How to sell Procreate brushes

Short answer: build a small set of brushes for one job from your own shape and grain images, test each one on a blank canvas the way a buyer would, then share the set from Procreate's brush library as a .brushset file. Put it in a ZIP with a one-page install guide, sample strokes and a short license. Sell it where your followers already see your art, and say plainly which apps you tested.

The short answer

Anyone can download free brushes, so a file alone is not what people pay for. They pay for a look they have seen in your work, and for not having to spend an evening in Brush Studio to get it. That makes your followers your best customers. Your job is to make your look easy to use on their own canvas.

What buyers actually pay for

"Ultimate brush pack" competes with thousands of sets. A set built for one job competes with far fewer, and it is easier to show off. Some angles that make a set specific:

• One medium: gouache, dry pastel, risograph grain, ink wash, colored pencil.
• One subject: foliage, clouds, hair, fabric folds, tattoo flash lines.
• One job: lettering, comic inking, sketching, texturing finished pieces.
• Your own style: the exact brushes behind your recognizable work, named after you or your series.

Before you build anything, check demand. If people comment "what brush is this?" or ask in DMs, you already have buyers. If nobody asks yet, post a few timelapses and close-ups of your textures and see who does. For a wider view of what to make first, read what a creator should sell first.

Make brushes that are yours to sell

A Procreate brush has two images inside it: the shape (the stamp the brush repeats) and the grain (the texture inside each stamp). Procreate's Handbook explains that in Brush Studio you can import either one from a photo or a file, paste it, or pick one from Procreate's Source Library. When you plan to sell, where those images come from matters.

1. Make your own sources. Paint the shape and texture yourself, or scan your own real media: a pencil scribble, a sponge print, paper grain. Then you own every part of the brush.
2. Avoid other people's images. Textures from stock sites or other artists' packs come with their own license, and many forbid reselling them inside a brush.
3. Start from a copy. Duplicate a brush before you change it (swipe left on the brush and tap Duplicate). You keep a working original while you experiment.
4. Do not resell built-in brushes. Procreate does not publish a rule on selling lightly edited default brushes, and its sharing steps describe custom brushes and sets. Build sellable brushes from your own sources rather than tweaking a built-in one and calling it new.
5. Sign every brush. In Brush Studio's About this Brush panel you can add your name, a handwritten signature and an author picture. The Handbook says the picture is visible to anyone you send the brush to, so it travels with the file.
6. Set a reset point. When a brush feels right, save a reset point in About this Brush, so later experiments do not lose the version you plan to ship.

Eight to fifteen useful brushes in a set are easier to sell and support than eighty near-duplicates. Name each one so it explains itself: "Gouache 01 Dry Edge" beats "Brush 23".

Test like a stranger would

Your brushes feel right on your iPad, with your pressure and your canvas sizes. A buyer has neither. Before you export:

• Try several canvas sizes. Use a small screen-sized canvas and a large print-sized one. A brush that looks crisp on one can look blurry or stamped on the other.
• Try light and heavy pressure. Draw slow and fast strokes. Look for visible stamp spacing, jagged tapers and grain that slides strangely.
• Try with a finger. Some buyers do not use an Apple Pencil for everything. Make sure the brush still does something reasonable.
• Try on light and dark backgrounds. Texture that looks soft on white can look muddy on black.
• Import the finished set on a second device if you can, or a second brush library, exactly the way a buyer will.

Fix what you find, then save one sample sheet of strokes. You will use it in your listing.

Export: .brush, .brushset and libraries

Procreate uses three file types for brushes. The Handbook describes how to share each one.

On the buyer's side, Procreate's Handbook says imported sets appear at the top of the current library and single brushes go into a folder called Imported. Tell buyers where to look, so nobody thinks the import failed.

Package the download

Keep the folder obvious. A buyer should understand it without opening a single file:

• 01-YourSetName.brushset, the set itself.
• 02-Install-Guide.pdf, one page.
• 03-Brush-Sample-Sheet.png, every brush with its name next to a stroke.
• 04-License.txt, a few lines (see below).

Zip the folder for download. Your install guide can be short. For example: "On your iPad, unzip the download in the Files app. Tap the .brushset file and accept the import prompt. If nothing happens, open Procreate, open the brush library, tap the button at its top right and choose Import from Files. Your set appears at the top of the library." Add a link to Procreate's own Handbook page, since menus can change between versions.

Want the file to arrive the moment someone pays? Our selling digital products checklist covers checkout, instant delivery, sales tax and updates.

Price the set

Price by what the set saves a buyer and how specific it is, not by how many hours you spent tweaking sliders. A set that reproduces a texture people already admire in your art is worth more than a general pack. Look at sets similar to yours where you plan to sell, decide where yours sits, and launch. You can raise the price for new buyers later.

Three simple structures work well:

• A free sample: one brush from the set, given away, so people can feel the quality before they buy.
• Tiers: the set alone, and the set plus a short timelapse or process video showing how you use it.
• Bundles: two or three related sets together, priced below buying them one by one.

Our guide on how to price a creator digital product has a worksheet.

Where to sell brushes

Many artists use both: a marketplace for search traffic, and their own page for followers. The second one usually matters more, because brush buyers mostly come from your posts. Point every timelapse at one link, and answer "what brush is this?" comments with that link every time. If those questions arrive mostly in DMs, our guide to selling digital products through DMs has replies you can copy. And if you take paid requests too, how to take art commissions online covers that side.

Write a license buyers understand

Most arguments about brushes are about what a buyer may make with them. A short license file answers that up front, for example:

You may use these brushes to make your own artwork, including artwork you sell or are paid to make. You may not share, resell or give away the brush files, change them and sell them as new brushes, or sell the brush shapes and textures on their own as stock images.

Decide in advance whether a studio may use one purchase for a whole team, and say so. If you sell outside your country, check your local rules on consumer rights and digital sales tax, since they can limit what a refund policy may say. Our guide on writing a creator refund policy has wording to start from.

Mistakes that cause refunds

• Untested pressure and canvas sizes. The brush looks great in your demo and stamped or blurry on the buyer's canvas.
• No install guide. One page prevents most "how do I install this?" messages.
• Not saying where the brushes appear. Buyers think the import failed when the set is sitting at the top of their library.
• Overselling compatibility. Claiming Procreate Pocket or Photoshop support you never tested.
• Demo art made with other brushes. Buyers compare their strokes to your example and feel misled. Make the demo with the set itself.
• Textures you do not own. A shape or grain image from someone else's pack or a stock site can break their license. Make your own.
• Eighty near-identical brushes. A big number looks good in a title but makes the set hard to use. Keep only brushes that do something different.