A DeviantArt alternative for selling commissions
DeviantArt retired its Commissions feature in 2026 and takes a cut of every Originals sale by Core tier. openmog has no membership, holds each milestone until the client approves it, and the artist receives the price they set.
Versus · 6 min read ·
openmog is not affiliated with DeviantArt; every DeviantArt number below was checked in September 2026 against its own help center and Core membership page. The two sell the same custom work on different terms: DeviantArt sells it from a shop inside the biggest art community online, to members who pay for the right to sell, and openmog runs the job for anyone who posts one. What openmog is covers the network around it.
What happened to DeviantArt commissions?
They were retired. DeviantArt’s help center marks the commissions feature as legacy and says it was phased out on July 1, 2026, pointing artists at Originals instead. An Original is a custom order: the artist sets a base price and a cover, builds an order form of up to 25 questions with prices attached to options (a second character, a background), and fans request through it. The artist has 72 hours to accept a request before it is declined on its own, and the finished work is delivered as a one-of-a-kind Exclusive. Anyone can order one. Only artists with a Core membership can sell one, and if the membership lapses, existing orders can be finished but no new offering can be created.
What does openmog do instead?
One invite code from an artist who is already here, redeemed once, is the whole gate: it keeps bots and generated work out, and it unlocks posting art and getting paid. A commission post is then live the moment you publish it: a starting price, priced options and licences, a turnaround of 1 to 5 days on instant orders and skebs, your own request form and your terms. A client’s request costs nothing, you answer within 5 days with a proposal of one milestone or up to six, and the client accepts by paying the first one. openmog holds each milestone until the client approves the delivery, or 5 days after you deliver if they say nothing, and then credits it to you in full. Change rounds and extensions are capped, every clock is 5 days, reviews are double-blind, every job has a receipt, and a dispute on paid work is decided by openmog. There is no plan to hold and nothing to renew. How commissions work walks every rule, and the playbook is the artist’s short version.
A finished piece has a faster door. Post it with the artwork sealed and choose pay to reveal: one price, $5 to $1,000, paid per person, and the post never goes public. For a group piece or a print run, a crowdfund seals it behind a goal of $5 to $1,000 and opens it for everyone when the goal is met.
How do the fees compare?
DeviantArt’s platform fee on an Originals sale is 20% without a Core membership, and 15% with Core or Core+, 10% with Core Pro, and 5% with Core Pro+ or Core Max, as of September 2026; the plans run $6.67, $8.33, $12.50 and $16.67 a month, and DeviantArt says its fees do not include the payment processor’s own charge. openmog’s fee is 10% of each payment with a 75 cent minimum, card processing included, and it sits inside the price the payer sees. Set $30 and the client pays $33.34; you receive $30.00. The price you set is the price you receive. On the same $30 from a client, DeviantArt credits $24.00 without Core or $28.50 on its top tier, both before processing and before the membership, and openmog credits $27.00, its 10% covering the card costs DeviantArt leaves to the processor. Which side of $27.00 you land on depends on whether you pay for Core and how much you sell in a month. What differs is the order: on openmog you set the amount you receive, the payer sees one all-in number before the card sheet, and nothing comes off afterwards. No monthly plan, no follower or impression gate, and no second line for card costs. Credits land as pending, become withdrawable seven days later, and withdrawals start at $50. The FAQ has the rest.
What about adoptables and Exclusives?
DeviantArt sells a design as an Exclusive: one owner, with resale allowed or not at the seller’s choice, at the same tiered fee. openmog treats the design as a character: a page under its owner with designs, connections, a history of every hand it has passed through, and badges that travel with it. The owner can put it up for adoption at $5 to $1,000, the buyer pays that price with openmog’s fee inside it, ownership moves the moment the charge lands, and the previous owner’s posts stay theirs. The page is the provenance, which is the part a marketplace listing loses the moment the sale closes.
Where does DeviantArt still win?
On the crowd, and on the shop around it. DeviantArt is the largest online art community, every profile has a shop, Core members get promotional banners and boosts, and Premium Galleries, subscriptions, arts and crafts and merch all sell from the same place. openmog does not match that reach: the clients come from your own posts, from people browsing commission posts on Explore, from a spotlight draw that shows one post per kind to everyone every six hours, and from the briefs clients post as “Looking for artist” posts, which any artist can answer with a proposal. The split: if your buyers are already on DeviantArt, keep the shop there and take the commission here, where the money waits on the work and the fee is one number. The VGen comparison covers the other marketplace commission artists weigh, and the full platform landscape places both among their neighbors.