Artistree — how an artist or illustrator can take art commissions with no fee

Artistree is a platform for people who draw to order: it helps you handle commissions properly — not in DMs — with upfront payment and protection against refunds. The main thing: it is free for the artist — the client pays the fee. Let’s look at how it all works, how much really goes out, and who it suits.

What it is
Artistree (artistree.io) is an American platform for selling digital commissions: illustration, anime art, reference sheets, 3D, animation, music, text, video editing.
Its selling point is that it is free for the author: the client pays the fee, not the artist. The project is pointedly ethical — it plants a tree for every deal, is firmly against NFTs and neural networks, and even introduced a “made by a human” mark.
It is a small niche project: hence the pluses (real human support, ethics) and the minuses (support replies slowly, narrow geography). The company does not disclose its audience size.

How to start
Registering as an artist is by email, open, with no invites or portfolio review. At sign-up you give your country — it must be on the supported list (more on that below). Before you can sell, you connect Stripe or PayPal (both is fine).
Then you set up an order form: work types (bust, full body, reference sheet), prices, samples, the number of open slots, and your own terms. You pick a currency from 19 available.
You share the form link on your own social media — that is the main way it works. You can also get into a small artist catalogue (Marketplace): the listing is not automatic, but there is no follower minimum.

How orders come in
Two modes. The order form — the whole cycle on the platform: the client comes via your link, pays 100% upfront, communication and delivery go through the service, and every approval is saved as evidence in case of a payment dispute; after delivery the client can leave a tip. The invoice — you simply issue a bill and deliver the work off-platform: you get 100%, but you lose part of the protection.
The platform barely brings clients itself — the model is “bring your own audience” from social media, plus a small catalogue where search looks at the work type, the description, and even the content of your samples. There is no bidding or haggling here, and no reviews or price filter either — deliberately, so as not to start a race to the bottom on price.

What it costs
For the artist it is free: no subscription, no cut from the author. The client pays an extra 6.5%, and on orders under $100 about $2.60 more. For example, on a $100 commission the client pays $106.50 and you get the full $100.
Things to remember: if you lose a payment dispute (chargeback), you are charged $15 (Stripe) or $20 (PayPal); Stripe’s currency conversion is 1% (price in your account’s currency to avoid it). VAT on Stripe payments, though, the platform calculates and remits itself — you do not have to deal with European tax.

Who the site is available to
There are two limits here — on the artist and on the client.
To sell, you can only be in a country on the supported list (that is the EU, the UK, the US, and also Ukraine, Georgia, Armenia, Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, Moldova and others). Your actual place of residence matters, and so does a local account for Stripe or PayPal — payouts go only there.
To pay, clients can only be in an even narrower set — about 41 countries (the US, the EU, the UK, Canada, Australia, Japan and others). This means Artistree is aimed at a Western audience that can pay here: if your followers are mostly from other regions, they will not be able to pay for an order on the platform. You can’t get around this with fake details — everything is tied to a real country and account.

How to sell more effectively
What really helps: always run an order through the form, not an invoice — the client’s approvals become evidence in a dispute. Price in your bank’s currency (saving 1% on conversion) and connect both payment services. Apply to the catalogue right away — there is no follower minimum, and search indexes the content of your samples, so upload varied, characteristic work.
Things to remember: Artistree barely brings orders on its own — it is first of all a tool for closing deals with your own audience from social media; a beginner with no followers should not expect orders from the catalogue. The team is small and support is slow, so don’t keep your whole client base only here. And the “client pays the fee” model raises the final price by 6.5–9%, which is noticeable on cheap orders.
If you need a ready flow of new clients rather than working with your own audience, look at VGen with its catalogue and client requests, or Fiverr; and for selling originals with physical delivery, the platform is not a fit.