Do artists need a website, or is Instagram enough?
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Instagram is rented reach: an algorithm decides who sees your work, and a lost account takes your audience with it. A website is owned presence, where collectors buy, galleries vet, and press links. The strongest setup uses Instagram for discovery and your own site for the relationship and the sale.
What is the rented-land problem?
On Instagram, an algorithm sits between you and the people who chose to follow you. Instagram's own ranking explainer (“Instagram Ranking Explained”, about.instagram.com) describes feeds ordered by predicted interest, not by who follows whom, which means your reach is decided post by post by a system you cannot see.
Accounts also get hacked, or banned by mistake, and recovery is famously slow. An artist whose entire collector relationship lives inside one app is one bad day away from starting over with nothing.
None of this makes Instagram bad. It makes it rented. Build on it for discovery, but do not make it the only place your practice exists.
The algorithm also shapes the work itself. When reach depends on feeding the feed, the pressure runs toward what performs rather than what you actually make. A website carries no such opinion; the slow piece that took four months gets the same wall as the reel-friendly one.
What do collectors and galleries expect to find?
A working website with the work shown properly: series and individual pieces, dimensions, materials, and whether something is available. A bio and CV that say who you are and where the work has shown. Press, if there is any. A way to ask about a piece without sliding into DMs.
Galleries and curators vet before they reach out, and a site that presents the practice professionally answers half their questions before the first email. The square crop and the scroll are good at attention; they are bad at presentation.
Collectors also arrive at strange hours from search engines and AI answers, not just from your feed. A website is open while you are in the studio or asleep.
Search and AI answers are becoming a discovery channel of their own. When someone asks an AI engine about carvers, printmakers, or painters in a region, the engines pull from websites they can read and verify, not from inside an app, and that verification is free to win and entirely yours to control. A site also settles the practical questions once, studio visits, commission terms, shipping, instead of in every DM thread.
Can you sell without marketplace fees?
Marketplace fees stack. Etsy's published fee schedule lists a listing fee per item, a transaction fee on each sale, payment processing on top of that, and a further offsite-ads fee on sales it attributes to its own advertising. Each line looks small; together they take a real bite out of every sale, and the marketplace keeps the customer relationship.
On your own site with a checkout like Square or Stripe, you pay payment processing and little else, and the buyer's email belongs to you. For commissions and higher-priced work, that direct relationship is worth more than the sale itself.
Marketplaces still earn their cut for discovery, and there is no need to leave them. The point is that the people who already want your work should have a place to buy it that you own.
What does an artist website actually need?
Four things: a portfolio that shows the work well, with large images and honest photography; a way to buy or inquire; your story, because people buy the maker as much as the work; and a contact that gets answered.
Commerce can be a full checkout or a simple inquiry form. For higher-priced or one-of-a-kind work, an inquiry conversation often converts better than a buy button, and it costs nothing to run. Start with the simplest version that matches how you actually sell.
Photography deserves the budget before anything else on the site. The work is the argument, and phone snaps under studio lights undersell pieces that took months. One good photo session covers years of website, social, and print use.
What does this look like in practice?
One of ours as a working example: Jason Henry Hunt, a Kwakwaka'wakw master carver in Port Hardy, British Columbia. Sixteen pages, individual pages for each available piece, Square checkout for purchases, and dedicated pages for commissions and press.
Instagram still does what it is good at for him: discovery and process shots. The website does the vetting, the storytelling, and the sale. That division of labour is the whole argument of this guide.
His setup also follows the ownership rule that runs through everything we write: domain in his name, content his, the shop able to move with him if the tools ever change. Rented discovery, owned home.
When you don't need us
If your work sells out through a gallery that handles presentation and sales, or you sell a few pieces a year as a sideline, a website is a nice-to-have and marketplace fees are cheaper than any site. You also do not need us specifically: a simple portfolio you build yourself covers a lot. The case for a proper site starts when collectors, galleries, or commissions need to take you seriously without meeting you first.
Quick answers
Should I put prices on my website?
For editions, prints, and smaller works, yes: visible prices remove a barrier and filter inquiries. For major one-of-a-kind pieces, price on request is still common and reasonable. The worst option is no information at all, which reads as either unaffordable or unserious depending on the visitor.
Do I need full ecommerce, or is an inquiry form enough?
Match it to how you sell. Editions and prints under a few hundred dollars sell well through a checkout. One-of-a-kind pieces, commissions, and anything that needs a conversation usually convert better through an inquiry form. Many artist sites run both.
How many pieces should the portfolio show?
Fewer, better. A tight portfolio of strong, well-photographed work beats an archive of everything you have ever made. Group by series, show dimensions and materials, and mark what is available. You can always add; pruning later is harder.
Will a website replace Instagram?
No, and it should not try. Instagram remains the best discovery channel most artists have. The website's job is everything Instagram does badly: presentation, credibility, search and AI visibility, direct sales, and owning the relationship with the people who care most.