There’s no denying it…
Etsy printables are HOT.
Not only are they one of the best digital products to sell on Etsy, but they can also be an awesome passive income stream.
It’s a business model you can start almost immediately with barely any upfront investment, making it super beginner-friendly.
That said, there are some pitfalls to watch out for. And that’s where a solid course comes in.
I have spent countless hours researching and dissecting some of the top Etsy printable courses, and let me tell you, they are NOT created equally.
But before we get into the best Etsy printables courses — including one whose creator made $1,700 from ONE simple design — let’s make sure we know how the business model actually works.
Table of Contents
How do printables work on Etsy?
Etsy is known largely as a marketplace to buy and sell handmade goods. But there’s a HUGE market for printables as well.
Printables are digital-only goods like invitations, to-do lists, and ebooks that buyers can download.
Unlike physical goods, you don’t have to pack or ship printables. It’s all digital and automated. This makes life easier for creators like you. It also makes it a great way to earn money traveling.
Best Etsy printables courses to start earning ASAP
1. E-Printables Side Hustle Course
The E-Printables Side Hustle Course is by far the best Etsy printables course on the market.
It’s a one-stop shop for everything you need to know to start and scale your printables business.
What It Teaches: This course takes creators through the entire process of creating printables — from designing, listing, and marketing them to creating an entire passive income machine.
It’s natural to feel skeptical about a course and wonder if it’ll work for you, but the E-Printables Side Hustle Course is LOADED with customer testimonials sharing the amazing results they’ve achieved by following the course’s step-by-step instructions.
They literally guide you by the hand.
The course also comes with perks like 24/7 email support, exclusive access to their Facebook group, video tutorials, and even pre-made templates that you can edit for your own business.
These templates save you TONS of time and are especially useful if you don’t have a strong graphic design background.
The E-printables Side Hustle Course comes with an awesome community with weekly live Facebook Q&A sessions to sort out all your questions and get personalized feedback.
They also publish exclusive videos with guest speakers and run competitions to win Etsy gift cards and other cool stuff.
Their style of printables can take as little as 30 minutes to create (depending on your experience), and Julie’s (cofounder) best-selling printable raked in a whopping $1,700 all by itself.
(See trick to skip the waitlist below)
Pros:
☑️ Shows how to design popular printables even without graphic design experience.
☑️ Provides templates of successful printables that you can easily tweak to make your own.
☑️ Reveals over 75 printable product ideas with proven high-sales data, so if you’re not creative, you don’t have to think of ideas yourself.
☑️ Breaks down Etsy SEO to get as many eyeballs on your printables as possible
☑️ No paid software needed
☑️ 7-day refund period to poke around (with limitations*)
The main downside to E-Printables is your free VIP Facebook membership and advanced membership access only lasts four weeks. You can extend it for a monthly fee, but to be honest, you should be up and running before then anyway.
That said, once you hit the “100 sales club”, they waive the membership fee. This is a cool motivator to get those sales rolling in ASAP!
Who it’s for: This course is for people who want everything spoonfed to them and don’t want to have to do outside research. It includes everything you need to start earning from Etsy printables ASAP.
Price: $247 (this link gets you a $50 discount as of writing if you watch the video). If you’re not quite ready to commit, check out their free eBook that tells you exactly what types of trending printables to make each month.
For an insider peek into the course, check out my full Gold City Ventures course review.
Note: If you get asked to join their waitlist, it usually lasts less than a week. One sneaky way I’ve found to avoid the waitlist is through that discount link above. Watch the first few minutes of the video, and a checkout button should pop up.
2. How to Make Printables to Sell on Etsy
This course does exactly what the title claims — it teaches sellers how to use free tools to create printables for Etsy.
Aimed at beginners, you’ll learn how to identify and use free design tools, create simple digital art, optimize images for high resolution, create unique mockups using free resources, and locate free and paid fonts and graphics for your designs.
It only focuses solely on the design aspect and does not include the business side of starting an Etsy printables shop.
Pros:
✅ Beginner-friendly step-by-step instructions for making attractive printables
✅ Free templates and resources to speed up the process
✅ Udemy 30-day guarantee
Cons:
❌ It doesn’t teach you how to sell printables, just create them
Who it’s for: People with little to no design experience who plan to figure out the business side of things themselves.
Price: $99.99 (often a huge discount available — check current discount)
3. How to Start, Grow, and Market an Etsy Printable Shop
This course teaches the “8 Pillars of a successful Etsy shop.”
It covers all of the basics, including what printables are, how to identify and set your brand message, how to decide what to sell, how to design printables without graphic design experience, and how to use Pinterest to drive sales to your shop.
(Speaking of which — after you master Pinterest, you can also earn money online by becoming a Pinterest manager).
Despite touching on all the important topics, it’s somewhat of a short course, and it feels like she rushes through some of the sections. It also hasn’t been updated in a while, and some best practices have changed.
It may be a good budget alternative to E-Printables if you can find a heavily discounted price, but you’ll likely find yourself wanting more information. Think of it as an “intro” course.
Pros:
✅ Covers the entire process of starting an Etsy printables store
✅ Udemy 30-day guarantee
Cons:
❌ Rushes through important topics superficially
❌ Last updated in 2021
Who it’s for: This class is geared for the ultimate beginner in every area. It’s a general overview of everything that’ll get you up and running, but you’ll probably need to deepen your knowledge elsewhere.
Price: $84.99 (often a huge discount available — check current discount)
4. Etsy Marketing & SEO Mastery
Etsy Marketing and SEO Mastery is one of the most popular Etsy printables trainings on Udemy. Well technically, it’s for any type of Etsy shop, not just printables.
It focuses solely on the Etsy marketing aspect, showing you how to break down popular keywords, analyze top sellers to mirror their success, interpret Etsy’s algorithms, optimize your listings for visibility, and list your shop in Etsy search.
Despite its popularity, some students complain that the information is outdated and could use a facelift (the word “2019” is right in the title, and the last update was made in 2017). They say some of the info might still be worth it if you can find a super cheap sale price.
Pros
✅ One of Udemy’s most popular Etsy courses
✅ Udemy 30-day guarantee
Cons:
❌ Only covers one aspect of running an Etsy business (marketing)
❌ Last updated in 2017
Who it’s for: This is really only for people who happen to find it at a super low price. Much of the info is outdated, but you may find some of the evergreen content helpful. Do not buy at full price.
Price: $119.99 (often huge discount available — check current discount)
5. Printables by Numbers
Printables By Numbers isn’t actually an Etsy course, it’s a general printables course geared for people who want to sell printables on their blog and email list.
This is a whole different approach. Unlike Etsy — where there are millions of buyers already on the platform ready to spend money — selling via your blog requires you to attract your own buyers.
This can be quite a challenge, and there is a lot more room for error, but this course attempts to break it down for you. There is a bonus section about Etsy, but it mostly focuses on selling printables in various different ways.
Pros:
✅ Templates to speed up design process
✅ Learn a variety of valuable online marketing skills
✅ If you can attract buyers to you blog, you won’t compete with other Etsy sellers
Cons:
❌ Not an actual Etsy printables course
❌ No refunds
❌ Building a blog and sales funnels is significantly more complex than just sticking to an Etsy store
Who it’s for: People who like the idea of attracting their own audience and selling printables outside of Etsy.
Price: $197
Which Etsy printables training should you choose?
Compared to courses for other types of online businesses — which can easily cost $1,000+ — all of these Etsy courses are quite affordable.
They all fall within roughly a $100 to $150 range of each other. And the difference in price between the best course (E-Printables Side Hustle Course) and the cheaper courses isn’t that much.
The difference in quality, however, is pretty significant.
Many of the cheaper courses focus on one or two aspects of running a successful printables business, but they don’t cover the entire process from start to finish.
If you’re on a super tight budget, these cheaper options are certainly better than nothing. But you may get through them and find you still have doubts and questions.
That’s why in almost all cases, I recommend E-Printables. Armed with a complete roadmap, you’ll be able to recoup your costs faster.
Is an Etsy printables course necessary?
Absolutely not!
Courses give you a proven roadmap to follow so that you can start earning as quickly as possible and avoid costly mistakes. But there’s nothing stopping you from trying to puzzle piece together a plan by yourself.
This is especially true if you already have some experience building online businesses and more-or-less know what you’re doing.
The good news is, an Etsy printables business doesn’t require much upfront investment.
So if you want to be adventurous and figure things out yourself, there’s not much at stake (compared to, say, an Amazon FBA business).
Your biggest risk is wasting a bunch of time on something that doesn’t sell (which is why you should choose one of these best-selling printables on Etsy).
That said, if you value your time, a course can be worth it. Think about it. Let’s say investing in a course saves you a months-worth of tinkering around by yourself — how much is that month of your life worth to you?
✨ Bonus Offer ✨
If you purchase using any link on this page, I’ll throw in my Work from Anywhere Toolkit ($25 value) for free. This mega-resource is packed with 200+ free (or very cheap) tools to help automate your business — and even do it while traveling the world!
Just forward me a copy of your receipt with subject line “WORK FROM ANYWHERE TOOLKIT BONUS” and I’ll give you access to the toolkit.
Frequently Asked Questions
Yes! Well, kind of. Gold City Ventures also has a free ebook that teaches sellers how to take advantage of seasonal trends and maximize profits. It’s full of gold nuggets, and it’s a great way to dip your toes into the printables world.
Starting an Etsy store requires little upfront investment, so almost all sales are profit. You get out what you put in, and results may vary, but the demand is there. Many sellers make $1,000 in passive income each month, and some bigger sellers report over $10,000.
It all depends on the way you make your printables, but it’s definitely not necessary. E-Printables shows you how to create beautiful printables with free software even if you don’t have a graphic design bone in your body — including some templates that are basically plug-and-play.
The best-selling printables on Etsy are eye-catching, trendy, and cost-effective. They include things like wall art, baby shower and wedding invitations, journal inserts, self-affirmative quotes, homeschool resources, RSVP cards, eBooks, menus, and fitness trackers.
Etsy charges sellers $0.20 per listing. Other potential costs include any money you invest in a course, graphic design software (not required with the free options available), and any optional marketing you decide to do. Overall, startup costs are tiny compared to most other businesses.
You can legally sell any items you own the copyright to. That includes any materials you create yourself using non-copyrighted images and fonts. There are tons of free resources and design materials that don’t infringe on anyone’s copyright. But if you want anything extra special — like a specific font or design — you can buy licenses on platforms like Creative Market. Do not use commercial fonts or images that you haven’t licensed. You risk a lawsuit, and with so many free resources available, it’s not worth it!
Mitch is your typical nomadic backpacker. Or at least, he was. But after stopping in Colombia to take “one week” of salsa lessons, his life took a sharp left turn. He met a cute Colombian girl in dance class, fell in love, and got married. Over half a decade has passed since he left his career to travel the world as a digital nomad, and he’s never looked back.
Nowadays, he’s the blogger behind Project Untethered — where he runs an awesome email newsletter and Youtube channel teaching adventure-craved wanderlusters how to escape the rat race, earn money from anywhere, and build an “untethered life”.
His advice has been featured in Forbes, USA Today, Yahoo, MSN, Reader’s Digest, Condé Nast Traveler, and more.
Mitch's Travel Recommendations:
Travel Planning Resources - Everything you need to plan your trip on one convenient page.
Going Cheap Flights Newsletter - Get flight deals from your airport up to 90% off sent straight to your inbox.
Safetywing Insurance - This cheap travel insurance has saved me over $15,000 in medical bills.
Booking.com - Book accommodation without adding your credit card (in case you need to cancel).
Trusted House Sitters - Take care of pets in exchange for free (sometimes luxury) accommodation.
Flexjobs - Find remote jobs without having to sift through crappy ones.
Skillshare - Free trial to take unlimited classes that teach digital nomad skills.
Wise - Send and receive money abroad cheaply (great for freelancers).