TeePublic is a print-on-demand platform where independent creators go to sell their art-based merchandise.
Designers go to this site to upload t-shirts and other product designs and create online stores. The company then uses the direct-to-garment technique to print the t-shirts.
Every purchase on the marketplace supports artists, streamers, podcasts, and more. If you’re looking for a design on TeePublic, you’ll be spoilt for choice, as the platform has over 100 product types with over 1.2 million designs.
Besides offering a large selection of high-quality products, TeePublic lets artists upload and sell their unique designs. There are no upfront fees or minimum order requirements, making TeePublic an ideal source of revenue for artists.
The stats in this post will help you understand TeePublic more. Specifically, we’ll dive into their revenue and user statistics.
But first things first:
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TeePublic Brief History and Overview
Headquartered in New York, TeePublic specializes in the fashion and apparel industry, has between 51 and 200 employees, and generates between $15 million and $25 million in annual revenue.
About a decade ago, no one could forecast TeePublic would be a highly successful fashion company.
Adam Schwartz and Josh Abramson founded TeePublic on May 1, 2013, as an eCommerce crowdsourcing website for artists to upload and sell their unique designs.
Josh Abramson was the previous co-founder of BustedTees, CollegeHumor, and Vimeo. The collective name for the three companies was Connected Ventures.
Abramson sold Connected Ventures to IAC but decided to repurchase BustedTees in 2011, saying he wanted TeePublic to be a constituent of the existing website.
The initial business model required 30 or more people to commit to purchasing a shirt before taking the design into production. Fast forward to 2023: designs are quickly manufactured and sold.
TeePublic has expanded its product line to include tees, mugs, notebooks, stickers, pillows, laptop cases, phone cases, wall art, tapestries, tote bags, onesies, magnets, masks, and more.
In August 2016, TeePublic did away with a controversial T-shirt that ridiculed the USC football team. The writings on the shirt said that OJ killed Clemson, referring to O.J. Simpson, a USC football player.
At that time, O.J. Simpson underwent a murder trial and was acquitted. On the other hand, O.J. Howard was Alabama’s tight end.
In October 2018, Redbubble, an Australian company, acquired TeePublic for $41 million, all in cash.
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TeePublic User Statistics
50,000 Visits In the First Week of Launch
In the first week of launching TeePublic, 50,000 people visited the site, and over 2,000 registered.
Those visits resulted in 1,000 purchasing and funding actions. Besides, the users uploaded over 480 designs and 22 were funded.
It was essential for designers to publicize their work, so 60% of them shared their work on Facebook and Twitter after uploading it.
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Demographics
57.53% of Males and 42.47% of Females Use the Website
TeePublic appeals to both men and women, although data from Similarweb shows it has 57.53% male users and 42.47% female users.
People who use the site most are aged between 25 and 34. But they aren’t the only ones.
TeePublic is also a favorite for 18 to 24-year-olds and those in the 35 to 44 age bracket.
Here’s a breakdown of users across different ages on desktop and mobile devices:
| Age distribution | Percentage of users |
|---|---|
| 25 to 35 | 29.30% |
| 18 to 24 | 27.23% |
| 35 to 44 | 19.04% |
| 45 to 54 | 12.01% |
| 55 to 64 | 7.93% |
| 65 and above | 4.49% |
Audience Interests
Since TeePublic’s focus is on fashion and apparel, we expect most users to have a fashion-based interest, and that’s true.
However, the site users have other interests, such as news, games, computers, and finance, as summarized below:
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| Industry | Percentage interest |
|---|---|
| Fashion and apparel | 6.54% |
| Computers electronics and technology | 6.06% |
| News and media | 6.04% |
| Video games, consoles, and accessories | 4.39% |
| Finance: Banking, lending, and credit | 4.19% |
| Others | 72.78% |
The above interests make users focus on various topics, including
- Clothing
- News
- Shopping
- Online
- Fashion blog
- Music
- Video games
- Magazines
Traffic By Country and Device
9.1 Million Visits in April 2023
According to Similaweb, TeePublic received 9.1 million visits in April 2023. The website received the same number of visitors in 2023, higher than the February visits of eight million.
The average visit duration is 3 minutes and 48 seconds. This duration shows visitors spend more time on this website since the benchmark across multiple industries is 52 seconds.
Not all visitors stay on the site for long, though. The bounce rate is 59.53%, meaning of every 100 people visiting TeePublic, approximately 60 users view only one page before leaving the site.
Each user visits an average of 4.83 pages per session. TeePublic has a higher number of pageviews per session than most eCommerce websites. That’s because eCommerce websites’ average page views for each session range from 1.8 to 4.4.
The Highest Traffic (50.76%) Comes from the United States
Data from Similarweb shows that the US drives the highest traffic (50.76%) to TeePublic.
Other countries that visit the website include:
- Indonesia with 4.16%
- Canada with 9.19%
- Morocco with 19.09%
- United Kingdom with 3.24%
I like comparing what different sources say, so when researching traffic, I looked at both Similarweb and Semrush.
While the two sites vary in numbers, both agree on one thing: The United States is the largest traffic generator for TeePublic.
Also, both sites list Canada and the United Kingdom as other countries driving the most traffic to TeePublic.
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Semrush estimates that 80.31% of all traffic comes from the US traffic followed by the following countries:
- United Kingdom at 2.72%
- Canada at 2.46%
- Germany at 1.55%
- India at 1.43%
73.9% of Traffic Comes from Mobile Devices
Although I haven’t found an Android or iOS app for TeePublic, most users access the site from smartphones.
According to Semrush, TeePublic’s 73.9% of visitors originate from mobile devices, while desktops drive only 26.1% of traffic.
Here’s a summary of desktop and mobile traffic for different countries:
| Country | Mobile | Desktop |
|---|---|---|
| United States | 79.36% | 20.64% |
| United Kingdom | 56.51% | 43.49% |
| Canada | 62.86% | 37.14% |
| Germany | 45.12% | 54.88% |
| India | 70.91% | 29.09% |
As you can see, the highest traffic from the top six countries is from mobile. Only Germany has more desktop users than mobile.
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Major Traffic Sources
Direct Traffic Accounts for 47.70% of Traffic
Most users seem to like TeePublic to the extent that they have bookmarked it or know the site’s URL that they type in the browser directly.
And it all makes sense because data from Similarweb reveals direct traffic is the leading traffic source for TeePublic, accounting for 47.70% of all traffic.
So, where does the rest of the traffic come from?
Well, organic search from Google comes next, bringing in 25.11% of all traffic.
Simply put, most users search for the website name or keywords related to its products on Google to land on its pages. More on the keywords in a minute.
A paid search brings in 12.34% of traffic, which means TeePublic runs ads on various platforms that users click on to find the website and its products.
The other sources of traffic include:
- Social media: 9.95% (more on this later)
- Email: 2.07%
- Display: 1.57%
- Referrals: 1.28%
16,600 Keywords Drive Millions of Visits to TeePublic
Clearly, the term TeePublic is on the minds of most users if the top keywords bringing traffic to this site are anything to go by.
Approximately 16,600 keywords drive organic and paid traffic to TeePublic. Organic search constitutes 67.05% of traffic, while paid search generates 32.95% of traffic.
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Of these keywords, the top five that drive the most traffic have the following phrases:
- teepublic
- tee public
- april 2023 calendar
- calendar april 2023
- tpublic
Here’s the breakdown of the organic and paid search volume for each of these top keywords:
| Keyword | Organic Traffic | Paid Traffic |
|---|---|---|
| teepublic | 257,408 | 134,300 |
| tee public | 25,480 | 7,500 |
| april 2023 calendar | 171,199 | 4,200 |
| calendar april 2023 | 21,718 | 2,400 |
| tpublic | 2,505 | 2,100 |
The Lifestyle Category Sends the Highest Referral Traffic to TeePublic
As mentioned earlier, referrals bring in 1.28% of all traffic to TeePublic. But where does this traffic come from?
It comes from the following categories:
- Lifestyle: 17.81%
- Search engines: 15.54%
- Apparel and fashion: 11.30%
- Animation and comics: 5.10%
- Music: 3.96%
It is easy to understand why these are the biggest categories: most TeePublic products and artists are within those categories.
Facebook Generates the Highest (32.34%) of Social Media Traffic
Either TeePublic advertises on social media or posts content on social media with links to their website. Either way, the website is popular on the main social media platforms.
As discussed earlier, social media makes up 9.95% of TeePublic’s traffic. However, traffic from social media apps is distributed differently, with Facebook driving the most traffic by 32.34%.
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The other top social media traffic sources include Pinterest, YouTube, and Twitter.
Here’s a breakdown of all socials and their traffic share:
- Facebook: 32.34%
- Pinterest: 22.53%
- YouTube: 19.90%
- Twitter: 10.03%
- WhatsApp Web: 4.64%
- Others: 10.55%
TeePublic Revenue
Exponential Revenue Growth with Zero Venture Funding
Since its inception in 2013, TeePublic has not raised any venture funding. Schwartz remarked that they envisioned building a profitable business without external help.
This resolve meant the company had to create a strategy for profitably hiring, scaling, and acquiring customers despite the challenges startups face. They had to embrace this philosophy in a market setting that valued venture capital.
Sounds impossible, right?
You won’t believe what happened next: after launching the company in October 2013, the platform grew in revenue for 32 consecutive months.
Besides, they paid their independent artists millions in royalties in addition to shipping art to more than 90 countries.
Acquisition by Redbubble for $41 million
TeePublic’s first funding occurred when Redbubble decided to buy it in October 2018 for AUD57.7 million ($44 million). This deal was to help TeePublic broaden its coverage in major markets and strengthen its presence in the US market.
Redbubble raised $24.6 million to fund the acquisition from its existing shareholders. The company conducted a $36 million placement to investors in different institutions.
A month later, in October 2018, Redbubble secured $44 million in an investment round. The company used this capital to fund the TeePublic acquisition for $41 million.
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Annual Revenue of $15 Million to $25 Million
Similarweb estimates TeePublic’s annual revenue to fall between $15M and $25M. According to reports, the company derives most of its revenue from fashion products. Besides, appliances and furniture products contribute to the company’s net sales.
This data resonates with Kona Equity’s report that estimates TeePublic’s annual revenue to be $18,442,000 as of 2021.
Low Revenue Per Employee
Another exciting stat from Kona Equity is the revenue per employee (the revenue each employee generates), which is $233,443. This figure is below industry standards.
Consistent Revenue Growth Over the Years
TeePublic has been growing year after year before funding and even after. Not many companies can sustain such consistent growth.
Kona Equity reports, since the company’s funding in 2018, its yearly revenue growth has been $543,555.
But that’s not all.
Its revenue growth from the first known quarter to date is about 39.8%.
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In a Nutshell
Since its launch in 2013, TeePublic has proven that companies can survive independently and thrive without relying on investors’ funding.
Diverse groups of users from different countries visit the platform, making it ideal for independent designers looking to sell t-shirts and other products on the platform.
One of the reasons behind TeePublic’s fast growth is the experience and knowledge of its founders. Adam Schwartz and Josh Abramson have been in the game for years and understand the dynamics and secrets of growing a fashion and apparel company.
So, are you an artist looking to diversify your income? Selling your products on TeePublic is one of the best ways to generate passive income. The platform’s ongoing growth means plenty of opportunities to grow your income.
