Which site is more popular Fine Art America or Pixels?

I noticed a popular keyword leading to my blogs was “which is more popular Fine Art America or Pixels“, I’ll take a stab at answering this question.

Disclaimer: The following is based on speculation, experience and some logical connecting of the data. As a business major from Boston University’s School of Management with a concentration in Marketing, a career in high tech and selling my fine art photography for the past decade including on Fine Art America, Pixels as well as through stock photography sites. The conclusions are my own.

Which site is more popular Fine Art America or Pixels?

I’ve been selling my fine art photographs, graphic design images and artwork on Fine Art America since 2011.

I have 1,061 followers, my artwork and photographs have been viewed over 3.3 million times and I’ve sold nearly 3,000 prints and/or products from my portfolio of over 6,000 images. I sell something on Fine Art America, Pixels and/or Designer Prints just about every single day. Fine art prints, framed and matted artwork, canvas prints, cell phone cases, t-shirts, pillows etc.

Fine Art America and Pixels are by far my biggest source of income from my artwork to the tune of five figures every year.

You Get Two For The Price of One

You might be wondering what the difference is between Fine Art America and Pixels. For the same $30 yearly membership fee which allows you to upload an unlimited number of images compared to only 25 with the free version of membership.

Fine Art America and Pixels are basically the same site. You upload your images by signing into one or the other, set your prices and then the images will appear for sale on Pixels and Fine Art America.

The only difference will be that on Pixels.com there will be more of the home decor and personal accessory type of products for sale such as cell phone cases, tote bags, shower curtains, and throw pillows. Fine Art America will for the most part be limited to wall art although the product mix seems to change from time to time.

TIP: If you don’t want to offer certain items say “battery chargers” just leave the pricing BLANK. Don’t put in a “0” because that will mean that the item will still be on sale but your profit margin will be ZERO dollars. Leaving a BLANK will totally remove the item from your offerings.

TIP: Set up your “DEFAULT PRICES” in the “BEHIND THE SCENES” in either site to set up all of your profit margins and offerings. You can also use the “DEFAULT IMAGE EDITOR” to change pricing on all or selected images.

Keep in mind that you are only setting the profit margin or commission that you will receive when an item sells. It is not the final price. If you buy one of your own items, this profit margin will be removed and you will pay the base price.

TIP: You can also choose to sell on DesignerPrints.com which is a wholesale site for interior designers. Members of the trade get deep discounts for placing large orders.

TIP: There is yet another site related to Fine Art America and Pixels – MobilePrints.com – you can set up this site to sell your square Instagram type images.

How did Pixels come to be?

I believe the history of Pixels comes from a number of factors. One being the idea that the company needed a more universal and International name so that people wouldn’t be confused the “America” part of Fine Art America.

And second, around the time of Pixels birth, the company was seeking to compete in the image licensing market. They intended to “revolutionize” the image licensing by allowing image producers to set their own prices. I don’t this set the licensing world on fire.

Since then Pixels has become the flagship site for the company and Pixels has been used to branch out into products like the competitors Society6, RedBubble and Zazzle.

A lot of the “purist” artists wanted Fine Art America to stay dedicated to wall art so Pixels.com gives the company a way to expand into products such as home goods and personal accessories while keeping the original site more focused on framed and matted artwork, canvas prints, metal, wood and other print forms.

If Pixels is the main site, why does the watermark say “Fine Art America”?

Yeah, there are a few confusing things about the two sites and I imagine the customers get confused with things like having Fine Art America watermarks showing up on Pixels. I imagine it has something to do with the cost of image storage. They would have to duplicate millions of images if they had two different watermarks.

They probably should say somewhere on these sites that one is the sister site of the other.

How the two sites rank in popularity

Despite being the “main” site of the company now for a several years and having a larger product mix, Fine Art America still ranks higher in popularity in Internet ranking sites such as Amazon’s Alexa site.
https://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/pixels.com

Fine Art America – US Rank 3,352

Pixels – US Rank 11,904

Simply buying a generic name such as Pixels and declaring it your new company name is one thing, but to change public awareness and habits are another.

Unless the company does a tremendous amount of branding through advertising, people will continue to go to the site they remember. Besides, Fine Art America is a great name, it has what it is right in the name. Pixels is more generic and would require educating the public before it becomes more associated with art work.

The owner of the company is rather secretive so I’m not too sure that they’ll be doing much of a branding campaign. For now, they seem to relish the idea of remaining mysterious and continue to push both sites on Social Media.

For example on the Pixels site they talk about being a enigma:

The company, itself, is somewhat of a mystery.   It’s an art company representing 500,000+ artists from all over the world… but no one seems to go in or out of the building (ever)… and the company’s CEO doesn’t have a single connection on LinkedIn.

It looks like a great office space with ocean views.   What goes on in there?

https://pixels.com/px-sign-main-street-santa-monica.html

Not to be confused with the movie “Pixels”