How to show your startup's design on Dribbble

TL;DR

Dribbble is a design community where designers post shots: short visual posts of interfaces, logos, illustrations and animations. A startup uses it to show its product design, give its designers a public stage and hire designers. A free account costs nothing, Pro plans start at $48 a year, and Dribbble's rules block posts that read like ads.

What is Dribbble?

Dribbble is where designers share finished work and work in progress. A shot is a post built from image, text, video and gallery blocks, with a recommended width of 1600 pixels or more. Visitors browse categories such as Animation, Branding, Illustration, Mobile, Print, Product Design, Typography and Web Design, follow designers and contact them for work. Companies also post jobs and pay designers through Dribbble's Projects and Services.

The domain authority of 92 belongs to dribbble.com. The return for a startup is visibility among designers and a steady pool of hiring candidates.

Who should post on Dribbble?

• Startups with an in-house designer who already produces polished interface or brand work.
• Design tools, type foundries and creative software whose users are designers.
• Founders hiring a designer or agency: your shots show your standards, and the job board reaches candidates.
• Skip it if you want to post ads, promo videos or plain screenshots of your landing page. The guidelines reject promotional posts unless the shot puts the design first.
• Skip it for photography, physical product design, interior design, architectural visualisation or marketing services. Dribbble does not accept those categories.

How much does Dribbble cost?

A free account costs $0. Pro plans in October 2026, per the Dribbble help centre:

• Pro Lite: $8 a month, or $48 a year.
• Pro Standard: $16 a month, or $96 a year, with 3 team seats.
• Pro Plus: $199 a month, or $1,188 a year, with 10 team seats, aimed at agencies.

For hiring, the Job Board costs $150 a month and the Hiring Suite $300 a month. On paid Projects, clients pay a platform fee of 5% on the first $500, 3.5% on the next $500 and 2% above $1,000, plus payment processing of 2.9% and $0.30. Designers on free, Lite and monthly Standard plans pay 10%, 7% and 4% on the same bands; annual Standard and Plus designers pay no designer fee.

How do you share your startup on Dribbble?

1. Create a free account at dribbble.com and add your website and location to the profile.
2. Open the uploader, drag in your first image or video, and add more blocks (image, text, video, gallery) with the plus sign.
3. Stay within the limits: PNG, JPG or GIF images up to 10 MB, MOV or MP4 video up to 20 MB, and a width of at least 1600 pixels.
4. Click Continue, crop the thumbnail, add a title, description and tags, and publish.
5. Follow the shot guidelines: no contact details in shots or descriptions, links only to your own site, your social profiles or a product you or your client made, no affiliate content, nothing 100% AI-generated, and no commercials or tutorials.

Tips to get more out of Dribbble

• Post the design decision behind one feature, such as a sign-up flow, a dashboard or a pricing page, with a before and after.
• Publish a steady series, one screen or component at a time, so followers see your product grow.
• Say in the description where AI helped. Dribbble recommends acknowledging it.
• Link the shot to the live product page, which the rules allow when you or your client made the product.
• When you hire, put the job on the board and point candidates to your shots.

Our verdict

Dribbble fits startups whose product design is good enough to impress other designers, and it doubles as a hiring channel. It brings few customers from outside the design world, and the rules remove anything that reads like an ad. Post real design work, link it to your product and keep the sales pitch out.

More options: see all design galleries and portfolio sites. Planning your launch? The Fe/male Switch startup game walks women founders from idea to first customers.