wire or PayPal, and wire or PayPal takes about fourteen days from the payout request.

Paid platforms and free ones clearly differ. But where your work will draw attention is not knowable before you try. Which is exactly why it is worth trying.

What actually happens when something sells

This is the part artists most want to know. The order runs roughly like this:

1. Sale notice — the platform sends the sale amount and the buyer's details
2. Packing — you pack to the platform's art-packing guidelines. The rules are specified
3. Photographs of the packed work — once wrapped, photograph it with a ruler so the dimensions are visible, from several angles, and upload to the shipping record
4. Booking — with photographs and measurements in, the platform books quickly
5. Pickup — a linked carrier such as DHL or FedEx collects it
6. Shipping cost — the buyer pays
7. Payout — once delivery is confirmed, payment begins

Step 3 is where people get stuck. With size and weight already recorded it takes half an hour; without them it starts with opening the crate. That is why the first entry was about records.

And skimming the packing guidelines always causes trouble. Out-of-spec packing can be refused at pickup, and if something is damaged, responsibility blurs. Learn it properly once and your hands remember it afterwards.

One more important piece here is export declaration. That deserves its own entry.

Before you sign up

What you need in order to list is short.

• Photographs — face at original resolution, details, verso
• Size and weight
• Medium, worded consistently in English (e.g. Acrylic on canvas)
• An English title and one paragraph of description
• A CV — exhibitions and awards, or none if there are none (you are welcome to use mine as a format)
• A passport

The first five are exactly the archive from the first entry. With the record in order, registering is copy and paste. Without it, you rebuild it from scratch on every platform.

The last item may be unexpected: you need a passport. Not to upload work, but for getting paid.

Overseas platforms and their payment providers verify identity before sending money. They ask for a passport or equivalent ID, and the English name on the account has to match the passport. This is where people actually get stuck: the name written in a different order, an older romanisation used out of habit, or a receiving bank account in yet another spelling — and the transfer bounces back.

So open the passport when you register and copy the name exactly as printed. Platform account, payment account, receiving bank account: keep the English name identical across all three, and a mismatch in your own details will never be the reason a payment fails to reach you.

So there is nothing to fear

What do you lose if you are turned down? A few hours. Almost none of them charge to apply.

A rejection is not a verdict on the work. It is a question of the roster a platform wants this year, and that changes. Artists refused in one place sell in another all the time.

Above all, applying leaves you one complete set of English material. Accepted or not, it is yours.

So the order goes:

1. Put the record in order — photographs, dimensions, weight, English wording
2. Upload to one place with no threshold. Not all of them at once
3. Take one sale all the way through — packing, photographs, shipping, payout
4. Apply to a juried platform with that behind you

Next time

Next: export declaration for artworks — what an HS code is, what gets declared and how, and what happens if you skip it.

After that, how the money reaches you — PayPal, virtual accounts and direct transfer to a Korean bank, compared by what actually lands.