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/2026/04…

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.

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.

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.

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!

Over the past few weeks, Dribbble has introduced new features that make it even easier for clients to find and contact relevant designers – and for those designers to get proposals into clients’ hands faster: 1) We now recommend designers based on the contents of a client’s Project Request. After contacting a designer, clients are shown three additional designers – highly rated, within budget, and available now – whom they can forward their request to with one click.

Last week, we released Service Search (dribbble.com/services) to help clients easily find and compare relevant Services from thousands of designers:

P.S. Designers and their clients can now initiate video calls with each other, either before or after a project is funded. This has been a highly-requested feature since users began transacting on Dribbble last September, especially among those working on more complex projects. Video calls make it easier for users to clarify requirements, set expectations, and share feedback.