Artist merch stores 2026

By 7 October 2026, Divini’s research software had checked 5,575 acts for a merch store. An act here is a YouTube channel: a creator, a comedian, a musician or a podcast. It found a store for 1,041 of them. It has followed and read 1,463 store links so far, and found 738 stores that are an act’s own merchandise, counting a store that several channels share once. The first table counts the acts. The other five count those 738 stores.

The reading is done by software, which the notes below call the pipeline, and a reading can be wrong. No act is named, and the tables publish no count of fewer than ten. They are free to reuse under CC BY 4.0: download the data.

The six findings

1. A merch store was found for fewer than three in ten acts with a million or more YouTube subscribers. Fig. 01
2. More than half of the stores are on Shopify, and about one in ten shows the signs of a merch company. Fig. 02
3. Where the catalogue could be read, half of the stores list 14 products or fewer and three in four list a T-shirt. Fig. 03
4. Of the stores whose stock could be read, more than four in ten had something sold out on the day they were read. Fig. 04
5. In stores that price in US dollars, the middle price of a T-shirt is $32.50 and of a hoodie or sweatshirt $55.00. Fig. 05
6. About one in ten of the stores checked lists a product tied to a tour. Fig. 06

Who has a store

Of the 5,575 acts checked, a merch store was found for 1,041. The share rises with the audience: from 11.4% of acts with 10,000 to 49,999 subscribers to 28.2% of acts with a million or more.

The smallest band is the exception, at 31.6%, and it is the weakest figure in the table. It holds 38 acts, where every other band holds 674 or more.

An act counts as having a store when a link to one was found on its channel or its site, unless that store has been read and turned out not to be the act’s own merchandise. Not every link has been read: the stores of 205 acts are still to come, and some may turn out to be something else. An act whose store left no link to find is counted as having none.

The figures

YouTube subscribers	Acts	Acts with a store	Share with a store (%)
Under 10,000	38	12	31.6
10,000 to 49,999	1,202	137	11.4
50,000 to 99,999	674	89	13.2
100,000 to 249,999	973	146	15.0
250,000 to 499,999	699	144	20.6
500,000 to 999,999	702	150	21.4
1,000,000 or more	1,286	363	28.2

Acts checked for a store, by YouTube subscribers. An act with a hidden subscriber count, or with no channel, is left out of this table.

Divini’s own dataArtist merch stores 2026, table 1 of 6. Counted: 5,574 acts checked for a store, with a public subscriber count. · checked 7 October 2026

Where the stores are, and who runs them

Of the 738 stores, 396 are on Shopify (53.7%). Another 215 (29.1%) sell from the act’s own site, on a platform the reading could not identify.

Spring held 52 of the stores (7.0%) when they were read. Spring is closing: its owner’s notice says the selling tools stop after 15 September 2026 and account access ends on 15 October 2026. Moving off Spring sets out what the notice means for a seller.

Filed or disclosedThe two dates Spring gives. · Source: Spring’s closure notice · checked 7 October 2026

Who runs a store is read from public signs on the store itself: a credit in the footer, the address its returns policy gives, the product codes. By those signs the act runs 303 of the stores itself (41.1%) and another 155 through a print-on-demand service (21.0%). The signs of a merch company were found on 75 (10.2%), and on 205 (27.8%) there was no sign either way.

A sign can mislead in both directions. A company that leaves none is not seen, and a company named on only a few stores is often the act’s own. Read these as signs, not as an exact count.

The figures

Platform, of 738 stores

Name	Stores	Share of stores (%)
Shopify	396	53.7
Own site, platform not identified	215	29.1
Spring	52	7.0
Fourthwall	30	4.1
Spreadshirt	13	1.8
Other platforms	32	4.3

Who runs the store, of 738 stores

Name	Stores	Share of stores (%)
The act	303	41.1
Could not tell	205	27.8
The act, on a print-on-demand service	155	21.0
A merch company	75	10.2

The platform is read from the store’s address and its page. Who runs the store is read from public signs on the store itself: a credit in the footer, the address its returns policy gives, and the product codes. “Could not tell” means no sign was found, not that the act runs it. Each section is a share of every store counted. No merch company runs ten or more of the stores counted, so none is named.

Divini’s own dataArtist merch stores 2026, table 2 of 6. Counted: 738 stores. · checked 7 October 2026

What the stores list

The products could be counted in 623 of the stores. The middle store lists 14. At the small end, 145 stores (23.3%) list five or fewer. At the other, 30 (4.8%) list 250 or more, which is as far as a store’s product feed counts.

The types of product could be read in 667 stores. T-shirts are listed in 502 of them (75.3%), hoodies and sweatshirts in 398 (59.7%), and hats and beanies in 297 (44.5%). A store can list several types, so the shares add up to more than the whole.

The figures

Products listed, of 623 stores with a count

Name	Stores	Share of stores read (%)
5 or fewer	145	23.3
6 to 10	113	18.1
11 to 25	195	31.3
26 to 50	81	13.0
51 to 100	35	5.6
101 to 249	24	3.9
250 or more	30	4.8

Types of product, of 667 stores whose types were read

Name	Stores	Share of stores read (%)
T-shirts	502	75.3
Hoodies and sweatshirts	398	59.7
Hats and beanies	297	44.5
Mugs and tumblers	231	34.6
Stickers	182	27.3
Posters and prints	171	25.6
Tote bags and backpacks	162	24.3
Books	143	21.4
Long-sleeve tops	139	20.8
Pins and patches	96	14.4
Socks	84	12.6
Tank tops	81	12.1
Jackets	72	10.8
Printables and planners	47	7.0
Courses	45	6.7
Plush toys	39	5.8
Keychains and lanyards	35	5.2
Phone cases	33	4.9
Ebooks and audiobooks	29	4.3
Blankets and flags	18	2.7
Other types	444	66.6

The number of products is exact where the store has a product feed, and otherwise an estimate read from the page. A feed gives at most 250 products. Product types are read from product names. A store can list several types, so the type rows overlap.

Divini’s own dataArtist merch stores 2026, table 3 of 6. Counted: 623 stores with a product count, and 667 whose types of product were read. · checked 7 October 2026

What is sold out

Stock could be read in 343 stores. In 149 of them (43.4%) at least one product was sold out on the day of the reading. Sold out here means listed and not on sale: none of the product’s sizes or options can be bought. The reading does not say whether it sold, or how many.

The middle store had nothing sold out. Across all 343 stores, the mean is 9.4% of a catalogue.

It shows most on Shopify: 128 of 230 Shopify stores (55.7%) had something sold out, against 21 of 113 (18.6%) for every other type of store together. Part of that gap may be the method. In practice it is the Shopify stores that have a product feed. Where there is none, stock comes from the store’s own counts, or from its page.

The figures

Store type	Stores	Mean share of catalogue sold out (%)	Median share of catalogue sold out (%)	Stores with anything sold out	Stores with anything sold out (%)
All stores	343	9.4	0.0	149	43.4
Shopify store	230	11.8	2.0	128	55.7
Other store types	113	4.5	0.0	21	18.6

A product is sold out when the store’s product feed says that none of its sizes or options can be bought. Where a store has no feed, the store’s own count of in-stock and out-of-stock products is used, and failing that a count read from the page. The words “out of stock” in a store’s filter menu never count as a product. A store whose stock could not be read is left out of the table and is not counted as fully stocked. Stock has been read since 19 August 2026, so a store read before then has no stock figure. The mean and the median are taken across stores, each store counting once. Store types are counted together under “Other store types” until each row has ten or more stores with something sold out and ten or more with nothing.

Divini’s own dataArtist merch stores 2026, table 4 of 6. Counted: 343 stores whose stock could be read. · checked 7 October 2026

What merch costs

Prices were read on 7 October 2026 from each store’s public product feed. It is a second reading of those stores, made for this table alone. Of the 611 stores asked, 277 answered and 232 gave both prices and a currency. The ladder is those 232: fewer than half of the stores asked. Of the rest, some have no feed, some refused the request, and some could not be reached from the network it was sent from. So the stores in the ladder may not price like the ones that are missing.

Among the 160 stores that price T-shirts in US dollars, the middle price is $32.50, and half of the stores sit between $28.71 and $38.00. For hoodies and sweatshirts it is $55.00, across 133 stores. Stickers are the bottom rung at $6.97 and jackets the top at $116.00.

In pounds, only the T-shirt has ten stores behind it: a middle price of £27.75 across 12 stores. A product’s price is its cheapest option. A store counts once for each type of product, at the middle price of its own products of that type, so a store with a long list of shirts weighs the same as a store with one.

• Lower quartile price to upper quartile price
• Median price

The figures

Stores that price in US dollars

Product	Stores	Lower quartile price	Median price	Upper quartile price
Stickers	62	$4.00	$6.97	$9.98
Keychains and lanyards	20	$8.00	$10.00	$10.50
Pins and patches	29	$8.99	$10.00	$15.00
Socks	33	$14.99	$17.50	$20.00
Mugs and tumblers	66	$16.24	$19.97	$21.00
Posters and prints	53	$15.00	$25.00	$39.99
Plush toys	14	$21.61	$29.99	$43.75
Tank tops	22	$25.50	$29.99	$34.99
Tote bags and backpacks	55	$21.25	$29.99	$44.00
Hats and beanies	109	$25.00	$30.00	$35.00
T-shirts	160	$28.71	$32.50	$38.00
Blankets and flags	27	$32.50	$44.99	$50.00
Long-sleeve tops	50	$32.61	$45.00	$55.00
Hoodies and sweatshirts	133	$47.00	$55.00	$65.00
Jackets	29	$80.00	$116.00	$138.00

Stores that price in pounds sterling

Product	Stores	Lower quartile price	Median price	Upper quartile price
T-shirts	12	£24.99	£27.75	£30.62

A product has a row for a currency only where ten or more stores price it in that currency. Prices were read on 7 October 2026 from the public product feed of each counted store that has one, which in practice is a Shopify store. 611 stores were asked, 277 stores answered and 232 stores gave both prices and a currency. A product’s price is its cheapest option. A store counts once for each type of product, at the middle price of its products of that type. Bundles and gift cards are left out. Prices are in the store’s own currency and are not converted. A store that prices by country gave the price for the country the request came from. The ladder has rows in USD and GBP.

Divini’s own dataArtist merch stores 2026, table 5 of 6. Counted: 232 stores whose prices could be read. · checked 7 October 2026

Tour merchandise online

A tour item is a product whose name ties it to a tour, such as a tour tee or a tour poster. Of the 414 stores checked for one, 39 list one (9.4%). The check goes by the product’s name, so a tour product with no tour in its name is missed. These are online stores: the figure says nothing about what is sold at a show.

This table has one row. It was built to set the stores of acts with tour dates on sale beside the rest, and the two groups are published together or not at all. This year the split did not pass the rule on small numbers, so it is held back.

The figures

Acts	Stores	Stores with a tour item	Share with a tour item (%)
All stores	414	39	9.4

A tour item is a product whose name ties it to a tour, such as a tour tee or a tour poster. An act has tour dates on sale when the pipeline found dates the last time it looked. An act with none on record may have none, or may never have been looked up. Stores have been checked for a tour item since 12 August 2026.

Divini’s own dataArtist merch stores 2026, table 6 of 6. Counted: 414 stores checked for a tour item. · checked 7 October 2026

What atVenu publishes about merch at shows

atVenu, whose system settles merch sales at shows, publishes figures for the other side of the business. Its review of 2025 puts spend at $10.24 a head. It charts spend a head for its top 16 genres, and does not say how the sixteen were picked. Comedy is not one of them; creators and podcasts are one genre between them, at $11.25.

Filed or disclosedThe genre chart is drawn by a script; its rows were read from the page’s own data. · Source: atVenu, A Year in Review 2025: Artist Merch Edition · checked 7 October 2026

The same review lists its ten best-selling items of 2025 with the average price each sold for, before tax. Seven of them are set below beside this census’s nearest group. The two are not the same measure, the same year or the same acts. One is the average of what was sold through atVenu. The other is the middle store’s price online, for acts found through YouTube, where a product’s price is its cheapest option. Read them as two readings, not as a gap between them.

Filed or disclosedatVenu’s prices. · Source: atVenu, A Year in Review 2025: Artist Merch Edition · checked 7 October 2026

Divini’s own dataThe prices online: Artist merch stores 2026, table 5 of 6. · checked 7 October 2026

How the numbers were made

Who made it

Divini is a product company: consumer products, built and run. For comedians, podcasts, creators and touring acts it funds the range, the stock and the advertising, and runs the store and the table on tour. It is paid only from the profit. The acts counted here are the ones its own research had found for that work, so they were chosen and not drawn at random.

The sample

5,575 acts had been checked for a merch store by 7 October 2026. An act here is a YouTube channel that Divini’s own research had found: creators, comedians, musicians and podcasts. They were chosen for that work and not drawn at random. 1,041 of them have a store. 1,463 store links have been followed and read so far, and 738 stores turned out to be an act’s own merchandise. Those are the stores counted in every table after the first.

Divini’s own dataArtist merch stores 2026: the 738 stores counted. · checked 7 October 2026

The dates

The stores were read between 16 July 2026 and 21 September 2026. Each store was read once, on its own day, so the tables are a set of single readings and not a count taken on one day. Subscriber counts are YouTube’s, as they stood when the pipeline last read the channel.

Prices are the exception: they come from a second reading, on 7 October 2026.

What counts as a store

An act has a store when a link to one was found on its channel or its site, unless the store was read and found not to be the act’s own merchandise. Merchandise sold from the act’s own site with no separate store counts too. A store is counted in the later tables once it has been read and judged to be the act’s own merchandise. A store that several channels link to is counted once.

How stock is read

A product is sold out when the store’s product feed says that none of its sizes or options can be bought. Where a store has no feed, the store’s own count of in-stock and out-of-stock products is used, and failing that a count read from the page. The words “out of stock” in a store’s filter menu never count as a product. A store whose stock could not be read is left out of the table and is not counted as fully stocked. Stock has been read since 19 August 2026, so a store read before then has no stock figure.

What is left out

Divini’s own dataArtist merch stores 2026: acts left out, and why. · checked 7 October 2026

Small numbers

No figure rests on fewer than ten acts, on either side of a count. Groups are merged with the group beside them, or counted under “Other”, until that holds. Where it still cannot hold, the count and its percentage are left blank. No act is named, and a merch company is named only where it runs ten or more of the stores.

Two figures read together can still narrow a small number down: the gap between two tables’ bases says how many acts or stores one of them could not count. Nothing here names an act or says where one is.

The limits

• Online stores only. The figures say nothing about what is sold at a show, or about sales at all.
• One reading a store. Stock and catalogues change from day to day.
• The acts are those Divini has researched. They are not a random sample, so the figures describe these acts and may not hold for all acts.
• Stores that could not be read are missing, and they may differ from the ones that could: a closed store, or one behind a check for robots.
• An act is a YouTube channel. A person with two channels is two acts in the first table; their one store is one store in the others.
• An act with more than one store is counted by the store found first.
• Audience size is YouTube subscribers only. An act can be far bigger elsewhere.
• A merch company that leaves no public sign on a store is not seen.

Download the data

The tables

artist-merch-2026.csv. Every cell of the six tables, one to a line: the table, the row, the measure and the value. The counts of the sample, and the middle store’s product count, are on this page and not in the file.

Licence

CC BY 4.0. Copy, share and adapt the tables for any purpose, with credit, a link to the licence, and a note of any change you made.

Credit

Divini, Artist merch stores 2026, with a link to this page.

Made on

7 October 2026

Share cards

One for each headline number, six in all, as a picture a post or an article can carry. Each says what was counted. Writing about the report? The press kit has the company’s facts and who to write to.

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