Dribbble has completely banned dozens of designers from its platform following a brand new effort to pivot to a market and chase monetization. This contains one of many platform’s most well-known designers, Gleb Kuznetsov, founding father of the San Francisco-based design studio Milkinside.
Dribbble deleted his account with its over 210 million followers as a result of he shared his contact data with potential purchasers by the platform in violation of its new guidelines.
Remarked Kuznetsov in a put up on X, “I introduced 100,000+ month-to-month customers. 15 years of labor. 12,000+ photographs. All immediately deleted, as a result of a consumer requested for my e mail. One warning. No attraction.”
Fed up with the adjustments on the firm, which helps product, UX, internet, and different digital designers showcase their portfolios and discover new purchasers, Kuznetsov says he’s been speaking to traders about launching a competitor.
Shortly after his social media put up, Dribbble customers expressed their shock and anger over the choice, crediting Kuznetsov as being considered one of their greatest inspirations and lamenting that the platform would make such a misguided transfer.
Dribbble, in the meantime, says Kuznetsov was really warned a number of occasions that he was violating the brand new guidelines and the e-mail was the ultimate discover.
Dribbble’s pivot to a market
The difficulty has to do with a more moderen coverage change first introduced on March 17, 2025.
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In an e mail shared in March with Dribbble’s some 750,000 permitted designers — that means those that are licensed to speak with others on the platform — the corporate mentioned it was now not permitting designers to share their contact data with potential purchasers till after their consumer despatched cost by its platform.
The corporate positioned this variation as one meant to guard designers from non-payment, in addition to one that permits Dribbble to proceed to maintain its enterprise.
The announcement was additionally posted to social media and the firm weblog.
Nonetheless, Kuznetsov claims that non-payment isn’t a quite common downside, and actually, this replace is about Dribbble making an attempt to take a bigger lower of designers’ enterprise.
Dribbble doesn’t dispute that.
Earlier than the coverage change, Dribbble made cash in considered one of two methods. Beginning in September 2024, Dribbble started pivoting to a market that related designers and purchasers. Designers might talk freely on the platform after which both share a 3.5% income lower on purchasers they transformed, or they may pay for a Professional subscription to skip the rev share. In March, the corporate tightened the principles additional, saying that anybody discovering purchasers on Dribbble would wish to supply the platform a lower of their income.
“It went from it was non-compulsory to make use of our transactional options to it was required for non-advertisers to make use of our transactional options, in the event that they had been on Dribbble, to seek out purchasers,” explains Dribbble CEO Constantine Anastasakis, in an interview with TechCrunch. “If a consumer is on Dribbble to seek out inspiration or to get suggestions on their work, or to speak store with their friends, none of this impacts them,” he added.
The exec, who joined the corporate after working at direct-to-consumer lender Decrease, video market Pond5 (exited to Shutterstock), and freelancer market Fiverr, was employed final April to pivot Dribbble right into a market. Whereas the corporate is worthwhile below guardian firm Tiny, it’s nonetheless a small 20-person workforce and isn’t reliant on enterprise backing to serve its 7.5 to 10 million month-to-month distinctive guests.
“Dribbble was one thing that actually accelerated our enterprise dramatically again within the day,” Kuznetsov informed TechCrunch. Earlier than Dribbble, there was no platform the place designers might share their work with others, he says. It helped designers obtain suggestions that got here particularly from their friends and allowed newer designers to study from these on the prime of the trade.
Kuznetsov is now a part of the latter group.
At Milkinside, Kuznetsov has labored with corporations like Apple, Google, Amazon, Scandinavian Airways, United Airways, Honda, Mitsubishi, Mercedes-Benz, and different massive corporations within the Bay Space.
Consequently, he seemingly didn’t really feel that Dribbble would danger banning him for not abiding by the brand new phrases.
Anastasakis basically confirmed this to be true.
He informed TechCrunch that Kuznetsov acquired 83 work inquiries because the new phrases rolled out in March, and responded to 61. In every message, the positioning reveals a warning that reminds customers that contact particulars shouldn’t be shared earlier than challenge cost. Nonetheless, Kuznetsov shared his contact data in six messages, which might have displayed a stronger warning at the moment.
The corporate then adopted up with a warning e mail on July 22 about his repeated terms-of-service violations, which knowledgeable him he was risking everlasting suspension.
Kuznetsov informed us he didn’t see this e mail initially, however Dribbble says it tracked that the e-mail was opened 3 times earlier than his suspension.
“I imagine that Dribbble — it was their purpose to harm me so I can unfold that [news] to allow them to give a harsh lesson to everybody who tries [to break the rules],” Kuznetsov says.
Anastasakis confirmed as a lot to TechCrunch.
“There’s actually no conceivable means through which he didn’t understand that what he was doing risked everlasting suspension of his accounts,” Anastasakis informed us.
“I believe that in the end it was that he believed that we wouldn’t take motion in opposition to a designer of his caliber,” he continued. “As a facet observe, I really suppose that he’s completed us an enormous favor so far as getting the phrase out about how critically we take the phrases.”
For Kuznetsov, or any designer who was banned for comparable causes, the one possibility to return again to Dribbble is by becoming a member of as an advertiser, which requires a minimal marketing campaign finances of $1,500 monthly for at the very least three months.
A brand new competitor to Dribbble emerges?
Kuznetsov has determined to forge his personal path, saying that he’s harm by Dribbble’s change.
“It’s not going to be a copycat of Dribbble,” he says of his pending startup. As a substitute, will probably be a useful resource for designers that can even leverage AI.
Whereas there was loads of backlash about AI fashions coaching on creatives’ work with out compensation, Kuznetsov believes there’s a use case for the expertise by way of inspiration, creation, and design.
“It’s an enormous gap proper now available in the market … All people’s doing AI startups, however no person’s actually doing AI startups for designers,” Kuznetsov notes. “AI is one thing that actually can elevate our capability to create, and make it on a a lot larger degree of high quality. It’s going to assist us to not solely earn more cash and develop, but in addition create one thing we by no means even thought was doable to create with no particular ability set.”
Kuznetsov says he expects to have an MVP (minimal viable product) prepared in three or 4 months.
Nonetheless, he notes the purpose is to not “kill” Dribbble, regardless that traders provided him cash to take action.
“It’s not like that. I’m attempting to do one thing good for the group as a result of I’m a designer. So I understand how painful it’s to be a designer on this world,” says Kuznetsov.
“We must be actually sensible about how we make investments our time — how we give our greatest and provides our life to different platforms. Diversification of that funding ought to be one thing that everybody ought to be occupied with,” he provides.
