Frequently Asked Questions

You must be at least 18 years old and agree to our Terms of Service and Privacy Policy to create an account. Softside is available worldwide. If you are a minor who is at least 13 years old, you may create an account that is owned and directly supervised by a parent or legal guardian. Your parent or guardian will be responsible for all account activities, content, and communications. Minors younger than 13 years old are not allowed to use Softside’s services.

Nope, it’s free to make an account.

You may email us at hello@softsidemerch.com and our team will try to get back to you as quickly as we can.

Both – it’s officially licensed fan merchandise. Every artist partner you see in the Softside platform is here “officially,” meaning they are authorizing the creation and sales of fan–designed merch within the scope of our Terms of Service. They grant access to specific IP assets that you may use within designs, as well as approve every item before it is listed.

We offer two submission options to submit your artwork to our music artist partners for merch design consideration. The first option is the Merchandise Template Builder. This is where you can build out your ideal merch based on filters set by the artist. Simply select an item such as our t-shirts or hoodies, as well as color of choice, and drop in your original design(s) for one of our music artist partners. Plus, you can download and incorporate the artist’s licensed assets that they have approved for merch designs exclusively on the Softside platform, such as their official logo, images, and other approved design elements. The second option is a Portfolio submission. We understand creating art takes time, and so we do not require our creative community to design something from scratch in order to get their work in front of our artist partners unless that is their preference. In your Creator Dashboard, you will see there is a Portfolio tab where you can upload examples of past creative work you’ve made. You can update this at any time. When you submit your Softside Portfolio link to an artist, you are essentially demonstrating your creative style and the direction you’d go in if selected to design merchandise. So the contents of your Portfolio are not the actual merchandise designs that’d go to production, but rather, a representation of your skills and artistic style. If approved, you will be given further designing instructions to create a new merchandise design based on your past work. Note: both the Merchandise Template Builder and the Portfolio submission option are currently in their simplest format while we run our beta. We’re excited to roll out evolved developments to each feature very soon to provide our community the best tools for creative collaborations. Ultimately, we strive to build a platform that offers creators choice and flexibility.

We accept original illustrations, graphic designs, paintings, photography, and other static visual content for both submission options (Merchandise Template Builder and Portfolio). You do not need any previous merchandise designing experience. “Original” means that your work must not be copied, adapted, or reproduced from any other source or third party.

All work uploaded in the Softside platform must be PNG or JPEG files. The file must have a resolution of at least 300 dots per inch (“DPI”). The maximum file size that can be uploaded is 10mb. We highly recommend creating work with transparent backgrounds when possible for a stronger merchandise layout. TIP ON SUBMITTING A HIGH RESOLUTION IMAGE: if exporting a photo of artwork from your mobile phone, it is encouraged to export as “Actual Size.” If possible, you should download directly from your computer by either sharing to a cloud-based program or using an adapter. If saving from Photoshop, please use “save as” instead of “export as.” It is strongly discouraged for images to be sent to one self as a text message or as a screenshot, as the image will be resized and compressed, which will negatively affect the image’s quality. We may not be able to move forward with your work if your image has a low quality resolution.

Yes, we will provide any approved images that you may use within your work. When creating a merchandise design, you will see there is a “Note from the artist” that contains various downloadable links to assets containing the artist’s intellectual property (“IP”), such as the official logos, images, trademarks, and other design elements. You are welcome to incorporate any of those assets into the content that you upload to your Merchandise Template before submitting to that respective music artist. Our music artist partners have licensed this IP to Softside for your use as a creator on our platform – any other IP referencing the artist that is not included in their Artist Notes (such as other photographs, album covers, or design elements of the artist you find online) is not allowed, unless it is an original design that you have created and 100% own.

Using an artist’s IP within your designs is optional. You may create and submit unique work without the artist assets (as long as you are not including any unauthorized IP). You may modify the assets to fit the aesthetic of your merchandise design, such as change the color of a logo, crop an image, layer with other designs, etc. Final approval of any modifications, however, is at the discretion of the music artist partners.

We understand creators may have accounts to other creative platforms, marketplaces, and social media. You are welcome to post designs on your social media or personal portfolio websites for displaying purposes only. You may not imply an official partnership where there is none. The designing/selling rights granted to Softside, including access to the artist’s downloadable assets, are authorized and licensed to us, and further sub-licensed to you as a creator, for the purpose of approved fan merchandise exclusively on the Softside platform. This means that all approved designs must only be sold within Softside’s production & sales channels. Third party sales of products containing our licensed designs is strictly forbidden. It is an immense privilege for each music artist to grant Softside and its users access to their intellectual property, as these licenses are the very foundation of our platform that allows creators to design official merchandise in the first place. It’s important that all Softside users accept and respect this rule before creating an account.

Yes. However, as a reminder, you can only utilize intellectual property from our music artist partners that they have approved as official artist assets – this includes lyrics and trademarked phrases. If it’s not included in the artist’s assets within the Softside platform, you cannot use it. You may only use fonts that you own or are licensed to use commercially (subject to the license’s terms & conditions). Design software & websites like Adobe and Canva contain policies within their respective sites that explain which of their fonts you can use for free commercially. It is your responsibility as a creator to ensure you have the rights to use certain fonts commercially prior to uploading your work in our platform.

The IP copyright of all merchandise designs that are approved for production are owned by the respective music artist partners. If you submit content through a Merchandise Template and are approved, the copyright ownership of the submitted design (including any potential edit requests) will be transferred to the respective music artist partner. If you submit content through a Portfolio submission and are approved, the finalized design that you create (including any potential edit requests) will be transferred to the respective music artist partner. Of course, you still retain ownership of the contents of your Portfolio. Upon approval, we will send you a copyright transfer document to sign, a key step before the design can go to production. If there is ever a future scenario where Softside or an artist partner wants to utilize the design for other purposes outside of our platform, you will be sent a new agreement that reflects any updated terms, such as the use, mutually agreed compensation, and other details.

Creators whose designs are approved and listed as official merchandise through Softside’s sales channels are paid a royalty for each sale. Creators can track their payments in the Earnings tab of their Creators’ Dashboard. The minimum guaranteed royalty to Creators for each sale is 15% of the net revenue, as defined below. Creators may be paid a greater royalty at the discretion of the respective music artist partner. Net Revenue is defined as: Retail Price - Production Costs - Transaction/Credit Card Fees. Retail Price is the price customers are paying for a product, prior to the addition of any shipping fees or sales tax that the customer pays at check-out. Retail Price shall be inclusive of any promotional discounts that may be added for specific campaigns. Production Costs are the costs required to manufacture and fulfill a product. Production Costs may vary depending on the type of item, material, and size. Transaction/Credit Card Fees are defined as the fees incurred to process a transaction in our Platform. Softside does not determine these fees – they are set by our payment partner, Stripe. The transaction fee is currently set at 2.9% + 30¢ USD. Please note there is also a bank transfer fee of 0.25% + 25¢ upon the transfer of funds. Additional fees may be incurred for international banks or currency conversions

Softside is welcome to music artists of all genres and sizes, and therefore, we’ve concluded that a “one size fits all” approach for royalty splits is unrealistic. We recognize that every music artist runs a unique merchandise business (amongst other variables), and therefore, the general strategy surrounding that business may significantly vary. As such, we empower our music artist partners to set up their respective Softside merch partnerships as they see fit, including the revenue share with their creative community. The 15% net revenue is a minimum guaranteed percentage to ensure there are basic parameters in place. Softside is always happy to guide artist teams on their royalty splits if they need help determining a breakdown.

If you are approved for merchandise production, you will be prompted to set up your Earnings by connecting your bank account through our integration with Stripe.

Our artist shops and marketplace are curated by the artist teams themselves – every item is approved by them before it is listed. This model prioritizes quality over quantity, as we believe that a “free-for-all” style platform would not be an enjoyable experience for artists OR fans. However, we know this means there are some great designs that are unfortunately turned down. This is top of mind as we further develop Softside with additional collaboration tools and portfolio features to promote discovery and community – more on this soon!

Yes! You can absolutely let us know if there’s an artist you’d like to see join Softside. In the home page of your Creator Dashboard you will see there is an area where you can request specific artists (however, please note you may only request a specific artist once. Repeat requests will not be counted). We are currently operating in an invite-only structure at the moment, but will be fully open to all artists at a later point. Your requests help our team assess demand so we can prioritize adding your favorite artists as soon as possible!

We ship worldwide. However, there are certain countries we cannot ship to due to legal restrictions and/or shipping carrier limitations. At this time Softside cannot ship to: North Korea, Russia, Belarus, the Gaza Strip region in Palestine, Ecuador, Cuba, Iran, Syria, and Crimea, Luhansk and Donetsk regions in Ukraine. The ongoing Russian war in Ukraine severely limits our producer’s shipping to Ukraine, and therefore for now we can only ship products to Ukraine that are fulfilled in our producer’s Latvian facility. Furthermore, our producer’s shipping carriers may not be able to offer shipping to certain locations based on natural disasters and other service disruptions. This list may change periodically.

It takes us approximately 2-5 business days to create & fulfill orders before we ship. Our average shipping period is approximately 3-7 business days after the order is fulfilled. Please be aware that these timelines may vary based on the item and location For non-US orders: if your package has not arrived during the suggested delivery time in your confirmation email, please check with your local customs office, as they might be holding it there.

We carry sizes S-3XL for almost all of our merchandise, and go up to 5XL for certain merchandise items as well. If you do not see your size available, please get in touch with us and we will see if we are able to accommodate.

Our production partners use direct-to-garment (DTG) printing for almost all of our merchandise production. With DTG, ink is sprayed onto the apparel, which helps it soak better into the fabric and makes the print less prone to fading. We use Kornit printers for our DTG production, which use less energy and produce almost zero wastewater with water-based vegan inks. Our producers are partnered with ethical trade organization Sedex to allow monitoring of supplier compliance and transparency.

All Softside merchandise is printed on demand, meaning that our products are only created once we receive an order. We do not hold or throw out any excess inventory. This production method reduces the amount of fabric waste that is typically seen with conventional manufacturing. However, it also means that we do not have extra items available to make exchanges. Therefore, our company policy is that all orders are considered final sale. Contact us at hello@softsidemerch.com within 3 weeks of your purchase date if your order has been lost in transit or has arrived defective, damaged, or misprinted and we will do our best to sort out and correct the issue. We do not handle returns for size exchanges or buyer’s remorse.

Contact us immediately at hello@softsidemerch.com with your name, order number, and item(s) you need to cancel. Please be aware that if the item(s) has already been shipped out we cannot cancel it and the order will be considered final sale.

Some shipments outside of the U.S. may incur additional processing/customs charges upon arrival. The fee varies depending on the order value, country limits, and other factors based on the item itself. These charges are out of our control and the responsibility of the customer. If you have any questions regarding potential import duties, please check with your local customs office.