How to make money with Cricut
Here's how to make money with Cricut and earn an extra income from your hobby.
If you want to know how to make money with Cricut, then you've come to the right place. Money is tight for everyone right now but if you own a craft cutting machine, you have the opportunity to make professional quality craft gifts and products and actually earn money from your hobby. That's right, owning a Cricut to create with is the ultimate side hustle.
After all, who couldn't do with more money? Especially with the rising cost of living and Christmas just around the corner. Now is the best time to utilise your Cricut machine and start making some extra cash; the demand for personalised and homemade goods has never been higher.
One of the best things about using your Cricut to make money is that anyone can do it. You don't need to make a huge investment (other than the initial machine and time) and you don't need any high-end tech skills to be able to sell your makes online.
If you haven't purchased a Cricut yet, check out our guide to the best Cricut machines. We've also put together a rundown of the best Cricut materials so you can stock up and hit the ground running – see the best Cricut Christmas ideas for inspiration. While I look at the best blade cutters here, we also have a guide to modern laser cutters, such as the best Glowforge machines.
In this article, I'll walk you through some of the ways you can make money using a Cricut Maker or Cricut Explore. I'll share with you some top tips on what you can sell, where to get your designs and the best places to sell, whether you want to use an established vendor like Etsy or set up your own storefront with a do-it-yourself platform like Shopify.
How to make money with Cricut: what to sell
When it comes to making items with Cricut, the possibilities are limitless. But you can’t sell everything, so it’s best to figure out what you’re good at and what you enjoy making to determine your final product list.
Consider seasonal events and holidays, as well as what you usually spend your money on, as this simple approach can offer a good starting point. For example, Halloween is a big event, and kids need trick or treat bags, so why not whip up some personalised candy bags?
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Also, take some time to look at online marketplace websites to find what items are popular and give you an idea of how much they’re selling for. It’s also worth checking out the best Cricut accessories, which will give you even more options for making unique products. Here are some ideas of items for you to consider making to sell.
01. Designer mugs
Mugs are great sellers because they make such good gifts. You can also personalise other drinkware items like wine glasses, reusable coffee cups and tumblers. Or, thinks a little left-field, such as using your Cricut to make decorative cup holders.
If you’re serious about making mugs, you may want to read our Cricut Mug Press review. This gadget will help you produce professional quality mugs time and again, and it can be used with various sized mugs.
02. Personalised clothing
T-shirts, hoodies, hats and more can be personalised using your Cricut and make unique products to sell. You'll need a few extra items to start personalising clothing such as some high-quality heat transfer vinyl and we'd suggest a Cricut EasyPress 2 – read our in-depth Cricut EasyPress 2 review. You can use an iron, but this won't offer the same even heat distribution as an EasyPress.
You'll also need to find a good supplier of blank items that you can use to create your personalised clothing. Just be aware that if you're using infusible ink for this then you have to use a material that has a high polyester count. When it comes to personalising clothing, don't be afraid to think outside the box and come up with some funny sayings or cute designs that will be irresistible to buyers.
The larger, new Cricut Autopress is also an excellent investment if you're making professional-grade projects. Read more in our detailed look, 'Cricut Autopress: everything explained'.
03. Custom jewellery
There’s so much scope when it comes to making jewellery with the Cricut. You can use your machine to cut out leather or even materials such as balsa wood. But a great way to customise jewellery to sell is by using the engraving tool on metal jewellery.
While most of us think of a Cricut machine as a card and material cutter, these gadgets can cut up to 300 materials and foil, engrave, and much more besides. Read our Cricut Maker 3 review to see just what the newest machine is capable of.
04. Creative party supplies
Party supplies such as cake toppers, banners, stickers and party decorations are big sellers online. This goes back to my initial piece of advice: think about events and celebrations and what everyone buys or needs.
Using your Cricut to either make bespoke party supplies for your customers or create party packs is easy, and you can make much of this in advance and be ready to send once they’ve been purchased. If this interests you then I'd suggest reading my guide to how to make stickers with Cricut, it's easy and quick. Above all, it's fun and you can get as creative as you like.
05. Bespoke cards
If you’ve been using your Cricut for a while, then you’re bound to have made greeting cards for your friends and family. So you've already saved money by designing and creating your own cards, now you can sell them too.
Creating customised and unique cards and gift tags can be a great money-making exercise as people always look for fun and creative cards to send their loved ones. If you’re really into card making, you may find that Cricut's newest, cheapest and smallest cutting machine is the best one, read our Cricut Joy review to see what this gadget can do.
06. Novel decals
Decals are easy to make and cheap to ship, so they’re ideal to sell. Decals are ideal for customers who want to personalise their own items at home, so you do the design and the cutting, and they attach it to their own items. Decals can be used on cars, notebooks, or to personalise clothing and mugs.
07. Designer wallpaper
With the release of the Cricut Maker 3 and Smart Materials you can now print and cut 75ft lengths of vinyl, making designing and printing your own wallpaper easy and accessible. Usually the preserve of high-end printers, the option to create customised and elaborate wallpaper for your home, or sell to a client, is now something that can be done from your kitchen table.
How to make money with Cricut: where to sell
01. Create an Etsy store
Etsy is possibly one of the easiest methods for setting up your own online store and making money with Cricut. The Etsy process is super simple, even if you don't have many technical skills. Before you list your item, look at similar listings and get an idea of how to write a good description and what kind of photographs you should take.
Etsy isn't free, but it offers very reasonable rates. It costs USD 0.20 per listing, and those listings last for four months. So that means even if you don't sell your item, if you want it to remain on Etsy after four months, you'll have to pay $0.20 again.
There is also a transaction fee of 6.5% each time you make a sale, which is 6.5% of the total price, including postage, customisation, and gift wrapping, so make sure you add this in when you're pricing up your item. We have a broader guide to how to sell on Etsy that's well-worth a read if this is a way to earn money from Cricut that appeals to you.
02. Make use of Facebook
Facebook is a great way to sell items, and one that can be overlooked in favour of more specialist sites like Etsy. There are a number of ways in which you can sell your goods on Facebook, so let's take a look.
The first method is promoting your items via your own personal profile to your friends and family, and you can ask them to share it on their profiles for a wider reach. There is also Facebook Marketplace which is ideal if you’re selling physical products, you just need to list them and then work with the buyer to arrange collection or delivery.
However, the best way to sell on Facebook is by setting up a Facebook shop. This is completely free, and once you’ve listed your items, they’ll be available to buy via popular shopping destinations such as Facebook Shop, Instagram Shop, and Marketplace.
03. Sell at craft fairs
Book a table at your local craft fair if you prefer selling your items face to face. This method requires you to make up a full inventory of goods to take with you to sell on the day.
It’s worth making up some business cards with links to your online presence for those who either buy from you and would like to do it again, or those who may not be ready to buy at the fair but will purchase something later. We have a neat guide to how design business cards that's worth a read.
04. Set up your own ecommerce website
Don't worry if you’re not very tech savvy – that in no way precludes you from setting up your own website. There are many site-builders around that offer the tools to create a website for your purposes, including selling crafts. The majority of these website-building tools offer intuitive, WYSIWYG ("What You See Is What You Get") editors with pre-made themes that do a lot of the heavy-lifting for you. Our guide to how to choose the best website builder is a must-read.
Web builders such as Squarespace and Wix can be a great way to set up a website with a few clicks. However, if you plan to sell the things you make with Cricut directly online, then your best bet is to use an ecommerce-focused website builder like Shopify. This gives you the tools you need to sell your goods, with the ability to easily set up product pages, set prices and handle payments.
Shopify takes a lot of the manual labour out of your hands – you'll need to have your own domain and be able to write compelling, accurate descriptions of your product. You'll also need to be able to direct people to your product – Shopify does offer a few useful integrated marketing tools, making it easy to set up things like email lists or SMS marketing.
Shopify isn't the cheapest option – it comes with subscription costs as well as transaction fees. But if you're planning on doing a lot of online selling, it could easily be an investment that pays for itself. We recently did a deep dive into the latest Shopify features in our full review of the latest version – see our Shopify 2024 review for more.
How to make money with Cricut: finding designs
When it comes to finding the perfect design for your items you can either design them yourself or you can use pre-designed images. In order to make more sales we'd say you should definitely aim to create your own designs.
Cricut Design Space uses SVG images and you can download these from a variety of places, but a lot are only intended for personal use, so it is important to just remind you that you can’t just google an image and use it, you have to make sure that the image you’re using it available for commercial use.
There are some websites that offer the best free SVG files for Cricut that can be used in your designs, even for items you'll be selling. But really, creating new designs from scratch is the best way to go – though there's no harm in downloading other people's files to see what does and doesn't work.
01. Use Cricut Design Space
If you have Cricut Access, you’ll have access to hundreds of ready-to-make projects and images at your disposal. This massive library of art, logos and projects is one of the ten reasons to get Cricut Access.
The good news is that you can sell up to 10,000 finished projects you’ve made using Cricut access, thanks to the Angel Policy. There are some restrictions, such as the products you’re selling must not be made by more than one person, and you can’t sell third-party copyright content such as licensed characters from companies such as Disney.
When you use an image from Cricut Design Space, then items marked with an “a” are covered by the Angel policy, if it doesn’t have an “a”, then it can only be used for personal projects. Making use of Angel Policy projects is a great way to get a head start on your own designs, by adapting these existing projects. Remember, people would rather buy something they can't get anywhere else so always aim to put your twist on a project.
02. Download SVG files
There are plenty of websites where you can buy SVGs to use on your Cricut designs. CreativeFabrica, DesignBundles and even Etsy are three of the best places to look.
Again, just double-check that these images are able to be used for commercial use as you don’t want to land yourself in hot water. It’s also worth checking to make sure that the commercial license covers any edits to the image, as you may want to add a few touches to make it your own.
03. Design your own SVG files
If you’re blessed with good drawing skills, grab your tablet and pen and design your own Cricut patterns for everything from mugs and cards to quilts and wallpaper. Apps such as Procreate for iOS, MediBang Paint for Android or CorelDRAW for PC and Mac are all great for creating your own SVG files.
Check out our run-down of the best software for Cricut for more design software options. If you want to play around with different fonts and elements then Canva is an excellent choice as Pro customers can turn any jpg into an SVG file with the click of a button.
You can offer your files for download on your store or blog, or upload them to Cricut Design Space and offer them to other users at a price. Being able to sell both your finished projects and the SVG files offers two bites at the money-making cherry – but maybe only sell a version of your design as an SVG, keeping an original for you.
How to make money with Cricut: alternative revenue
We’ve covered making your own projects, items and designs to sell using your Cricut, but there are also a number of other ways to make money with your machine. Once you’ve mastered using your Cricut, you could teach other people how to use theirs.
Whether you provide lessons online or face to face, plenty of people are willing to pay for your expertise. You could also set up a blog, YouTube channel or newsletter with regular Cricut tips and tutorials. Or if you’re good at design, make your own SVG files to sell online. The earning opportunities really are endless. Below are some handy tips to making money from your Cricut skills.
01. Find a niche
When you’re starting out it can be tempting to try to sell everything, but this just won’t work in the long term. Instead, sit down and make a plan of items that you really want to sell and items that you think will sell well. Decide what it is you want to become known for selling and go with it. You can always expand in the future.
This is an important step to creating your own brand and identity that will enable you to stand out from the crowd. Think of the best designers and crafters around, they don't do everything but specialise and cast their style across a number of goods that can suite the brand.
02. Take good photographs
Selling your makes online means taking good photos – everything needs to be Insta-friendly and inviting, as well as on-brand. It's imperative that you take really good photographs to connect with your audience and buyer's aspirations.
You don't need a fancy camera to do this, most smartphones have really good cameras these days but be very mindful about how your stage your images. Create a common theme of setup for all your images, for example always take photos from the same angle, with the same lighting on the same table.
Don't forget that when people search for the item you're selling it's very unlikely that yours will be the only one listed, so you want a photograph that will make them stop scrolling and click your listing.
03. Learn SEO and spot trends
Making money with your Cricut isn’t going to be easy, so you’ve got to be willing to put in the hard work. That means working at your business every day. Make sure you take great photographs that will entice customers, learn about SEO and how it can help your listings and market your business on social media to drive sales.
Mastering the basics of SEO and how the web works is essential, this can not only help you promote your products but also influence what you should make. There is the broad Google SEO, to master but also many online stores, such as Etsy, have their own on-platform SEO – make sure you meet the criteria to top of the search.
We have a guide to how to climb the Google rankings as well as a feature in the Google SEO tools to use to perform better in searches. Aside from this technical know-how, consider trends and tap into what's hot – the speed and flexibility of Cricut means you can react quicker than even some major stores. For example, Neville Johnson predicts bright pink will be the hot new colour for Autumn, so get designing cushions, cards and gifts in this on-trend colour.
04. Create quality goods
If people spend their hard-earned money in your store, you want them to be happy. That means ensuring you create quality items they won’t want to return. The best way to do this is to be confident you can complete the order before you begin listing.
Conduct thorough quality control checks before packing the item and send a quick follow-up to your customer a couple of days after delivery to thank them for their custom and check that they’re happy with the goods.
05. Know how to set prices
Don't make the mistake of listing your items cheaper than others on the market to try and snag the sale. People want to buy quality goods and will be happy to pay. And you can't produce quality goods if you're not making enough money to cover your expenses.
Before you list your items, then work out what each item costs to make, you also need to factor in how much time it will take you to not only make the item but ship it too. Add these two figures to give your items a reasonable starting price. It's also worth doing some market research to see how similar items are selling and making sure you can make them pay.
Getting your costs right to begin with will mean you have wiggle room to offer flash sales later down the line. If you create seasonal items them don't be in a rush to sell at any price, they can always be packed away and sold the next year, even at discount.
Learning how to make money with Cricut is a great way of making some extra cash or even turning it into a full-time business. And you don’t need to have a Cricut to be able to make some extra money, here are the best Cricut alternatives that offer similar results. Also, consider your broader workflow, you may need one of the best sewing machines or best portable scanners to create larger projects such as designer quilts.
Read more:
- Brother ScanNCut SDX2200D review
- Cricut Maker vs Cricut Maker 3: which is right for you?
- Cricut vs Silhouette: which is best for you?
Recent updates
December 2nd, 2024: I added a section on how to set up your own ecommerce website to sell your Cricut wares, including data and insights from Creative Bloq's Shopify 2024 review.
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Craft, photography and hardware writer Rachael Penn has written for The Evening Standard, The Independent, Fit&Well, The Radar, T3, and TopTenReviews. She also writes on many other subjects, including lifestyle, travel, food, internet culture and eco-living for online and print publications.
- Ian DeanEditor, Digital Arts & 3D
