The Tools I Use to Run My Etsy Sticker Shop
A quick, honest note: some of the links below are affiliate links, which means if you sign up through them I may earn a small commission — at no extra cost to you. I only point you toward tools I've used or would genuinely recommend. Try the free version first and make sure something fits before you pay for it.
I make stickers for planners and journals, and for a long time it was just me, a laptop, and way too many browser tabs. Over time I found a handful of tools that quietly do the work of a small team — the design, the selling, the mockups, the day-to-day. If you're running (or dreaming up) a sticker shop, here are the ones I'd hand you first, in the order I'd set them up.
1. OpenArt — design stickers without drawing a thing
I can't hand-draw to save my life, and I don't need to. I describe the little scene in my head — a stack of cozy books, a steaming mug, a pressed flower — and get artwork in my style to build stickers from, in minutes. If "I'm not artistic enough" is the thing holding you back from a shop, this is where that excuse quietly disappears.
2. Canva — arrange, size & make it shop-ready
Once I have my art, Canva is where it becomes an actual product — laid out on a sticker sheet, sized right, cleaned up, and dropped into pretty listing mockups. It's free to start, and it's the one tool I open literally every single day. (I'm just joining their creator program, so no affiliate link here yet — but it's worth setting up regardless.)
3. Printify — an easy way to add physical products, if you ever want them
This one's a maybe-for-later. If you ever want to offer physical products beyond stickers — mugs, totes, prints — without holding any inventory, Printify prints and ships each order for you when it sells, so there's no stock in your closet and nothing spent up front. I don't reach for it day to day myself (I cut my own stickers with a Cricut — more on that further down), but it's a low-risk way to widen your shop as it grows, so I'm leaving the link here in case it's handy for you.
4. Payhip — sell your digital stickers and keep more of the money
Etsy is wonderful for getting found, but the fees add up, and you don't own the customer. Payhip is where I sell my digital stickers and downloads directly — lower fees, my own storefront, and (this is the big one) they collect and pay the sales tax for you, which took a genuine weight off my shoulders. I'd set up a free Payhip shop even if you keep selling on Etsy too — it's your safety net and your higher-profit lane.
5. ElevenLabs — a voice for your reels without being on camera
Short video sells stickers, but I don't love being on camera. ElevenLabs turns a written script into clean, natural narration, so I can make reels and TikToks with a warm voiceover and just my hands and products on screen. If the "talking" part is what's stopping you from posting video, this quietly removes that wall.
6. Cricut — cut your own stickers & products at home
If you want to make die-cut stickers, labels, and other little products yourself, a Cricut is the machine that does it. It cuts your designs into perfectly-shaped stickers (no scissors, no crooked edges), and it opens up a whole range of physical products you can sell without outsourcing. It's a bigger investment than an app, but for a sticker shop it pays for itself fast.
The tool that ties it all together: Maryn
All of the tools above make the pieces — the art, the listings, the videos. Maryn is where the shop itself lives: your orders, your money, your launches, and what to focus on today. I built it because I couldn't find a calm home base for a creative business anywhere, and it runs entirely on your own computer — no monthly fee, no cloud.
→ See Maryn · or start small with My Journey, the vision-board side, for $29.
Start with one
You don't need all of these at once — that's a fast way to feel overwhelmed. Pick the one that fixes your biggest bottleneck right now (design? selling? video?), learn it this week, and feel how much lighter the shop gets. The rest can wait.
Want a free head start? Grab my free printable sticker sheet or my free GoodNotes stickers — a lovely way to see my style and start your own collection.