Constantine

Dribbble just wrapped up a record-setting Q1: - Leads increased ~200% Y/Y. - Clients purchased millions of dollars of design and development services, up ~300% Y/Y. - Advertising spend by service providers – mostly full-service agencies – increased ~100% Y/Y. - It was also our best quarter in years for Pro, with thousands of new subscribers, up ~75% Y/Y.

Service providers can use Dribbble’s contracts, payments, and other workflow features to manage those clients alongside the ones they land on Dribbble, and receive hands-on support from our team when needed. Dribbble does not apply Platform Fees to the client’s payment or the provider’s payout – for their initial transaction or any subsequent transactions between them – provided the client does not already have a Dribbble account. Every Outbound Proposal that converts also contributes to a service provider’s reputation on Dribbble – the more Outbound Proposals they convert, the higher they’ll rank in search results and recommendations, increasing their inbound lead flow on Dribbble. Learn more about Outbound Proposals and other recent releases here: dribbble.com/stories/2026/0…

Last week, we introduced Outbound Proposals (dribbble.com/proposals), enabling service providers to transact securely on Dribbble with clients they already know outside the platform – without Platform Fees for either side.

It's been a record-setting start to 2026 at Dribbble – January was our best month ever for most leading indicators of transaction activity on the platform, including Leads, Proposals, and much more, with triple-digit year-over-year growth for each. Learn more about our recent progress here: dribbble.com/stories/2026/0…

4) To help clients sort through the proposals they receive from Pro subscribers in response to their Project Briefs (which, depending on the budget, can number in the dozens), we now enable them to filter by cost, location, and the provider’s star rating, and to sort by recency, cost, and more. This feature make it easier for these clients to hone in on the providers most likely to meet their needs.

In January, Dribbble released a number of important new features for Pro subscribers and their clients, including: 1) A more robust and intuitive Project Briefs feed – dribbble.com/browse-project… – with advanced features to help Pro subscribers quickly find, save, and respond to the Project Briefs that best match their skills and interests. Pro subscribers can now also set up email alerts whenever Project Briefs that meet their requirements are published. We introduced Project Briefs – which are requests for proposals from high-intent clients – last year to give Pro subscribers an outbound lead source. Since then, compared to inbound requests, Project Briefs have had an average budget ~70% higher, a conversion rate ~ 4 percentage points higher, and an average proposal value ~60% higher.

Also, we now offer multiple Pro plans, depending on the level of control that service providers want over their lead flow on Dribbble: • Pro Lite at $4/month • Pro Standard at $8/month • Pro Plus at $99/month With Pro Plus – our most comprehensive plan – subscribers get higher rankings in search and recommendations, client analytics, additional seats, advanced profile features, and 300 (!) outbound leads each month. Additionally, there are no platform fees for Pro Plus subscribers or their clients, meaning that selecting a Pro Plus subscriber saves clients up to 5% compared to working with a non-subscriber. FYI all legacy Pro subscribers have been converted to Pro Standard, meaning they now have everything they did before – and more – at the same price. Learn more about this recent work (and more) here: dribbble.com/stories/2025/1…

Pro subscribers can access a feed of these published briefs, from which they can select opportunities that match their skills and interests. This gives Pro subscribers an outbound lead source – yet another competitive advantage over non-subscribers, who can only be contacted directly by a client – and effectively guarantees them a minimum number of leads each month. Clients have already published thousands of briefs worth millions of dollars – and Pro subscribers are seizing the opportunity to land more clients: • 84% of briefs have received a response. • 61% of briefs received a proposal. • 6% of briefs have been converted.

We're getting in a few buzzer-beaters at Dribbble before the end of the year: The latest version of InstantMatch is here. Now, in just seconds, clients who come to Dribbble for design and development services can generate a robust brief, receive recommendations based on their requirements, and publish their brief to receive inbound proposals.

✨ Get 50% off Pro Plus and unlock our most powerful Pro experience yet. Upgrade today: buff.ly/uQXtq32

Miss our group chat with @constantine__a from @dribbble the other week? This was a great chat where we got to learn about Dribbble's transition to a marketplace, how they're leveraging AI, & more. The recording is now live! everythingmarketplaces.com/c/constantine-…

Dribbble is hiring! We’re looking for three exceptional people – two Account Executives and one Community Support Representative – to join us on our mission to help professional designers earn a living doing work they take pride in. We're in the home stretch of a transformative year for our company, and October marked our best month yet – we set new records across every key metric, and month-over-month growth accelerated: • Clients +12% M/M • Orders +20% M/M • GMV +41% M/M • Transaction Fee Revenue +31% M/M • Designer Advertising Revenue +8% M/M We’re gathering speed as we head into 2026 - come be a part of something special! Learn more about the open roles here: dribbble.com/careers

Read more about our new features and the results from our first year as a revenue-sharing marketplace: dribbble.com/stories/2025/0…

We also released the latest version of Recommendations, with improvements to the UX/UI and algorithm.

Dribbble just released InstantMatch, making it faster and easier than ever for clients to connect with world-class talent. Clients just tell us what they’re working on, and, based on their needs, we match them with the design and development professionals most likely to deliver high-quality work and exceptional customer service.

It’s been exactly one year since clients and designers began transacting on Dribbble. The functionality we introduced last September – which enabled clients to request design services and pay, and designers to deliver work and get paid – was modest, but it marked the beginning of Dribbble’s reinvention from an advertising-supported social network to a revenue-sharing marketplace. Over the past year, designers on Dribbble have received hundreds of thousands of leads and millions of dollars in payouts. Transaction activity has increased each month, with no signs of slowing, and new users are joining in record numbers. Our trajectory coming out of the summer is better than ever: In August, GMV increased 46% M/M – the third consecutive month that M/M growth has accelerated – and most of our lower-funnel metrics also showed double-digit M/M growth and reached new high-water marks, including Orders (+17% M/M), Clients (+15% M/M), and Designers (+16% M/M). Further up the funnel, the number of Project Requests received by designers increased 24% M/M, the number of designers who received Project Requests increased 9% M/M, and the average number of Project Requests per designer increased 13% M/M. These leading indicators – which reflect the demand in our marketplace, as well as its distribution and density – are the most predictive of our long-term success. Designers will share their work, advertise their services, and transact through the platform only if they expect to land more clients as a result. Conversely, nothing will keep them on the platform if they don’t see a return on their time and effort. For context, we monetize the leads we deliver to designers either through transaction fees (when designers get paid) or through Designer Advertising (advertising products that allow designers to rank higher in search results, waive fees for themselves and their clients, and take clients off-platform). In August, Designer Advertising revenue increased 13% M/M, and the number of designers who joined the waitlist to advertise increased 200% M/M. This surge of interest was partly due to work we did to bring more attention to the offering, and partly due to TechCrunch publicizing the penalties for disintermediation. The past year has been transformative for Dribbble, but there’s more to do before the business is in fighting shape for the long run. The next few months – even the next few weeks – will be eventful as we dial up the high-intent, qualified lead flow to designers and adapt legacy parts of our platform to our long-term strategy. More to share soon!

Finally, to end with my favorite topic – the trajectory of the business. July was our best month ever for GMV, Orders, Clients, Designers (and many other key metrics), and M/M growth accelerated in July for most of these metrics. Last week was our best week ever for those metrics. Yesterday was our best day ever for those metrics. This is generally the case – as I explained to TechCrunch, I would have been able to say the same had we spoken a week earlier. It’s not a “all press is good press” thing, it’s simply the cumulative impact of a year of hard work by thousands of talented designers and nineteen exceptional teammates.

I also explained to TechCrunch why we didn’t publicly correct Gleb’s post on X. We’re a 20-person company, and we just don’t have the capacity to correct the record every time someone misrepresents something on social media. We have an exceptional Customer Support team that will respond to questions promptly and helpfully, but I don’t want them scouring the Internet for bad takes. I also typically share an update every month that goes into considerable detail around what we’re working on and why, and the trajectory of the business. For example, here’s what happened in July: dribbble.com/stories/2025/0… In any case, the discourse on social media just doesn’t have any discernible impact on our business and, therefore, isn’t a high priority for us. For example, there was a ton of negativity on social media following our Terms of Service update in March but we retained 99.9% of our users, accelerated new user growth, and tripled the transaction activity on the platform.

Last night, I spoke with an editor from TechCrunch who was fact-checking statements made by @glebich about his recent suspension from Dribbble. I appreciate that they included some of the examples I shared of Gleb’s repeated violations of Dribbble’s Terms of Service despite dozens of reminders and warnings. Below is more of the information I shared with TechCrunch about Gleb’s suspension, Dribbble’s pivot to revenue-sharing marketplace, and the business impact of the social media discourse around both.