Create a Site for Artists That Sells and Builds Your Brand in 2025

You may be a budding artist or a seasoned one. But have you considered creating a membership site for artists, ever? Darling, trust me, you must think about it to gain the huge potential to transform your life as an artist. 

Pursuing a life through art comes with its unique challenges, but it can be deeply fulfilling. But what if you can set a long term revenue stream and keep creating exclusive content in exchange for art memberships fee? I know what you’re thinking. How to sell art online to make money?

Well, around 13 million individuals have opted for paid memberships on Patreon, the visual art centric platform. That’s a huge number. However, these individuals are divided among the 2,50,000 creators of the platform. The same goes for multiple social media platforms working as an artist portfolio website. A huge population is active but divided among too many artists and creators. 

Now, this is the perfect time to have your own art selling platforms. This provides you autonomy over various factors of art and its monetization. With your talent, creating an art website is going to be a cakewalk. In no time, you will have a dedicated site for artists. 

Benefits of Having a Membership Site for Artists

Website: Timothy Goodman

1. Building a Unique Brand Identity: Well, with a personal membership site for artwork, you create your own unique identity. You have the control to decide how your website looks using the best website builder for artists. 
2. Complete Ownership and Creative Control: You will have complete control over your content. You decide the type of content and the number of people that can access it. Have control over monetization, community, design, and overall user experience to sell art online easily. 
3. Avoiding Platform Dependency Risks: Third-party platforms have their own policy, terms, and algorithms. These will not always benefit you. There are chances of unknown errors, closure, or deletion of your content. To avoid that, a personal website for artists is crucial. 

How a Membership Website Empowers Artists

Website: Sophie Kahn

1. Monetization Beyond Donations: Multiple Revenue Streams

• With a membership site, the ways you can monetize your content diversifies. You can have a paid membership audience for different tiers, sell pay-per-post, digital downloads, and host live events. All the money you earn is yours without any platform cuts on membership fees. 
• To teach your art online, you can even leverage LMS or online courses. These would act as additional sources of income. 

2. Building and Nurturing a Community with an Artistic Site

• When an art lover is directly connected to you and your work, they feel a sense of belonging to your community. It allows for deeper engagement and communication. 
• Various private forums, user-private content, live Q&As, polls, and discussions nurture their love for art. It will be your very own digital art gallery website 

3. Direct Communication: The Power of Email Lists

• Even if all website visitors are not your members, you can keep them updated with your artistic journey by email marketing. Grow your email list and provide them with exclusive content or discounts on art selling websites. 

4. Professional Online Art Portfolio Showcase

• To pitch to clients, you need to have a strong portfolio. A website helps you build a professional and structured portfolio. 
• You never know, a well-maintained website can even land you high-paying clients! 

Suggestions & Examples to Create Site for Different Types of Artists

A membership website is open to all types of artists to share their imaginations and grow a business. It is one of the best ways to sell art online. Here is a brief list of various types of artists who can leverage the creation of a membership website and how to manage it. 

1. Visual Artists (Painters, Illustrators, Graphic Designers)

Website: Lili Arnold

• As a visual artist, you can offer downloadable art prints, templates, tutorials on getting a technique right, how to guide, behind-the-scenes content like time lapses, and so on. 
• You can host monthly live sessions to teach something or answer a pressing question of the industry on a website for artists.
• With membership tiers, you can even offer one-to-one or one-to-many mentorship. 
• You can even segregate your clients among various membership tiers and fixate your services based on the chosen plan. 

2. Musicians, Dancers, and Performers

Website: One Dance UK

• Provide personal album songs, show the snippets of shoot/creation journey, and share blogs about various aspects of music, dance, guitar, and so on on website for artists. 
• Do live jamming or teaching sessions over your membership site. 
• You must create a proper content calendar and plan your content release accordingly. Host exclusive offline shows for your members. 

3. Writers, Poets, and Authors

Website: Paulo Coelho

• You can either write exclusive, informative, member-only blogs to keep them hooked. Or even provide early chapters or bonus chapters as an author. 
• Do you plan to spread your writing skills? Mentor a group of enthusiasts batch wise and share your knowledge with them. Provide writing prompts, weekly writing challenges, and so on alongside your art selling platforms. 
• You can even offer your skills as services by creating multiple membership plans. 

4. Photographers

Website: Jessica Chou Photography

• Apart from providing photography services, you can also create tutorials on photography techniques, editing skills, how to manage the location, how to tackle natural elements in outdoor photography, or how to get the best shots without a professional camera. 
• Provide a monthly collection of stock photos that can be used by your clients. Or work with people to understand their requirements and provide related photos by creating site for artists and photographers. 
• Organize photo walks or photo contests every month. Provide special member discounts for your photography and editing services. 

5. Digital Content Creators (Animators, Filmmakers, YouTubers)

• A personal website is the perfect spot to share extended cuts, bonus content, exclusive footage, and process videos.
• Release your video content gradually using a drip content feature. 
• Artwork websites allow real-time discussions of filmmaking techniques, direction, and screenplay, and engage your audience. 

6. Craft and DIY Site for Artists (Sculptors, Woodworkers, Crafters)

Website: Andrea Manning Art

• Crafting tutorials, guides to choosing material, downloadable projects, and virtual crafting workshops will work wonders for your membership site’s success. 
• Allow booking of private sessions, share new projects to work on each month, and create a subscription box of art supplies to sustain your membership business. 

These are just some of the ideas, while a membership website can be tailored to suit all the art forms. The major concern is to choose the membership site perks and how you will deliver content further. 

Easy Steps to Launch Your Membership Site for Artists

The following are the steps to launch a membership site for visual artists. 

Step 1: Choosing the Right Platform for Site for Artists

There are multiple blogging & website platforms. WordPress is the perfect CMS that powers more than 40% of websites on the internet. It gives you the autonomy to design your membership site along with a membership Plugin like ARMember. 

Alternatively, you can choose platforms like Wix, Weebly, or Squarespace as well for a cloud-based solution. 

Step 2: Picking the Right Themes, Plugins, and Tools

Themes and Plugins give a character to your website. opt for the best art website themes to attract more eyeballs. 

Identify the tools and plugins that you would specifically need. Here is the checklist of all important WordPress plugins that a basic website requires. You can shortlist further based on your requirements. 

Step 3: Setting Up Membership Tiers and Pricing

Now, you must plan various membership tiers and also set up pricing models for website for artists. 

Define what perks you would provide at each level and what will be your other offers. 

Step 4: Creating and Protecting Valuable Content

As a membership business owner, you must keep creating engaging content at regular intervals. For this purpose, diversify your content between podcast creation, blogs, videos, e-books, or downloads. 

Step 5: Managing Community and Feedback for an Artist’s Site

An artist lives on through their loyal followers and members. Thus, you must create a dedicated membership community within your platform. 

Get regular feedback from your visitors and community to better your membership offers. 

Step 6: Integrating an Online Store in the Site For Artists (Optional)

Can you sell specific print material, or templates, merchandise, guidebooks, original artwork, and the like? If yes, integrate an online store into your website. 

This can also be achieved by using the pay-per-post or digital download feature of the ARMember membership platform. 

Step 7: Learn On-page and Off-page Optimization for best SERP Ranking

A website’s progress depends on the traffic it can generate. This eventually depends on the strength of your Search Engine Optimization (SEO). The better the SEO, the better your Search Engine Results Page (SERP) Ranking. 

After you master the on-page and off-page SEO tricks along with quality content, you will start getting good traction on your website.

Wrapping Up the Membership Site Guide for Artists

Creating a self-hosted membership site for artists might seem expensive in the beginning. However, it is a great long term investment wherein you can foster your brand. When you work on your website, you will be working for your own self. Because on other platforms, you indirectly work to give them business and promote them. 

The benefits far outweigh the initial investments that an artist membership website provides. The best part about creating a membership website? Well, it grows with you. The website eventually grows to suit your requirements.

Are you wondering about any specific aspect of artist membership website creation? Comment down your queries and I shall provide you the best solution.

Read this also:

• Why You Should Offer Multiple Tiers for Membership Site
• Best Membership Level Names Ideas to Attract More Members
• Best Online Community Platforms: Top Picks for 2025