If you find yourself wondering how on Earth designers make money, thinking “what does “affiliate link” mean?” or wondering which platform to purchase a pattern on to make sure as much of your hard earned income gets into the pocket of an indie designer – then you’ve come to the right place!
As a maker and pattern enthusiast it may be difficult to know how to best support your fave designers, and we don’t blame you! It’s a confusing world to navigate. I’m going to run through all the ways designers make money and how you can help support designers – from things that will cost a bit more to things that are absolutely FREE! Yes, you heard it – there are FREE ways to support designers!
1. Purchasing PDF Patterns
The first and most obvious way to support a designer is to purchase the PDF of their pattern. Most designers sell their designs on one or more platforms, including their own website, Ravelry, Etsy, or LoveCrafts. These e-commerce sites are the closest link directly to the designer and they’re where the largest percentage of your money spent will end up in designers’ pockets.
That being said, not all e-commerce sites are created equal. Most designers prefer makers to purchase patterns through their website. Designers usually pay a set fee per year to have their website (anywhere from $200-1000+) and then only have to pay payment processing fees for sales on their site (usually around 3% + 30 cents per transaction). Sites like Ravelry and LoveCrafts do their best to minimize fees to designers and only charge a small percentage (2-5%) plus payment processing fees. And while Etsy is a great platform for all things artsy, Etsy sellers end up paying 8%+ in fees, which adds up very quickly.
For example, if Sarah sells 100 copies of her $10 T-shirt pattern on her website, she will receive around $9.40, on Ravelry or LoveCrafts she will probably get between $9.15-9.25, and Etsy she will likely only see about $9. This is why you’ll see most designers pushing you to purchase from their website or Ravelry, over Etsy.
2. Partnerships
Here’s a way designers make money, but at no cost to their fans. Indie designers will often partner with yarn companies (from big brands to indie dyers) to create new designs. How those partnerships work can vary greatly but most commonly you’ll see them collaborating on DIY kits together.
The most common kit contract involves the yarn company paying the designer a set fee for rights to their design so that they yarn company can sell it on their site. The yarn company can pay MORE for exclusive rights (so the designer cannot sell the pattern themselves), or LESS for non-exclusive rights or to have exclusive rights for only a set period or time (so the designer can sell the pattern on their platforms as well). Designers may receive a commission of kit sales, but this is very rare, and it is more likely the designer is an affiliate of that company, which brings us to…
3. Affiliate Marketing
Affiliate marketing is done in almost every industry. Basically, the affiliate/influencer gets a unique link, set of links or a coupon code for their followers to use to purchase a product from another company. This company tracks how many purchases or the dollar amount of the purchases and the affiliate receives a set amount or percentage of this, meaning it does not cost the customer anything extra to use these links or codes.
The amount a crochet/knit designer makes when you use their affiliate link or code varies greatly, but the most common affiliate partnerships I have seen offer a 5 or 10% commission when a customer makes a purchase. So, say you use a designers affiliate link to purchase $50 in yarn, the designer would receive $5 from that yarn company for your purchase if they’re making 10% commission on sales with their links.
4. Advertisements
There are lots of ways to make money off of advertisements, but there are two major ways we often see it happening in the yarn community – ads on blogs/websites and sponsored posts on Instagram.
We know advertisements on websites or blogs can be a bit annoying for some people to scroll past or through, but they’re a great way for designers to provide free content to their audience and still receive some financial compensation. Advertisers can pay per view or per click and these are very, very small amounts so there needs to be a lot of people viewing or clicking on the ads for this to be a fruitful portion of a designers income.
Sponsored posts on Instagram can be a one-off or can be regular posts as part of a contract. For sponsored posts the designer needs to post certain products or a review of the a company in order to receive compensation for the post. Instagram now has a function where you will see “Sponsored by (insert company here)” at the top of the post so that you know it is an advertisement.
5. Publications
Publications can include things like print or digital magazines or books or being a guest blogger on another persons’ blog. Designers may have patterns, reviews of products, stories about their lives or businesses, or anything in between published. Publishers will usually pay a one-time fee to the designer for their contribution. The compensation for things like this varies greatly – because the product can vary greatly (e.g. providing a washcloth pattern to an online magazine vs writing an entire book of patterns).
So what is the BEST way to support your favourite indie designers?
The best way is whatever works within your means. Here are some ideas ranked from most expensive to least expensive for you (number 4-8 are totally free):
Purchase their PDF pattern on their website AND use their affiliate link to buy your yarn for the project.
Use their affiliate links to make your regular yarn related purchases (designers: post your affiliate links somewhere your customers can find them!).
Purchase their PDF patterns on their website, if possible (most designers then say Ravelry is the second choice, then LoveCrafts, then Etsy).
Visit their website/blog a lot – scroll all the way through their blog posts and allow all the advertisements to play, if they have a Youtube channel let the ads play there too!
Engage with their social media content – like, comment, share, save!
Re-pin their Pinterest pins :)
Favourite or like their patterns on Ravelry and Etsy – it helps in the algorithm.
Post your WIPs and finished objects from their patterns, using their hashtags and tag them in the photo so they see it (most designers don’t see tags in the caption only – a tag in the actual photo is best).
Whatever way you choose and are able to support your indie designers is incredible and we appreciate each and every fan and customer so much!
Happy yarning,
Courtney