Bluethumb Will Not Let You Put Your Own Website on Your Own Profile

2 July 2026  ·  7 min read

Imagine opening a market stall. You pay a significant percentage of every sale to the market operator. You bring your own customers - people who follow you, who know your work, who have bought from you before. They come to the market to find you. And the market operator's rules say you are not allowed to hand them a business card. You are not allowed to tell them your website. You are not allowed to mention your Instagram. If they ask where else they can find your work, you are supposed to send them back into the market.

That is not a hypothetical. That is Bluethumb's membership agreement.

What does Bluethumb's agreement say about contact information?

Directly from the Bluethumb Membership Agreement:

"Artists agree to respect Bluethumb marketplace and not attempt to direct traffic away from Bluethumb to make personal contact or sales outside of Bluethumb. This includes not posting information in artist profiles or artwork descriptions which include: Personal websites and/or email addresses - Personal social media accounts on platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest, Tumblr etc - Mentioning gallery representation and/or other establishments where works can be purchased - Comments intended to encourage direct contact outside of Bluethumb such as 'visit my Facebook account or personal website to see more of my artwork'."

Source: Bluethumb Membership Agreement

Your website. Your email. Your Instagram. Your gallery. None of it is allowed on your own profile on a platform you are paying 44% to use.

Why does this matter so much?

Because the only asset in an artist's commercial life that compounds and grows is their own audience - their mailing list, their direct collector relationships, their own platform. Everything else is rented. Bluethumb's following is Bluethumb's following. Their collector database is theirs. When you leave the platform - or when they decide to change the terms, raise the commission again, or deactivate your account - you leave with nothing.

The clause that prevents you from mentioning your website or social media is specifically designed to prevent you from converting Bluethumb's audience into your audience. Every collector who finds you through Bluethumb and cannot find your website or email has to come back through Bluethumb to buy from you again. Every future sale from that collector generates another 44% for the platform. The clause is not about protecting the marketplace experience. It is about protecting the revenue stream.

What about watermarks?

The agreement also restricts watermarks. Artists may only place a watermark containing the copyright symbol and their first and last name, in the bottom left or right corner of the image. No website URL. No Instagram handle. No other identifying information in the image itself.

Watermarks are one of the primary ways artists drive collectors to their own platforms - a collector who discovers your work shared by someone else, or scraped onto another site, can search a URL watermark and find you directly. Bluethumb's terms eliminate that pathway.

The mathematics of what this costs you

Say you build a following of 500 collectors through Bluethumb over three years. You sell consistently. You pay 44% on every transaction. At the end of three years, none of those 500 collectors have your email address. None have visited your website. None follow you on Instagram. They all follow Bluethumb.

If you leave Bluethumb tomorrow, you start again from zero. The three years of work, the 500 collector relationships, the audience you built - it all belongs to a platform that took 44% of every sale along the way.

If you had been building those relationships on a platform that allowed you to share your contact details, or selling through your own website, those 500 people would be yours. They would buy your next collection. They would refer their friends. They would be the foundation of a sustainable career that does not depend on any platform's algorithm or terms of service.

Frequently asked questions

Can I put my Instagram handle on my Bluethumb profile?

No. Bluethumb's membership agreement explicitly prohibits listing personal social media accounts, websites, email addresses, or any other means of direct contact on artist profiles or artwork descriptions. Source: Bluethumb Membership Agreement.

Can I include my website URL in my artwork watermark on Bluethumb?

No. The agreement restricts watermarks to the copyright symbol and the artist's name only, placed in the bottom left or right corner of the image.

What happens to collector relationships built on Bluethumb if I leave?

They stay with Bluethumb. Because artists are prevented from sharing their contact details, collectors who found them through Bluethumb have no way to follow them to a different platform. The audience built on Bluethumb belongs to Bluethumb.

Solene Haus

The art world you deserved.

Zero commission. HAUS Shield image protection. Collector relationships that belong to you.