The Price of Cheap and Free — Another One Bites the Dust

Makerist gone after less than twelve years...

Makerist is closing down.

We (designers with shops) received an email about their plans to close for "planned downtime to make technical adjustments" back on December 17. The downtime was to occur in two phases, January 29 for cessation of sales and February 11 for cessation of access to the website. No date was given for return to normal.

With the original notice, I found it odd that there was no date for when the work would be completed. Therefore, when I read the emails announcing Makerist's closure this past Tuesday morning, it was sad but ultimately not surprising. It was also irritatingly reminiscent of Crafty's marketplace closure, however, in the amount of notice given. (As in, virtually none.)

The reason? "We can no longer operate [them] sustainably and economically in the long term." Of course not, the economist part of my brain whispered.

Things are tough all over, and that's not just an overused cliché.

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But things may be uniquely tough for any entity – be it a large player like Makerist or an individual pattern designer – trying to sell digital patterns in 2025. The marketplace is simply oversaturated with "cheap and free". Add the fact that virtually every idea has been reimagined by everyone, and the result is that there are just only so many pennies that can be earned per pattern these days, especially when tutorials for so many similar designs can be had for nothing.

This happened regularly...

For Makerist, I suspect that their reliance on regular $2 sales events – which usually required designer shops to participate across the board with all of their patterns – did them no favours. After all, how many designers want to put such a huge reduction on pricing just to make more sales? From a business standpoint, I understand that there is a sweet spot at which total sales will increase sufficiently to cover any perceived losses due to a lower price point, but I doubt that the sweet spot is $2. And if it is, then small wonder certain market players are doomed.

My guess is that most of the big name designers tried the $2 event once or twice and then never again. (I myself never, ever, put my entire shop on at $2... and that's even though I don't have a lot of high priced patterns.) On the other side of the coin, however, such extreme discounts gradually encourage a customer base to wait for the next sale, likely making the in between periods unsettlingly quiet.

But the real problem of selling a pattern that normally sells for $10 at 80% off is that it devalues the entire thing. Not just that specific pattern, but all patterns. Consumers start expecting a high quality product to be available at a low price, which is problematic for sellers who want to maintain reasonable prices or who try to increase them in response to changing economic conditions.

For example, is inflation affecting designers? Of course it is. It's not just a brain wave exercise to come up with a pattern and write instructions. In all cases, a designer will have to make at least one, if not multiple versions, of whatever s/he is designing before the pattern gets to the point of being good enough to sell. Just the cost of the physical supplies to make those samples has gone up over the past five years. (That's not even considering software, technology and potential overhead expenses like website hosting, ecommerce plugins, etc.) But to increase pattern prices when the customer base thinks they're already too high? That's a battle.

A lot of designers sold on Makerist...

I have noted in the past that for me, a price above $10USD for a PDF is excessive. (Actually right now, when my home currency is trading at 68 cents to that US dollar, a ten dollar pattern would cost me $14.65... no way would I pay that!) But that's me; your mileage may vary. The thing is, each of us has an upper limit on how much we are willing to pay for the average sewing pattern. When the marketplace is flooded with offerings at the lower end of that scale, we start to think that patterns should be cheaper.

I have it on good authority that designers who develop and sell PDF sewing patterns for a living are finding it challenging. The creator market has changed dramatically in the past decade. The shutdowns around COVID encouraged new makers to come onto the scene – many of them flocking to YouTube for ad revenue – to snag their own piece of an ever-shrinking pie.

Those who have committed themselves judiciously to YouTube are likely reaping benefits. One of my favourite sewing channels, Estadistica Datos del Mundo, started uploading videos in February of 2020 and recently surpassed one million subscribers. Now, not everyone will have that sort of success, but I'm thinking that there are many channels offering DIY sewing videos every week (some even every few days) that make decent money on advertising. It's why they offer freebies. Free stuff attracts people and if you attract enough people, the advertising dollars will start churning.

Hence, it matters not to those bottom lines that their actual tutorials, patterns or instructions have a price of $0 to the end user.

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My first sale on Makerist came on September 24, 2018. (Hadn't realized it had been over six years.) The platform was a saviour for some of us who were left loose and hanging by Craftsy's demise. Over time, however, it apparently inherited some of Craftsy's problems. I've seen complaints about the quality of patterns – and let's not fool ourselves, patterns these days are expected to include written instructions, my Crossbody Sling Bag notwithstanding – with Makerist being unable to do any quality control. Realistically, it's not as if their people could read and try out every pattern that was uploaded to their site. When you own the platform, however, your customers expect that you'll have their back. Sending them to the pattern designers to iron out issues is not always the best approach.

While I will obviously miss it, I was frequently irked by the setup of things at Makerist. Yes, they made the selling and payment process seamless – meaning that I sold and got paid without any intervention on my part – but the UI involved with doing almost anything was cumbersome. Some of their categories and filters were just odd. Participating in promotions could never be accomplished with a simple click of a button; every time I had to use one of their online forms, it made me want to tear my hair out. A small part of me thought that their impending technical overhaul would fix some of those vexations.

Of course, now I have to search for another place to open up a little shop. That may not come to fruition since there aren't a whole lot of options out there, and some are definitely not worth my while. (For example, it would make no sense for me to go to Etsy, given the fees it charges just to list.) We shall see; I'm not in any hurry as I still have the means to sell my patterns here on the blog.

That said, where do you go to buy PDF patterns these days? Is there a central place where you like to browse? If you're aware of any sites where small indie designers are welcome to open up shops, by all means, let me know in the comments.

Bye-bye, Makerist...

In the days following Makerist's goodbye announcement, a couple of unexpected things happened. One, there was a brief flurry of sales. Two, someone decided to "un-fan" me. Since mid last year, that number had held at 33, as shown in the graphic above. Some time on the 21st, someone thought that with Makerist going down, I no longer merited his/her appreciation! 😲

For the edification of any readers here who have made transactions via my or anyone else's Makerist shop, please note that February 11, 2025 is the last day on which you can download patterns that you have on your account, purchased or free. (You can still purchase patterns up to January 29.) They have indicated that they will be closed as of April 1, but since nothing will be accessible after February 11, I'm not sure the actual closing date has any useful significance. 

By the way, they made a point of stating that they are not insolvent, so I expect all designers will be paid as usual at the end.

In the meanwhile, life – and commerce – marches on.

'Til next...