In This Article, You Will Learn:
Why commissions are no longer being bought
How to attempt to sell commissions
Hi, this is Punni. I spent an entire year testing the "art commission" niche in the open online market, and now I want to share my findings. This will be useful for anyone looking to start taking commissions.
What Will You Face?
You will face the reality that nobody is ordering commissions. Find out what’s happening in the market right now.
A year ago, a friend told me, "If you’re broke, announce that you’re taking commission orders." It sounded so simple and promising.
The strategy was straightforward:
Post an announcement, "Commissions Open."
Upload sample artworks.
Wait for clients to contact you.
Wait… wait… (cue a skeleton covered in cobwebs).
Alright?
Fine, let's move to Strategy #2:
Build a funnel website, as marketers recommend.
Run ads.
You invest $10 a day into Meta ads for your site, get 1,000–2,000 views—wow!—and… zero orders.
Then, people will tell you, "Your funnel just sucks" (just like your résumé that you’ve rewritten 200 times already when job hunting). Nothing new! Thanks for telling me I suck.
Did you get a different result? If you’re here, then obviously not.
90% of Messages You Get Will Be From Scammers
"Hey, draw my son and his dog. I'll pay $400 via PayPal. I sent the money—check your spam folder and click the fake account link so I can steal your funds and data."
"Hello, I want to buy your NFT. I’m Danish Lord Heinrich Friedrich on my yacht."
Thanks, I wish you… a life in a graveyard.
Don’t even bother reading these.
Why Do Some Artists Get 200,000 Views on X?
Social media algorithms haven’t given free organic traffic for the past 5–8 years. The views that top artists get? They pay for them. It’s called boosting.
If they tell you, "People just love me; I don’t buy ads, you’re just dumb," ask them to create a new account and upload their art. They’ll get 10–30 views on X and 10 on Instagram.
And if you can’t afford to buy ads? Some will say, "If you're broke and can’t borrow money from your dad/boyfriend for ads… uh, oh, let’s not talk about that, haha."
Yeah, I can smell the social inequality oppression here.
The Problem With "Commissions" Groups
You see a "Commissions Open" group with 5,000 members? Guess what—most of them are artists looking for clients. Not actual buyers.
Why Aren’t People Ordering Illustrations in 2025?
The target audience for custom illustrations is teenagers.
They have no money and no real reason to buy art.
Sure, they hype up adopt designs, and it all looks sweet and promising. But only if the artist constantly spends on ads.
A good phone camera makes portrait commissions pointless.
They’re now a rare purchase.
AI generates anything you want without mistakes for just $20 a month.
Why spend $100–500 on one illustration from some "Lady Adrianna" in pink lace cosplay with green hair from DeviantArt?
Insane competition.
Artists flood the internet with illustrations, waste money on boosts just for likes and views.
Some sell merch, prints, clothes, or work at studios.
Some just live off their boyfriend/parents and draw for their ego.
Your style is unclear, inconsistent, and not trendy.
Your message must be crystal clear. If people don’t understand it, they ignore you.
How to Solve This Problem
Pay for boost ads: $300–1,000/month.
Send mass DMs, get ignored, and enjoy getting hit with metaphorical banana peels from angry internet trolls.
Draw art to promote another, cheaper product—merch, prints, books, games, education.
Only draw fanart of popular franchises.
That’s what sells.
Drop prices to $30–50 per artwork.
Offer free illustrations to bloggers—they might promote you if they even notice.
With those earnings, you can afford some Korean instant noodles.
Conclusion
Every market has a barrier to entry—the amount of money you must be willing to lose in a niche to test your audience’s problems and solutions.
Whether your offer is liked or not depends on your boost budget. If it's too low, the algorithm will show you to people who never buy anything. Meta, for example, wouldn’t show "$1,000 for 10 clients" in U.S. ad recommendations if it wasn’t filtering purchasing vs. non-purchasing audiences.
If you have no money—send 50 messages a day. And no, not spam. Real conversations. This is an old-school 20th-century sales method.
Remember, building relationships with an audience is necessary.