The website you own — not the one you rent forever

An artist website should be an asset — something you build once and own forever. Shopify is not that. It is a subscription to someone else’s platform, and the moment you stop paying, everything disappears.

What Shopify actually is — and what artists risk

Shopify is a rental. You are not buying a website — you are paying for access to one, month after month, indefinitely. The current cost starts at around $39 USD per month and increases as you need more features. For an artist, that adds up to hundreds of dollars every year, forever, just to stay online.

Shopify is not built to protect your artwork

Shopify provides no built-in image protection. Anyone visiting your store can right-click your artwork and save it to their computer. They can screenshot it. They can download it and do whatever they like with it — including selling it.

This is not a theoretical risk. Australian artist Lottie Rae discovered her original artwork had been stolen and was being reproduced and sold on Temu without her knowledge or permission. The artwork was listed by a third party making money from her creative work while she received nothing. Read the full story on Solène Haus.

A platform that does not protect your images is not a safe home for your art business.

The Grid — image protection built for artists

When ContentFactoryAI builds an artist website, we can include The Grid — the same image protection system used on Solène Haus and LeahJustyce.com.

The Grid works by splitting each artwork into a 5×5 tile grid. The image displays blurred by default. Only one tile sharpens on hover — meaning collectors can appreciate the work without being able to capture a clean, full-resolution copy. Right-click saving captures only a blurred fragment. Screenshots capture only a partial view.

It is the most practical image protection available for artist websites — and it is built directly into the sites we deliver.

You do not own your Shopify domain

If you registered your domain through Shopify, Shopify controls it. Cancel your subscription or fall behind on payments and you can lose your domain name — the URL your collectors know, your Google ranking, your email address. Reclaiming a domain after losing it can be impossible or extremely expensive.

When we build your website, your domain is registered in your name through a registrar you control. It is yours. Full stop.

What owning your website actually means

When ContentFactoryAI builds your artist website, you own:

• The code — the actual files that make your site work
• The domain — registered in your name, not ours
• The content — every page, every blog post, every image
• The hosting relationship — you pay your hosting provider directly

There are no ongoing fees to us unless you choose our content service. Your website does not go offline if you have a slow month. Your collectors can always find you.

Pay $50 a week — own it when it is paid off

We build artist websites starting from $500, payable at $50 a week. Work begins after your first payment. Your domain goes live within days. Your site grows every fortnight as each milestone is reached — and when the final payment is made, the whole thing is handed over to you, fully owned.

Five tiers available from $500 to $10,000+, including a Tier 5 option with a CMS dashboard so you can add artworks and blog posts yourself by filling in a form — no code required after handover.

AEO-optimised — built to be found in AI search

Every website we build is optimised for Answer Engine Optimisation — the practice of structuring content so it is cited inside Google AI Overviews, ChatGPT, and Perplexity when collectors search for art. A Shopify store built from a generic template gives AI search nothing to work with. Our sites are built from the ground up to answer the questions collectors are asking.