I'm considering changes to my commissions

June 9, 2026

It’s been a while since I first opened commissions! I’m still suprised by how quickly I managed to get commissions set up. However, I’m starting to feel burnt out from commissions.

My current setup

Commissions are done exclusively through Ko-fi. Customers pay for sketches up front. They usually also send the request along with this payment, but not always– I’ve had requests sent through my contacts.

I recently abandoned deadlines. This was a reaction; I had realized that the bulk of the work was sketches, and by the time I got done with sketches I didn’t have much time to work on the final piece.

Pathos

There is no filter on requests, besides the terms which include rules on commissions. I find myself occasionally working on something that I lack the skills, knowledge, or plain interest for.

The past few weeks, I haven’t been enjoying commissions as much. The process has felt impersonal and forced, and it feels isolated from normal sketches I enjoy doing and so I do frequently.

I’ve thought of a way to mediate this, which I explain below.

Pile of requests

Requests are submitted and added to a pile that I’ll sort through to decide which ones to make sketches for.

Ko-fi requests and messages will be ditched. In their place, I’ll instead use different ways of contact– either through form services or through online messages like on Discord.

Requests will remain open, rather than being open temporarily. This’ll leave me with more options than just doing all of the slots I’ve opened for commisions. I’ll likely sort through requests using spaced repetition.

Move payment to after sketches

Completed sketches are sent to customers, where I can be paid to complete those sketches and create finished pieces.

This moves the commitment of finishing the piece after I have already decided I want to do it, not before. If the customer pays upon request, I either have to:

• Refund it, breaking the expectation that they’ll receive a finished piece.
• Finish it “soon” without specifying a deadline, giving my brain the opportunity to procrastinate and, again, breaking the expectation of a finished piece.
• Force myself to finish it within a deadline.

Move from ko-fi page to website page

Using a dedicated webpage and contact method (maybe Google Forms?), users can send requests. This is opposed to Ko-fi, where a request is sent along with payment.

Ko-fi locks your customers into paying for requests. Fitting a different payment scheme into Ko-fi’s commissions features is more confusing for the customer than just using donations for payment and managing commissions your own way.