Hi! You guys know I’m new here to Ribblr. I’m curious, is Ribblr worth selling patterns on? Or should I stick to a more popular one like Ravelry or Etsy?
Also, if you guys are willing to share, how much do you make off of your paid patterns?
Also (again!!) Do you make any money off of free patterns? (i.e, ad revenue, I see that there are random adds in the patterns)
Also (last time hehe!) 
If you want to, please share your shop or your favorite pattern!!
Tysm! -@msefron
Haven’t made any paid patterns yet, but I’m working on a grand pattern. I suggest getting on Etsy (or ravelry but I haven’t really researched that) if your very committed.
I have free patterns since I don’t have stripe, but I don’t think you make ad revenue…
There is no ad revenue on Ribblr, that is their ads so their revenue stream, not the designers.
I haven’t gone to Etsy due to the huge fees but if you’re really looking to make a big business out of this, Etsy is probably the way to go since there’s significantly more exposure. However, you’ll find a lot of issues with AI patterns, people stealing patterns and reselling them, and people generally being ugly on Etsy (stories of people trying to get competition shops shut down so they could sell their patterns instead, its nuts).
I’m on Ribblr, Ravelry, and Lovecrafts. Ravelry has had a couple sales, none on Lovecrafts so far in the month its been up, and I’ve had 25 on Ribblr total since I started in June. My free patterns have over 8k orders though. Most people on Ribblr are younger and don’t have money to spend, or just go for the free patterns.
That being said, crochet patterns are becoming such a saturated market and I’m finding a lot of designers have a really hard time drawing a crowd willing to pay for patterns, so it’ll take a lot of effort advertising on social media to get your name out there. Ribblr does help with advertising your patterns on here as people have a feed where patterns will show up, but Etsy really has the most exposure possibilities. You’re just paying a lot more fees for that exposure.
Also should note, Ribblr, Ravelry, Lovecrafts, and Ko-fi are lower on the fees but again, not much exposure. But you will get to keep a lot more of your money. Some people choose to increase the price they charge on Etsy just to make up for the extra fees.
My shop if you’re interested:
If all the places I have patterns, Ribblr definitely has the best attention. I am on Ribblr, revelry, and Etsy. My patterns are more expensive on Etsy to make up for fees, I have sold I think 3 or 4 patterns on Etsy (one time i accidentally had my price too low on Etsy, and my price didn’t even cover etsys fees, so if you are selling small patterns, beware of that. I think I had it listed for $1.50) Etsy does not give me much exposure on its own, most people find my shop through my sharing on social media, and it bothers me the way their share to save system works. Because if someone finds my pattern through a link I shared, then they follow my shop, and save my listing, but they don’t buy right then, they just come back later to buy the pattern, then I don’t get any credit for that sell according to Etsy.
I actually don’t have all of my patterns listed on Etsy, because I don’t like racking up listing fees if my patterns don’t sell enough. So I like to put my patterns on Etsy as packs (especially since most of my patterns are mini animals) but then the work around to get all of the PDFs on there is a pain because they only allow 4 files of under 20mb. And if I have an 18 mini animals pattern pack, well, it just won’t fit.
I have not sold any patterns on revelry. But since joining Ribblr this summer I have sold I think 41 patterns, and my free patterns have been downloaded over 1000 times.
I do a fair bit of advertising my patterns around on social media, and it is easier to update or fix my patterns on Ribblr than it is to update or fix the patterns on Etsy or Ribblr.
On social media, it seems like Instagram is the best for crochet pattern designers. Facebook… just doesn’t seem to connect my page to well, anyone. Lol. I mostly use Facebook to share my patterns to crochet pattern groups. I have not tried advertising on tictoc. The Ribblr community is very important to not overlook when advertising, but you only get one self promo post per week (including pattern drops) so remember to share your store link where you can (the actual link will give you sell-fee points, so share it even though people can access your store easily) and make sure you click on other people’s shop links so they also can get sell-fee points!
Ooh, I almost forgot, remember to share your listings on Pinterest! It is super easy to do from your patterns page.
Anyways, here is my shop link so I can hopefully make it up to the next bracket in sell-fee point this month! (Thank you so much to everyone who clicks the link, that is super sweet, and I appreciate it)
Do you think you might get more sales on Ribblr if more of your patterns were not for followers only? I have noticed a whole bunch of the people that buy my patterns, I think don’t follow my shop.
Oh! I forgot to mention, on your materials section of your pattern, you can put links to where to get the materials. That is a potential income trickle from free patterns if you have an Amazon affiliate link or some such thing. My biggest use of my free patterns is to share them all over the place so people will click on my link, and lower my sell fee. So at the first of every month I advertise all of my free patterns pretty heavily. Then I mostly advertise my new patterns, or something that is “in season” (penguins for winter, turkeys for thanksgiving, bunnies for Easter ect.) haha, all of those examples are in my free patterns 
I’ve taken some off but honestly I don’t know. I’m at a loss of why I don’t get sales =( people say they love my stuff but it just really doesn’t show
Ohhhhh I hadn’t thought of sharing to Pinterest. I need to do that
Thank you guys! I have a little book to read now this is very helpful. Dw though I’m def staying on Ribblr!