Dribbble vs Behance in 2026: What Each One Is For, What It Costs, and the Rules You Agree To

Start hereOn Dribbble, a client who views a designer's profile or messages them is "irrevocably deemed to be introduced" by Dribbble. On Behance, Pro does not change how projects rank in search or feeds. Which set of rules fits the way you work?

Dribbble and Behance both let you show design work online and get hired through them. Dribbble is a design marketplace that belongs to Tiny Group, and work that starts there must be paid through it. Behance is Adobe’s network for creative work, with a paid Pro plan that removes its fees. Below: who runs each, what each costs, the fees on paid work, and what their terms say about your uploads and AI. We read every price and rule on 27 October 2026.

011. At a glance

Both are free to join; they differ in who runs them, what work they take, and how they charge.

	Dribbble	Behance
Who runs it	Dribbble Holdings Ltd., part of Tiny Group	Adobe
Started	2009	2006
Who it is for, in its own words	“graphic designers, illustrators, UI/UX designers, and other skilled creatives”	“creative professionals around the world”
Paid plans	Lite $4, Standard $8, Plus $99 a month, billed yearly	Behance Pro, “starting at $9.99/month with an annual commitment”
Designer’s fee on paid work	10%, 7% or 4%, by project size; none on annual Standard or Plus plans	5%, 2% or 0%, by project size; none with Pro
Licence you give on uploads	“perpetual, irrevocable”, including to promote the service	“solely for the purpose of marketing and promoting” Adobe’s products and services, plus Adobe’s licence to run the services “on your behalf”
AI training in its terms	Not mentioned in the places we searched	Adobe will not train generative AI on your content, except Adobe Stock submissions
Work made wholly by AI	Not accepted	Allowed; tagging the tools is encouraged

022. What each one is

Dribbble

Dribbble began as an invite-only design community and now runs as a paid-work marketplace. Its posts are called shots, and they are meant to show your own design work.

Dribbble began in 2009 as a small, invite-only space for designers to share work and feedback. It opened to all designers in 2021 and launched the Dribbble Marketplace in 2024. Its about page says it has “shifted from ad-based to revenue-sharing”.

Tiny says it acquired Dribbble in 2017 and that Dribbble is run as an independent business within Tiny Group. Its terms are issued in the name of Dribbble Holdings Ltd., together with its affiliated companies.

For example, a logo, an app screen or a website layout fits on Dribbble. A wedding photo does not: Dribbble does not accept photography.

Behance

Behance is Adobe’s network for creative work, and it runs on Adobe accounts and Adobe’s terms. You can post projects, offer freelance work, sell files and look for jobs there.

Behance says it was founded in 2006 and has over 50 million members. Adobe announced in December 2012 that it had acquired Behance, which then had about 1 million members.

Behance describes itself as a platform for creative professionals “to showcase their own work and to discover the creative work of others”. Its rules are Adobe’s General Terms of Use plus a set of Behance Product Specific Terms. Behance Pro is billed by Adobe.

For example, an illustrator could post a book cover as a project and sell the brushes used to make it. The same profile can apply for a full-time job.

033. What it costs

Both have a free plan; the paid plans mainly add ways to be seen and remove fees. Prices below are the US dollar prices each site showed on 27 October 2026.

Dribbble’s plans

Dribbble’s paid plans run from $4 to $99 a month, billed yearly. On the day we looked, a 50%-off offer was also showing. The page also offers monthly billing; we could not read its prices.

Dribbble’s comparison table lists Free at $0, Lite at $4, Standard at $8 and Plus at $99 a month, billed yearly. Lite adds receiving leads, sending proposals and up to 3 services. Plus also removes the client’s platform fee, on annual plans only.

The same page also showed a “LIMITED TIME OFFER” of 50% off, with Standard at $4 and Plus at $49. Its banner said “Offer ends June 23”, with no year. So read the page again on the day you pay.

Behance Pro

Behance Pro starts at $9.99 a month on a yearly commitment, and the price varies by country and plan.

Behance says Pro pricing “varies by country and plan, starting at $9.99/month with an annual commitment”. Pro removes Behance’s platform fees on freelance projects, asset sales and subscriptions, and includes up to five Adobe Portfolio websites. Creative Cloud plans do not include Behance Pro.

The 7-day free trial, not offered in every country, becomes a paid plan when it ends, by default an annual plan billed monthly. Behance says you get a full refund if you cancel within 14 days of the first payment. After 14 days, an annual plan may carry an early cancellation fee.

In practice, a trial needs a date in your calendar. For example, set a reminder for day 6 if you only want to try it.

044. Fees on paid work

Both take a share of what clients pay through them, and the share shrinks as projects grow. Each band applies to the part of the price that falls inside it, as both sites’ own worked examples show.

Dribbble’s fees

Dribbble charges the designer 10% down to 4%, and the client 5% down to 2%.

Project cost	Designer’s fee	Client’s fee
$0 to $500	10%	5%
$501 to $1,000	7%	3.5%
$1,001 and up	4%	2%

Dribbble’s designer fees in this table took effect on February 5, 2026. Projects under $100 add a flat $2 fee for the client, and a payment processing fee of 2.9% plus 30 cents is added at checkout. Designers on an annual Pro Standard or Pro Plus plan pay no designer fee.

In Dribbble’s own worked example, a $650 project carries a designer fee of $60.50, so the designer is paid $589.50.

Behance’s fees

Behance charges the freelancer 5% down to 0%, and the client 10% plus $2 down to 3%.

Payment	Freelancer’s fee	Client’s fee
$1 to $500	5%	10% + $2
$501 to $2,500	2%	5.5%
$2,501 and up	0%	3%

On Behance, the freelancer also pays the Stripe fee of 2.9% plus $0.30, or PayPal’s fee, which varies by location. If the freelancer has Behance Pro, the platform fee is waived for both freelancer and client. Selling a downloadable asset carries a 30% platform fee, waived for Pro members.

In Behance’s own example, a $600 project carries a freelancer platform fee of $27 and a Stripe fee of $19.67. Behance’s fee page was last updated in March 2024, so check it before you quote a client.

Dribbble’s rule on keeping work on Dribbble

On Dribbble, a project that starts with a Dribbble contact must be paid through Dribbble.

Dribbble’s help page says “all projects that begin with a Dribbble connection must be completed through our platform”. Contact details may not be shared in Dribbble messages until the project has started and the first payment has been made. Contact information includes email addresses, social media handles, phone numbers, websites with contact details, and payment links. Designer Advertisers and their clients are the one exception.

Dribbble’s terms say a client who views a designer’s profile or messages them is “irrevocably deemed to be introduced” to that designer by Dribbble. For “twelve (12) months after” an introduction, users agree not to “directly or indirectly solicit or facilitate the solicitation of” the other user, or to agree to work with them, “other than through the Services as provided in these Terms or as consented by us in writing”.

In a 7 April 2026 update, Dribbble said approved freelancers and agencies can now send “Outbound Proposals” to clients they already know outside Dribbble. There are no platform fees on these if the client has no Dribbble account.

For example, a client who found you on Dribbble may ask for your email before paying. Dribbble’s help page asks you to explain that payments stay on Dribbble. We did not find a matching rule in the Behance pages we read: its fee pages, its community guidelines and its Product Specific Terms.

055. What you agree to when you upload

On both sites you keep ownership of your work; what differs is the wording of the licence you give. A licence is permission to use your work. It is not a transfer of ownership.

Dribbble’s terms

Dribbble’s licence is royalty-free, worldwide and perpetual, and its terms extend it to “Dribbble’s business” and promotion. Royalty-free means the site does not pay you for that use.

Dribbble’s terms say you “maintain all rights, including copyrights” in what you post. By posting, you grant Dribbble a “royalty-free, sublicensable, transferable, perpetual, irrevocable, non-exclusive, worldwide license”. It covers using, reproducing, modifying, publishing and making derivative works of your content, and your “name, voice, and/or likeness” in it. The terms add a licence over “any and all content, information or data posted on or transmitted through” the site, “as Dribbble determines are needed in order to maintain, support or improve the Website or the Services or other Dribbble business purposes”.

When a Dribbble project is complete and paid, the deliverables and their copyright are “automatically assigned to Client”, unless the accepted proposal says otherwise. Pre-existing tools, code and other works the designer used stay the designer’s, and the client gets a licence to use them in the deliverables, unless the accepted proposal says otherwise. Dribbble may also show finished client work to market its services, “without payment or other consideration”.

Behance’s terms

Behance’s licence for public work is royalty-free and worldwide, and is given “solely” for marketing Adobe’s products and services.

Behance’s terms say “you retain all rights and ownership of your content”. For work you post publicly, you grant a non-exclusive, worldwide, royalty-free licence “solely for the purpose of marketing and promoting our products and services”. Adobe says it “will use good faith efforts to provide attribution” when it uses your work that way. Adobe’s General Terms add a separate licence “Solely for the purpose of operating the Services and Software on your behalf”; under that clause, they say, “we do not have the right to, and will not, use your Content to market or promote Adobe”.

Other Behance users may share your work through Behance’s sharing and embedding features. You can choose to offer your work under a Creative Commons licence. A Creative Commons licence lets you grant permission to reuse your work in advance, on terms you pick. Behance’s terms also say: “We do not monitor or control what others do with your content”.

Reading the two side by side

Both say you still own your work; “perpetual” and “irrevocable” appear in Dribbble’s upload licence, not Behance’s. Behance’s section on public uploads (section 1.1) does not use either word; its separate livestreaming licence (section 1.2) is called “irrevocable”.

What those words mean for you depends on the law where you live, and we cannot tell you that. A lawyer can, if it matters for your work. For example, before you post client work on either site, check that your contract allows it. Dribbble’s code of conduct says: “Do not share work you are contractually obligated not to”.

066. AI: training and AI-made work

Adobe’s terms say it will not train generative AI on your content, except Stock submissions; Dribbble’s are silent.

Training AI on your work

Adobe’s promise is written into its terms; Dribbble’s terms are silent on it. Generative AI is AI that learns patterns from examples and uses them to make new pictures, video, sound or text.

Adobe’s General Terms say: “We will not use your Local or Cloud Content to train generative AI models except for Content you choose to submit to the Adobe Stock marketplace, and this use is governed by the separate Adobe Stock Contributor Agreement”. In a 2023 help page, Behance said its content “was not used for training the first model of Firefly”.

We found no mention of AI training in Dribbble’s terms of service, its privacy policy, or its help-centre search results for “AI training” on 27 October 2026. Its broad licence covers “other Dribbble business purposes”; the terms do not say whether that includes training AI. If this matters to you, ask Dribbble in writing.

Both sites ban scraping: Dribbble’s terms bar copying any part of the site, including by “automated or non-automated” scraping. Adobe’s terms bar “data scraping for machine learning or other purposes”.

Posting AI-made work

Dribbble accepts work that uses AI but not work made wholly by AI; Behance accepts AI-generated art.

Dribbble accepts shots that include generative AI creations, “but nothing that’s 100% generative AI”. It recommends saying how AI contributed in the shot description. Behance says you can share AI-generated art projects, and encourages tagging every project with the tools used to make it.

For example, by our reading, a poster with an AI-made background and your own type and layout fits Dribbble’s rule. A picture made entirely from a prompt does not.

077. Who each one tends to suit

By their own descriptions, Dribbble centres on paid design projects and Behance on wider creative work. This is our reading of what each site says about itself, not a ranking.

Dribbble’s guidelines describe a community for “graphic designers, illustrators, UI/UX designers, and other skilled creatives”. They say its “current focus is on graphic design”, and it does not accept photography, architectural visualisations or fashion design. Its application page welcomes side-hustlers and students.

Behance’s community guidelines name three key features: Search, Live and Jobs. Members can sell downloadable creative assets and set a licence type for each. Behance’s June 2026 job-board update lets anyone apply to full-time roles for free, and lists applying to freelance jobs “with Behance Pro”. Its terms require you to use your real or professional name in your profile.

Our reading: if your work is mostly screens, logos and illustration, and you want clients to pay through the site, Dribbble’s rules are built for that. If you work across creative fields, sell files, or look for full-time roles, Behance covers more of that.

088. Easy to mix up

Three points that are easy to get wrong, each from the sites’ own pages.

• Behance Pro and ranking. Behance says Pro does not change how projects rank in search or feeds; the only extra visibility Pro adds comes from Boosted Projects.
• Behance Pro and Creative Cloud. A Creative Cloud plan does not bring Behance Pro with it, although some plans include Adobe Portfolio.
• Ownership and licence. On both sites you keep ownership. What you give is a licence, and its wording is what differs.

For the wider list of design sites and tools, see our web design resources guide.

09Quick answers

10Use this

11Quick quiz

How we checked this · Last checked October 2026

• We read each site's own pages on 27 October 2026, including Dribbble's plans, fee page and terms, and Behance's Pro and fee help pages.
• Adobe's General Terms were read in a browser, because adobe.com blocks scripts, and the Behance terms were read as text from the PDF file Adobe links to. We quote their binding text, not Adobe's plain-language summaries.
• We searched Dribbble's terms, privacy policy and help centre for anything about AI training and found nothing. That is an absence in those places, not a promise either way.
• We quote the terms rather than tell you what they mean in law. For your own situation, a lawyer is the right person to ask.

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