Singulart charges roughly a 50 percent commission on every sale, and on top of that, a required subscription of about €150 per month just to keep a shop live, whether or not anything sells that month. This piece runs the real math on a documented sale, breaks down what that combined cost actually buys, and compares it against a sliding-commission structure with no subscription at all.
In this article:
- What Singulart Actually Charges
- A Worked €1,950 Sale
- What That Combined Cost Buys
- The Curatorial Acceptance Process to Join at All
- Why a Fixed Subscription Hurts Low-Volume Shops More
- When the White-Glove Trade-Off Actually Makes Sense
- What to Check Before Applying
- How Immibrand’s Sliding Commission Compares
- How Singulart Compares to Other Curated Marketplaces
- Best For
- Frequently Asked Questions
What Singulart Actually Charges
The Commission Itself
Singulart’s commission sits at roughly 50 percent of the sale price, one of the higher flat rates among the commission marketplaces covered elsewhere on this site.
The Required Monthly Subscription
On top of that commission, Singulart requires a subscription of about €150 per month just to keep a shop open, a cost that applies whether or not the shop sells anything that month. This combination, commission plus a required subscription, is a genuinely different structure than a flat-commission-only platform charges.
A Worked €1,950 Sale
One documented example makes the combined effect concrete. Two separate costs come out of the same sale:
- The commission, roughly 50 percent of the sale price.
- The monthly subscription, a fixed cost that applies whether or not this specific sale happened at all.
| Item | Amount |
|---|---|
| Sale price | €1,950 |
| Artist nets, after commission and that month’s subscription | ~€750 |
That roughly €750 take-home works out to close to 38 percent of the original sale price, well under what the commission rate alone would suggest, since the fixed subscription eats into the same month’s take-home regardless of how many sales happened.
What That Combined Cost Buys
To be direct: Singulart’s service tier is genuinely different from a purely transactional marketplace. In exchange for its commission and subscription, an artist gets:
- A dedicated agent assigned per artist, not a shared support queue.
- Fully insured worldwide shipping, with Singulart managing claims directly rather than leaving that to the artist.
- Editorial exposure to a large existing collector base, reported at over 100,000 collectors.
That is a genuinely higher service tier than most commission marketplaces offer, worth naming plainly before getting to the cost side of the trade.
The Curatorial Acceptance Process to Join at All
What the Review Actually Looks At
Unlike an open marketplace an artist can join immediately, Singulart requires a curatorial acceptance process before an artist can list anything at all. A submission is reviewed by Singulart’s own curatorial team for fit with the platform’s existing collection and collector base, rather than accepted automatically once an account is created.
Acceptance Is Not Guaranteed
This is a real gate on top of the commission and subscription, an artist cannot simply sign up and start selling the way they could on an open platform, and a submission can be declined. An artist weighing Singulart against an open platform should factor in this upfront uncertainty, not just the ongoing commission and subscription cost, since time spent preparing a submission carries no guarantee of acceptance.
Why a Fixed Subscription Hurts Low-Volume Shops More
The Same €150 Means Something Different at Different Volumes
A fixed monthly cost represents a completely different share of revenue depending on how much a shop actually sells that month, using an average €500 sale as a reference point:
| Monthly Sales | Monthly Revenue | Subscription as Share of Revenue |
|---|---|---|
| 1 sale | €500 | ~30% |
| 5 sales | €2,500 | ~6% |
A fixed subscription always matters more to a smaller, newer shop than an established one selling consistently, which is worth weighing honestly before joining regardless of how strong the curatorial and service benefits are.
When the White-Glove Trade-Off Actually Makes Sense
Higher Average Sale Prices Absorb the Subscription Better
The math above uses a €500 average sale as a reference point specifically because it shows the subscription’s bite at a modest price level. An artist whose average sale runs closer to €2,000 or €3,000 sees the same fixed €150 shrink to a much smaller share of revenue, closer to how the fixed-dollar-fee math works on any platform that combines a subscription with a percentage cut.
What the Insured Shipping Actually Covers
Fully insured worldwide shipping with the platform managing claims directly removes a real, practical burden from the artist, since shipping high-value original work internationally carries genuine damage and loss risk that an artist would otherwise have to insure and manage on their own, filing claims directly with a carrier rather than through the platform.
What to Check Before Applying
Before starting the curatorial acceptance process, it’s worth confirming a few things directly with Singulart: whether the subscription is billed monthly or requires a longer commitment upfront, what the actual acceptance rate looks like for an artist’s specific medium, and how claims are handled in practice on an insured shipment, not just what the policy states in principle. None of this is unique to Singulart, it’s worth asking of any platform that combines a subscription with a percentage-based commission.
How Immibrand’s Sliding Commission Compares
Immibrand uses a sliding commission instead of a flat rate plus subscription:
- 10 percent on sales from $1 to $499
- 15 percent from $500 to $999
- 20 percent at $1,000 and above
No listing fee and no required subscription apply at any tier, meaning a shop selling once a month and a shop selling daily both keep the same published percentage, with nothing fixed eating into a slow month.
How Singulart Compares to Other Curated Marketplaces
Singulart is not the only curated platform that gates entry behind an application process. UGallery, for instance, uses a 50/50 split with a $5 non-refundable application fee and requires exclusivity on any piece it shows, a real but structurally different set of trade-offs than Singulart’s commission-plus-subscription model. Both platforms ask an artist to accept a real gate before selling anything at all, the difference is in what sits on the other side of that gate: Singulart’s white-glove logistics and dedicated agent versus UGallery’s own marketing campaign and exclusivity requirement.
Best For
Singulart’s model suits an artist who wants a dedicated agent, fully insured white-glove shipping, and access to Singulart’s own curated collector base, and who sells consistently enough to make the fixed subscription a small share of monthly revenue. A sliding-commission model with no subscription suits an artist who wants predictable per-sale costs regardless of how many sales happen in a given month, without needing to clear a curatorial acceptance process first.
Frequently Asked Questions
Does Singulart’s subscription apply even if nothing sells that month?
Yes. The roughly €150 monthly subscription is required to keep a shop live regardless of sales volume, on top of the roughly 50 percent commission charged when a sale does happen.
How much does an artist actually keep on a Singulart sale?
One documented €1,950 sale netted the artist roughly €750 after both the commission and that month’s subscription, close to 38 percent of the original sale price.
Can any artist join Singulart, or is there an application process?
There is a curatorial acceptance process required before an artist can list anything at all, joining is not automatic the way it is on an open marketplace.
What does Singulart’s commission and subscription actually buy an artist?
A dedicated agent per artist, fully insured worldwide shipping with claims handled by Singulart directly, and editorial exposure to a large existing collector base.
Does Immibrand charge a subscription like Singulart does?
No. Immibrand’s sliding commission of 10 to 20 percent has no required subscription, no listing fee, and no forced advertising spend at any tier.
Why does a fixed subscription hurt a low-volume shop more than a high-volume one?
Because the same fixed cost represents a much larger share of revenue when fewer sales happen in a given month, and a much smaller share once volume grows.
Does a higher average sale price make Singulart’s subscription less of a burden?
Yes. The fixed €150 monthly cost shrinks as a share of revenue the higher an artist’s typical sale price runs, the same way any fixed-dollar cost behaves relative to a percentage-based one.
Is Singulart the only curated marketplace that requires an application to join?
No. UGallery, for example, also gates entry, through a $5 application fee and a required exclusivity commitment rather than a subscription, a different set of trade-offs worth comparing directly against Singulart’s own model.
What should an artist check before applying to Singulart?
Whether the average sale price in their own category is high enough for the fixed subscription to shrink to a manageable share of revenue, and whether the insured-shipping and dedicated-agent benefits genuinely offset the roughly 50 percent combined cost at their expected sales volume.
Is Singulart’s roughly 50 percent commission negotiable?
Singulart’s published rate is a flat commission applied consistently across accepted artists, it is not a sliding scale that improves with volume the way Immibrand’s 10 to 20 percent band does.
For a full side-by-side look at Singulart next to Saatchi Art, Etsy, Redbubble, and Immibrand, see the full fee comparison table. And if a sliding commission’s own mechanics are still unclear, here’s the plain-English breakdown.
Want to see a sliding commission with no subscription applied to your own catalog? Sign up to sell on Immibrand, it’s free to start.
