A top designer was banned from Dribbble. Now he’s building his own competitor.

Dribbble has completely banned dozens of designers from its platform following a brand new effort to pivot to a market and chase monetization. This consists of one of many platform’s most well-known designers, Gleb Kuznetsov, founder of the San Francisco-based design studio Milkinside.

Dribbble deleted his account with its over 210 million followers as a result of he shared his contact info with potential shoppers by means of the platform in violation of its new guidelines.

Remarked Kuznetsov in a post on X, “I introduced 100,000+ month-to-month customers. 15 years of labor. 12,000+ photographs. All immediately deleted, as a result of a consumer requested for my e mail. One warning. No enchantment.”

Fed up with the adjustments on the firm, which helps product, UX, net, and different digital designers showcase their portfolios and discover new shoppers, Kuznetsov says he’s been speaking to traders about launching a competitor.

Shortly after his social media publish, Dribbble customers expressed their shock and anger over the choice, crediting Kuznetsov as one among their largest inspirations and lamenting that the platform would make such a misguided transfer.

Dribbble, in the meantime, says Kuznetsov was truly warned a number of occasions that he was violating the brand new guidelines and the e-mail was the ultimate discover.

Dribbble’s pivot to a market

The problem has to do with a more moderen coverage change first introduced on March 17, 2025.

In an e mail shared in March with Dribbble’s some 750,000 permitted designers — that means those that are approved to speak with others on the platform — the corporate stated it was now not permitting designers to share their contact info with potential shoppers till after their consumer despatched cost by means of its platform.

The corporate positioned this transformation as one meant to guard designers from non-payment, in addition to one that permits Dribbble to proceed to maintain its enterprise.

The announcement was additionally posted to social media and the company blog.

Nevertheless, Kuznetsov claims that non-payment isn’t a quite common downside, and actually, this replace is about Dribbble making an attempt to take a bigger lower of designers’ enterprise.

Dribbble doesn’t dispute that.

Earlier than the coverage change, Dribbble made cash in one among two methods. Beginning in September 2024, Dribbble started pivoting to a market that linked designers and shoppers. Designers might talk freely on the platform after which both share a 3.5% income lower on shoppers they transformed, or they may pay for a Pro subscription to skip the rev share. In March, the corporate tightened the principles additional, saying that anybody discovering shoppers on Dribbble would want to supply the platform a lower of their income.

“It went from it was optionally available to make use of our transactional options to it was required for non-advertisers to make use of our transactional options, in the event that they had been on Dribbble, to search out shoppers,” explains Dribbble CEO Constantine Anastasakis, in an interview with TechCrunch. “If a consumer is on Dribbble to search out inspiration or to get suggestions on their work, or to speak store with their friends, none of this impacts them,” he added.

The exec, who joined the corporate after working at direct-to-consumer lender Decrease, video market Pond5 (exited to Shutterstock), and freelancer market Fiverr, was employed final April to pivot Dribbble right into a market. Whereas the corporate is worthwhile beneath guardian firm Tiny, it’s nonetheless a small 20-person workforce and isn’t reliant on enterprise backing to serve its 7.5 to 10 million month-to-month distinctive guests.

“Dribbble was one thing that basically accelerated our enterprise dramatically again within the day,” Kuznetsov informed TechCrunch. Earlier than Dribbble, there was no platform the place designers might share their work wth others, he says. It helped designers obtain suggestions that got here particularly from their friends and allowed newer designers to study from these on the high of the trade.

Kuznetsov is now a part of the latter group.

At Milkinside, Kuznetsov has labored with corporations like Apple, Google, Amazon, Scandinavian Airways, United Airways, Honda, Mitsubishi, Mercedes-Benz, and different giant corporations within the Bay Space.

Because of this, he seemingly didn’t really feel that Dribbble would threat banning him for not abiding by the brand new phrases.

Anastasakis basically confirmed this to be true.

He informed TechCrunch that Kuznetsov obtained 83 work inquiries for the reason that new phrases rolled out in March, and responded to 61. In every message, the positioning reveals a warning that reminds customers that contact particulars shouldn’t be shared earlier than challenge cost. Nevertheless, Kuznetsov shared his contact info in six messages, which might have displayed a stronger warning at the moment.

The corporate then adopted up with a warning e mail on July 22 about his repeated terms-of-service violations, which knowledgeable him he was risking everlasting suspension.

Kuznetsov informed us he didn’t see this e mail initially, however Dribbble says it tracked that the e-mail was opened thrice earlier than his suspension.

“I imagine that Dribbble — it was their objective to harm me so I can unfold that [news] to allow them to give a harsh lesson to everybody who tries [to break the rules],” Kuznetsov says.

Dribbble’s CEO Anastasakis confirmed as a lot to TechCrunch.

“There’s there’s actually no conceivable approach through which he didn’t notice that what he was doing risked everlasting suspension of his accounts,” Anastasakis informed us.

“I feel that in the end it was that he believed that we wouldn’t take motion towards a designer of his caliber,” he continued. “As a facet be aware, I truly assume that he’s carried out us a giant favor so far as getting the phrase out about how significantly we take the phrases.”

For Kuznetsov, or any designer who was banned for related causes, the one possibility to return again to Dribbble is by becoming a member of as an advertiser, which requires a minimal marketing campaign funds of $1,500 per 30 days for a minimum of three months.

A brand new competitor to Dribbble emerges?

Kuznetsov has determined to forge his personal path, saying that he’s harm by Dribbble’s change.

“It’s not going to be a copycat of Dribbble,” he says of his pending startup. As a substitute, it is going to be a useful resource for designers that will even leverage AI.

Whereas there was numerous backlash about AI fashions coaching on creatives’ work with out compensation, Kuznetsov believes there’s a use case for the expertise by way of inspiration, creation, and design.

“It’s a giant gap proper now out there…All people’s doing AI startups, however no one’s actually doing AI startups for designers,” Kuznetsov notes. “AI is one thing that basically can elevate our capability to create, and make it on a a lot larger degree of high quality. It’s going to assist us to not solely earn more cash and develop, but in addition create one thing we by no means even thought was doable to create with no particular ability set.”

Kuznetsov says he expects to have an MVP (minimal viable product) prepared in three or 4 months.

Nevertheless, he notes the objective is to not “kill” Dribbble, although traders supplied him cash to take action.

“It’s not like that. I’m attempting to do one thing good for the group as a result of I’m a designer. So I understand how painful it’s to be a designer on this world,” says Kuznetsov.

“We have to be actually good about how we make investments our time — how we give our greatest and provides our life to different platforms. Diversification of that funding must be one thing that everybody must be enthusiastic about,” he provides.