Why Solene Haus Is Australia's Only Art Platform Where Artists Keep 100 Percent of Their Profit
27 October 2026 · 7 min read
Ask almost any working artist in Australia what happens to their money when a piece sells, and the answer is some version of the same story. A gallery takes 40 to 60 percent. Bluethumb takes 40 percent plus GST. Saatchi Art takes 40 percent. The artist made the work, priced the work, and shipped the work - and still walks away with roughly half of what the collector actually paid.
Solene Haus is the only art platform currently operating in Australia that does not work this way. Artists keep 100 percent of every sale. Not 90 percent. Not "commission-free after your first year." All of it, every time.
How does a platform make money without taking a cut of sales?
Solene Haus charges one flat membership of $29 AUD a month - under $1 a day - and that fee is the entire cost of using the platform. It covers the storefront technology, the equal rotation gallery that gives every artist the same visibility, the provenance registry, the matching engine that connects artists with collectors and corporate buyers, and the option to switch on The Grid for image protection.
None of that infrastructure is funded by taking a percentage of what a collector pays for a specific piece of art. The membership fee is identical whether an artist makes one sale a year or fifty, which means the platform's income has no built-in incentive to grow alongside an individual artist's success.
Why does this matter more than it sounds like it does?
On a commission model, the platform and the artist are only partially aligned. The platform wants the artist to sell as much as possible, at as high a price as possible, because the platform's own revenue rises every time the artist's does. That is not necessarily bad, but it means the platform's core financial interest is baked into every sale.
On a flat-fee model, that link is severed. Solene Haus earns the same $29 whether an artist has an exceptional month or a quiet one. The platform's revenue is tied to how many artists trust the platform enough to stay members, not to extracting a bigger share of any individual artist's income.
What does the payment path actually look like?
When an artist joins Solene Haus, they connect their own Stripe account. When a collector buys a piece, the money moves directly from the collector's card, through Stripe, into the artist's own account. Solene Haus is never holding that money and is never taking a percentage of it on the way through. The only fee in the entire transaction is the standard Stripe processing fee, which the artist would pay accepting a card payment anywhere.
This is structurally different to how Bluethumb and most galleries operate, where the platform or gallery receives the payment first and then remits the artist's share - after their commission has already been deducted.
Is this actually rare, or does it just sound rare?
It is genuinely rare. Every major Australian marketplace currently in operation, and every traditional gallery, relies on commission as its core revenue model. Bluethumb has increased its commission multiple times since launching in 2012 - from roughly 20 percent at launch to 44 percent inclusive of GST in 2026. Saatchi Art holds at 40 percent. No other Australian platform has built its business around a flat fee instead.
The reason is straightforward: commission scales automatically as artists succeed, which makes it a far easier way to grow platform revenue than convincing more artists to pay a flat monthly fee. Building a platform around a flat fee only works if enough artists join and stay, which means the platform has to actually be worth $29 a month on its own merits - not simply skim a percentage of success it did not create.
What this means for an artist deciding where to sell
The practical difference shows up the moment an artist starts selling consistently. An artist making $30,000 a year in sales pays roughly $348 a year to Solene Haus and keeps the rest. The same $30,000 on Bluethumb costs the artist approximately $13,200 in commission. The gap only grows as an artist's sales grow, because Bluethumb's cut grows with them while Solene Haus's membership fee stays exactly where it started.
Read the full guide to the best online art gallery to sell art on in Australia ->
Frequently asked questions
How can Solene Haus afford to charge zero commission?
Solene Haus funds the platform through a flat $29 AUD a month membership rather than a percentage of sales. Because the fee does not scale with an artist's income, the platform has no financial reason to take more as an artist sells more.
Does Solene Haus take a cut if a sale is very large?
No. The membership fee is the same $29 AUD a month whether an artist sells one piece a year at $500 or fifty pieces a year at $5,000 each. There is no commission at any sale size.
Who actually receives the payment when a collector buys on Solene Haus?
The artist does, directly. Each artist connects their own Stripe account when they join, so a collector's payment goes straight from the collector to the artist's account. Solene Haus is not in the payment chain.
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