Etsy, Inc. vs Redbubble: Strategic Comparison

This in-depth comparison examines Etsy, Inc. and Redbubble across revenue, market value, business model, competitive positioning, and long-term growth strategy. Whether you are researching Etsy, Inc. on its own, evaluating Redbubble, or weighing the two companies side by side, the breakdown below highlights where each company leads and where the gap between Etsy, Inc. and Redbubble is widest.

On the headline numbers, annual revenue is $2.9B (FY2025) for Etsy, Inc. and ~$263.5M (FY2026) for Redbubble, while their respective market capitalizations stand at $6.7B and $109M. Etsy, Inc. is headquartered in United States and Redbubble in Australia, and those different home markets shape how each company competes.

Etsy, Inc.: Etsy is a Brooklyn-based online marketplace for handmade, vintage and craft goods. It hosts millions of independent artisans and crafters who sell items such as custom-knit sweaters, personalized jewelry and vintage furniture. Its positioning is the opposite of mass-produced goods sold on large general marketplaces. The company is headquartered in Brooklyn, New York.

Redbubble: Redbubble is one of the oldest and largest print-on-demand marketplaces. It started in Melbourne in 2006, listed on the ASX in 2016, and bought US rival TeePublic in 2018. After a pandemic boom in FY21 and three years of losses, the parent was renamed Articore Group in 2024. Under Group CEO Vivek Kumar, appointed in June 2025, it returned to full-year profit in FY26. The Redbubble site sells stickers, apparel, phone cases, wall art, stationery and homewares, all printed on demand by partner factories. The company is headquartered in Melbourne, Australia. Redbubble was founded in 2006 in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, by Martin Hosking, Peter Hershberg, and Paul Vanzella, pioneering the online print-on-demand marketplace for independent artists worldwide.

Etsy, Inc. and Redbubble pursue distinct approaches to generating revenue, and understanding how each company operates is the foundation of any fair comparison between Etsy, Inc. and Redbubble.

Etsy, Inc. business model: Etsy operates a pure B2C and C2C two-sided marketplace model. They do not own warehouses or delivery trucks. They simply provide the software platform connecting buyers and sellers. The core revenue engine relies entirely on 'Take Rates'. The seller pays a fee just to list an item, and then Etsy takes a large cut (often over 6.5%) of the final sale price, plus payment processing fees. They also generate large, high-margin revenue through 'Etsy Ads', where sellers pay extra money to have their handmade products pushed to the top of the large search results.

Redbubble business model: Redbubble earns money as the merchant of record on every sale. Artists upload designs for free and set a margin on top of a base price; a shopper pays the retail price; Redbubble routes the order to a third-party printer near the customer, pays the fulfiller's base cost, pays the artist's margin, and keeps the rest along with shipping revenue. Since 2023 it has also charged artist account fees on lower-earning accounts. Articore reports two numbers: total revenue (~$263M (A$408.5M) in FY26, which includes shipping and artist margins) and marketplace revenue (~$229M (A$354.5M) in FY26). Paid marketing is the main swing cost, so management tracks gross profit after paid acquisition (GPAPA), which reached a record 28.6% margin in FY26.

The durability of a company's moat often decides long-term winners. Here is how the competitive advantages of Etsy, Inc. stack up against those of Redbubble.

Etsy, Inc. competitive advantage: Etsy's advantage is a recognizable brand and a two-sided network. Buyers come because the handmade and vintage sellers are there, and sellers list because the buyers are there. A new competitor would start with neither side, which makes the handmade category hard to enter.

Redbubble competitive advantage: Redbubble's main advantage is a very large catalog of artist-made designs covering niche fandoms, hobbies and jokes that a stock-holding retailer could not economically carry. That long tail produces millions of indexable product pages that attract organic search traffic. Because printing is outsourced to a network of fulfillers in the US, Europe and Australia, the business needs little capital and runs on negative working capital: shoppers pay before Redbubble pays printers and artists.

Future prospects matter as much as current results. The growth strategies below explain how Etsy, Inc. and Redbubble each plan to expand from here.

Etsy, Inc. growth strategy: With growth in its core market flat, Etsy is concentrating on search and on removing mass-produced goods. It has more than 100 million unique items, which makes searching hard, so it is investing in AI to improve search relevance. It is also removing sellers of cheap mass-produced items, often dropshipped from China and presented as handmade, to protect the brand's reputation for genuine handmade goods.

Redbubble growth strategy: Since 2023 the strategy has shifted from chasing sales volume to profitable revenue. Management merged Redbubble and TeePublic operations under one marketplaces team, consolidated supply chains, cut operating costs by about a third from FY23, introduced artist account fees, and made paid marketing more selective. The aim now is to return revenue to growth while scaling Dashery and Frankly Wearing.

A closer look at the financial trajectory of Etsy, Inc. and Redbubble rounds out the comparison.

Etsy, Inc.: Etsy earns money from fees on a marketplace it does not stock, so gross margin stays near 72% (FY2025 gross profit was $2.07B on $2.88B of revenue). The pandemic pulled demand forward: GMS more than doubled to $10.3B in 2020, then consolidated GMS declined from $13.3B in 2022 to $11.9B in 2025. Revenue held up only because the take rate rose from 22.3% to 24.2% as sellers paid more for advertising and payments. FY2025 net income fell 46.3% to $163.0M as operating expenses rose 8.8%. In 2026 the picture improved: Q2 revenue was $668M, adjusted EBITDA was $195M (a 29.2% margin), and Etsy guided to mid-single-digit full-year GMS growth. Etsy, Inc. is a major American e-commerce company focused on handmade and vintage items, maintaining a market valuation generally exceeding $7 billion.

Redbubble: Articore Group (ASX: ATG), the owner of Redbubble and TeePublic, reported FY26 (year to 30 June 2026) revenue of ~$263 million (A$408.5 million), down 6.9%, with marketplace revenue down 6.5% to ~$229 million (A$354.5 million). Gross profit rose 1.7% to ~$113 million (A$175.9 million) at a record 49.6% margin, operating EBITDA rose 76.9% to ~$10.6 million (A$16.4 million), and EBIT reached ~$6.64 million (A$10.3 million), a ~$13 million (A$20.1 million) swing from FY25. Net profit was about $7.03 million (A$10.9 million) and cash rose to ~$26.1 million (A$40.5 million) from ~$18.3 million (A$28.4 million). Operating expenses fell to ~$54.8 million (A$85 million), 34% below FY23. FY27 guidance is operating EBITDA of A$17-23 million. Redbubble Limited is an Australian global online marketplace for print-on-demand products, experiencing a severely compressed micro-cap valuation following major post-pandemic sales declines.