I spent two years uploading design packages on Graphic River. The first year was 2016 when I decided to upload a few packages featuring some backgrounds and around 20 packages, each featuring 5 planets made using textures I found online.
I didn't really manage to make any money and people weren't interested in what I had for sale. This year was different. I started to learn how to create Photoshop actions and since then I've been uploading around one or two actions a day on that website.
Doing that helped me upload a total of 340 design packages and make some money. I'm not rich, not even close and the money I'm making isn't enough to have the life I want yet. But it's something.
I see people asking on all kind of websites if it's worth publishing their work on Graphic River, and I'd like to talk about that here, since I have some experience with that website and my opinion may be of some use to some people.
You need to be decent
I believe I spent around two months uploading all kind of things and getting rejected every single time. I barely managed to upload an illustration after dozens of rejections and when I finally did it, it didn't sell for a few good months. Not a lot of people bought it till this day.
What you need to keep in mind before starting to publish on that website is that you need to be decent. Not a pro, not the best, but decent. You need to create things that people could and would use in their projects.
If you can do that, you'll be able to upload your work on Graphic River. If you can't, then you need to learn how to work on those kind of design packages.
Getting your items on the website doesn't mean people will buy it
Something I realized after weeks of work and waiting for people to buy what I created is that most of the time no one will be interested in your work unless you create something pretty amazing.
In my case I had to upload backgrounds and actions mainly because my computer didn't allow me to work on more complex projects, and because of that people weren't always buying my packages. They still don't.
What you need to remember is that getting one package on that website doesn't mean someone will actually buy it. I started making some money only at the beginning of this year after uploading around 50 design packages. The ones I uploaded when I first tarted still don't sell well.
The higher the quality, the more money you'll make - maybe
Now here's the thing - if you're able to create amazing things, people will buy what you create, especially if they can use your work in their projects. For example, if you're capable of creating amazing PowerPoint presentations you'll make quite a lot of money.
The problem here is that not everyone manages to sell a lot of things no matter how high the quality of their product is. I saw a lot of amazing illustrators with hundreds of packages on Graphic River that were simply amazing, who barely had over 300 sales in total.
I got to over 500 by the end of this year and I'm not even close to being as good as those people are. The reason I have more sales? I work on something people can use pretty often.
I work on photo effects and actions that can be used to change the way your photos look. People can use that in their day to day life or even at their work if they need something like that in their projects.
When it comes to other type of packages, like illustrations, not a lot of people need something like that so not a lot of people will buy those type of packages unless they want to support the author.
Making money doing something you love and you're good at is indeed an amazing experience, but if your type of work can't be transformed into something people would use often, then it's gonna be hard to make money on Graphic River.
A lot of competition
The term "competition" is kinda odd when it comes to things like design, but I'll explain what I mean in a second. Take this example - you are on Graphic River and you just uploaded a package containing a decent action.
There are other 5 people on the same website as you who also uploaded packages containing actions. The difference is that what they made is a lot better than what you made. Why would people buy from you and not from them?
This is a situation you'll encounter on Graphic River. There are A LOT of amazing designers on that website who create amazing things and make a lot of money. The problem is that you need to either create amazing things in order for people to notice your work or at least upload a lot of decent packages so people can have more options from you.
In my case, I went for the second option. At the beginning of the year I made a habit out of uploading around two design packages a day and that resulted in uploading around 300 packages in only a year. I'm not a great designer but because I worked so much, people still buy from me from time to time.
Either you're amazing at what you do and you can "compete" with others and get the attention of people, or you're capable of working a lot in order to have a lot more products than others, which can also get the attention of potential buyers.
You don't have total freedom
First, they have fairly high standards. They don't accept everything. It's not impossible to get your work approved on Graphic River but it's not really easy either. Plus, they don't always tell you why they rejected your work. They just don't accept it.
The problem with that is not being able to upload whatever you want in order to make some money. You can do a lot of things and there are a lot of areas you can work in to create amazing design packages, but you don't have total freedom.
For example, you can't always work on photomanipulation projects and expect them to approve your design on their website.
Here's something I worked on for a while that I uploaded on Creative Market: https://crmrkt.com/3PkzqV
This is not the best type of design you'll ever see, but it's not horrible either. I've seen a lot worse. However, I don't think it took more than a day for the people at Envato to reject it.
So while you have a lot of options and you can work on all kind of things on Graphic River, you're still limited to the type of packages they accept. If you agree to that, you can start working. If you don't, you can choose another website.
Don't expect to make a lot of money
One of the main reasons people join websites like Graphic River or Creative Market is because they expect to get rich or to at least get a fairly high amount of money. It doesn't work like that.
Nobody cares about your work unless you come up with something really nice and usable. If you don't nobody will buy anything from you. If you do, there's no guarantee people will be interested.
As an example, I saw a while ago a guy on Graphic River (can't remember the name of his profile) who was uploading AMAZING 3D characters. It's hard to describe how amazing his work was. I could see those type of models in games like Warframe. They were THAT good.
When I discovered his profile he had a few packages uploaded and despite his work being purely amazing, he had 0 sales. I had around 50-80 at the time from uploading actions, something that's really not that hard to make.
So you see, there's no guarantee you'll make money on that website. You can try and you can work really hard and people just won't care. There's also the possibility that you'll make hundreds of dollars with your amazing work. Keep that in mind before using Graphic River.
Taxes
Another downside of using this website is that you won't receive the full amount of money for your work. For example, if you sell something at $4, you may get $1.50 when people buy it depending on where you live and who buys it.
I couldn't believe it at first, but there's nothing you can do about it. They take a certain part of the money because they take care of everything for you and then the rest is to pay taxes to the state.
So keep that in mind if you want to work on this website - you won't get the full amount of money for your work. Neither you will on Creative Market or other similar websites, but I believe the taxes on Graphic River are higher.
You do get access to a larger community and a lot more potential buyers since Graphic River is a lot more popular then any other website out there, but if you can't deal with the fact that they'll take a big part of your money for your work, then you'd better stay away.
Conclusion
So, should you use Graphic River or not?
The answer is pretty basic - it depends on what your goal is.
In my case, I needed a website that could provide me with some kind of income really fast, so I chose this one since I didn't really have any other opportunities at the time.
There are a lot of downsides of using this website but there are also benefits, like access to a huge community, the website being really popular so you get higher chances of making money, not having to do anything but work and learn how to upload your packages, etc.
If you can deal with the limited areas of work (meaning you can't upload whatever you want), with the high taxes, with the huge competition and the fact that you have absolutely no guarantee you'll receive anything for your work, then sure, start working for that place.
I don't regret uploading my work there and if you can work just as much (in case you can't create really high quality products) then neither will you. As long as you can work really well, you'll get something in return.
My advice however is this - start using Graphic River if that's what you want, but don't put all your eggs in one basket. Use other websites as well. You can choose the option of not being an exclusive author on their website and upload the same packages on multiple places.
I didn't choose that. Instead, I decided to upload different packages on both Graphic River and Creative Market. I upload actions, but they are never the same which means I make money from both websites.
It's a lot better to do this than to rely on only one source of income that may disappear one day.
So yes, use Graphic River if you can deal with all the disadvantages. For me, it's a great place to upload your work, but that's a personal opinion. Do your research and probably ask people who are a lot more experienced then I am.