Why We Picked It
Printful serves as more than just a fulfillment partner; it acts as an extension of your brand. With the ability to personalize a sweeping selection of over 300 products, Printful elevates white labeling to an art form. This is not merely about slapping a logo on a T-shirt; it’s about creating a unified and memorable brand experience. You can customize packing slips and even the tracking page, letting your brand’s voice reverberate through every touchpoint of the customer journey.
Further sweetening the deal, Printful has fulfillment centers worldwide, ensuring consistent product quality and faster shipping. The company also offers tiered growth memberships, offering businesses at various stages cost-effective solutions for scaling, from product discounts to personalized product transfer assistance.
Who should use it:
Entrepreneurs and businesses that prioritize brand consistency from product to packaging.
Looking for the best print-on-demand sites to sell merchandise online? We’ve got you covered.
In this post, we’re comparing the best print-on-demand sites out there, from POD marketplaces and fulfillment services like Zazzle to complete all-in-one ecommerce solutions like Sellfy.
Plus, you’ll also find answers to some of the most common questions creators have when starting their first print-on-demand business.
TL;DR:
Sellfy is the best option to offer print-on-demand merchandise from your own online store while offering you the flexibility to sell your own inventory.
If you already have your own ecommerce store, Gelato would be your best option because it allows you to sell POD merchandise from your existing store. For example, you can integrate with ecommerce platforms such as Shopify, Etsy, or WooCommerce.
Alternatively, you could opt for a marketplace such as Zazzle. This would provide you with access to their existing customer-base but you wouldn’t have control over how your products are sold. And, as you promote your products, you would be building someone else’s brand rather than building your own.
Sellfy is our top pick for the overall best print-on-demand site. It’s a complete eCommerce solution designed for creators and one of the only ecommerce platforms with built-in print-on-demand features.
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The reason we like Sellfy so much is because of how much control it puts in your hands.
Most print-on-demand services are essentially marketplaces—you list your products there alongside other sellers and the company fulfills your orders for you—while others integrate with your existing website.
Sellfy is different. It’s a complete ecommerce platform in its own right, so you can use it to build your own online store that you have complete control over in under 10 minutes.
Once you’ve designed your storefront and everything is up and running, you can create your designs, add your print-on-demand products to your Sellfy store, set pricing, and start selling.
When a customer places an order, Sellfy will take care of fulfillment for you. They’ll print and ship the order, then charge you for the base item cost, taxes, and shipping. You set the price of the product and pocket the difference, so you’re in control of the profit margins.
Sellfy supports lots of different print-on-demand product categories, including clothing, bags, stickers, mugs, and phone cases in a variety of colors and sizes. You can add custom labels and embroidery to clothing items in addition to graphics and text.
Sellfy also uses the DTG (Direct to Garment) printing method. This provides photo-quality prints with CPSIA-compliant, water-based inks that are safe for children’s clothing. If you want to check the quality yourself, you can order a sample. However, samples aren’t free—you’ll still have to pay the base cost.
There’s no need to hold or manage your own inventory if you’re only selling POD products. However, the cool thing about Sellfy is that if you want to stock other inventory, you can do that too!
You can sell any kind of merchandise or digital products from the same store as your print-on-demand merch, just like with any other ecommerce platform.
ProsConsComplete control and ownership of your online store.No existing audience to tap into (you’ll have to drive traffic yourself)Flexible ecommerce solution (sell print-on-demand products and/or your own inventory and digital products).Built-in marketing tools Lots of merchandise categories to choose from.Paid plans start from $19/month. You can also try out premium features with a 14-day free trial.
Sellfy offers a 30-day money back guarantee.
Read our Sellfy review.
Gelato is a leading print on demand solution. It isn’t an ecommerce platform—it’s a fulfillment service that connects to your website so you can start selling POD merch through your existing store.
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Gelato works like this: First, you sign up and connect it to your online store. It integrates seamlessly with all the leading ecommerce platforms, like Shopify, Amazon, Etsy, WooCommerce, eBay, and more.
Then, you choose your print on demand merchandise from Gelato’s catalog (there are over 48 categories to choose from), upload your designs to the products, and add them to your store.
When a customer places an order, Gelato automatically fulfills the order for you and charges you the base cost of the product.
And what’s great is, Gelato partners with 130 printing facilities spread over 32 countries, and orders are automatically connected to the customer’s nearest production partner.
As such, 90% of orders are produced and fulfilled locally, which means faster delivery times, lower shipping costs, and fewer carbon emissions.
I tested Gelato out for myself recently and I’ve got to say, I was super impressed. The experience was seamless and both the product quality and the printing quality were excellent. That’s probably why Gelato is the highest-rated POD platform on Trustpilot, with 4.7 stars.
Another thing that makes Gelato unique is that, unlike most other POD fulfillment services, they offer subscription plans.
There’s a free tier that anyone can use to start selling print on demand merchandise with no monthly fees (you only pay for what you sell). But there are also a bunch of paid tiers with additional benefits, like shipping discounts, product mockups, stock images, etc.
ProsConsNo minimum order requirementsStock images require a paid subscriptionLightning-fast shipping timesShipping discounts require a paid subscriptionCheap prices compared to other providersExcellent qualityExcellent supportGelato offers a free forever plan. Paid subscriptions start from $14.99 per month and come with 30% off standard shipping + other benefits.
Printful is another popular print-on-demand fulfillment service that connects to your store and allows you to offer a huge selection of print-on-demand products to your customers.
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It’s a great choice for anyone that wants to sell print-on-demand products through their existing website/store, or through marketplaces like Amazon, Etsy, and eBay.
Printful is different than both the other print-on-demand sites we’ve looked at so far: It isn’t a marketplace like Redbubble, nor is it an ecommerce platform like Sellfy.
Rather, it’s a print-on-demand solution that provides you with the tools you need to design products and sell them on other platforms, and then fulfills the orders for you.
You can use the built-in Design Maker to create intricate, eye-catching designs (even if you have no previous design experience) and put together mockups of your products.
There are tons of different types of products in the Printful catalog, from eco-friendly and premium clothing items to bean bags and pet products, and everything in between.
Printful offers white-label services so you can add your own custom branding to the inside labels and packaging of whatever you choose to sell.
What we like the most about Printful, though, is the quality of their fulfillment services.
They offer faster shipping (products are typically ready to ship within 2-5 business days), more competitive rates, and more reliable quality than most competitors. This is no doubt partly thanks to their large network of in-house and partner facilities located all over the world.
ProsConsIntuitive design skillsNot a marketplace (won’t provide you with traffic)No order minimums Integrates with most ecommerce platforms and marketplaces High-quality and extensive product catalogPrintful offers a Free plan which comes with all the basic features. Discounts are also available depending on order volume.
You’ll also be charged for the fulfillment, shipping, and applicable taxes when a customer places an order. Shipping rates depend on the product and region.
You may also have to pay separately for the ecommerce platform you integrate Printful with (e.g. Shopify, Wix, etc.).
Printify is a fantastic print-on-demand service provider with some of the lowest printing prices (and highest margins) in the industry.
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Printify acts as a print-on-demand fulfillment company and provides product printing and shipping services, as well as a range of tools to help you with design creation.
You choose where you want to sell your products and connect Printify to your platform of choice. It integrates with all the major ecommerce platforms and marketplaces including WooCommerce, Squarespace, Wix, Shopify, Etsy, and eBay.
One of the best things about Printify is that rather than limiting you to its in-house printers, it gives you access to its large network of globally-distributed printing partners.
You can select your printing partner based on the country your customers are based in, which means faster, cheaper shipping. It also allows them to offer a huge variety of different types of products.
As a result of this cost-effective shipping, Printify is able to offer better margins than most. With low base costs, you can afford to take more profit per sale while still keeping your products affordable for your customers.
ProsConsHuge product catalogPrinting quality varies based on partnerCost-effective shippingLimited branding/customizationGlobal network of partners Easy integration with ecommerce platformsPrintify offers a Free plan limited to 5 stores per account.
You can upgrade to the Premium plan from $24.99 to unlock more stores and up to a 20% discount on all products.
Custom-priced Enterprise plans are also available for high-volume businesses.
Zazzle is another popular print-on-demand company. It has the second-largest existing audience of any POD marketplace, with over 10 million visits/month (according to our best estimates) and a global reach of over 30 million shoppers.
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Zazzle was one of the forerunners of print-on-demand marketplaces, having been founded way back in 2005. It was very popular early on and still gets a lot of traffic, but its growth is stagnating.
Because it’s been around for a while, it’s also a little oversaturated so it can be tough for new creators to cut through the noise and get their products noticed.
However, given how many people still buy products from Zazzle every month, it’s still definitely worth having a presence there.
There are thousands of items you can add your designs to and sell: business cards, invitations, T-shirts, mugs, luggage tags, and even ping pong paddles!
Once you’ve created your design, you set the royalty rate and receive a payout every time a product featuring your design is sold in the marketplace. Zazzle takes care of all the customer service and product fulfillment for you.
Aside from that, you can also earn money through Zazzle LIVE. As a LIVE designer, customers let you know what they want to design via text, audio, or video chat. Then, you use your design skills to bring their ideas to life for them and get paid!
ProsConsExtensive product catalogPoor design/upload processLarge customer reach (30 million global shoppers) Zazzle LIVE offers further income opportunities Great for selling gifts, stationery, and invitationsAnyone can sign up as a Zazzle Creator and upload and sell their artwork on products for free.
There are no fees and you choose your own royalty rates (between 5% and 99%).
Redbubble is another great print-on-demand site that offers an easy way for artists and designers to sell their merch with hardly any upfront time investment.
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Unlike Sellfy, Redbubble isn’t an ecommerce platform. Rather, it’s a marketplace (much like Etsy) that customers will go to when they want to buy products designed by independent artists.
It’s actually the most popular print on the marketplace in the world by traffic and gets a whopping 34 million monthly visitors (9.5 million of which come from organic traffic).
When you list your print-on-demand products on Redbubble, you can tap into that huge existing audience of potential customers and get more eyeballs on your designs. Plus, Redbubble products often show up on Google for related keywords. They even invest in Google Shopping Ads and retargeting out of their pocket (not yours).
All this means that you don’t have to invest as much of your time into the marketing side of things. With Sellfy, you have to drive all your traffic and sales, but with Redbubble, sales come to you. All you have to do is create an awesome product that people want.
And of course, Redbubble handles the fulfillment too. They’ll print and ship your orders directly to customers all around the world using their global network of printing partners. Printing quality is generally good, but it really depends on the third-party producer they use at the time.
The design upload process is straightforward, and there is a good selection of over 70 different types of products to print your designs on.
Flexible pricing allows you to set your own margins and have complete control over your earnings. And what’s more, customers on Redbubble are usually willing to pay a little more than on other platforms.
However, due to account fees taken directly from the profit of users on the standard plan, it’s rather expensive to use the platform for new users and small stores.
ProsConsLarge customer base and trafficLess control/flexibilityFlexible marginsProduct quality can be hit and missGlobal reachAdditional account fees taken out of your profit (unless on a higher tier plan)Anti-piracy features to protect your artworkIt’s free to set up shop and start selling on Redbubble. They deduct their service out of your product sales as part of the base price—you set your own profit margins.
However, if you’re on a standard account (which most users will be), they’ll take additional account fees directly out of your profit.
SPOD is another print-on-demand fulfillment service, powered by Spreadshirt. It’s a great choice if you’re concerned about sustainability or if you want the fastest possible shipping rates.
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SPOD works like many of the other print-on-demand sites we’ve looked at so far: you sign up, add your designs/products, connect it to your online store or marketplace, and start selling. SPOD takes care of the printing and shipping for you.
If you’re not a graphic designer, you can use SPOD’s library of up to 50,000 free designs to create your artwork, then bring it to life on any of over 200 products.
SPOD has a proven track record of rapid production and produces 95% of orders in less than 48 hours, meaning faster delivery. Its printing facilities are based in the EU and US but it ships all over the world.
Another cool feature of SPOD is that it offers discounted samples. If you want to check the quality of the products before you send them out to your customers, you can order them in with a discount of up to 20%
We also like the intuitive dashboard, through which you can view stock and track/cancel orders.
Probably the best thing about SPOD, though, is how eco-friendly it is. This is more important than ever if you want to sell to today’s conscious consumers.
They offer an organic collection with low-impact cotton from Turkey, use a water-saving printing technique with OEKO-TEX-certified vegan ink, and offer paperless production.
Plus, products are shipped in plastic-free packaging, and all returned items are upcycled or given to charity to minimize waste.
ProsConsIntuitive dashboardNo custom brandingFull automation Sustainable production Simple shippingIt’s absolutely free to use SPOD. You only pay when your customers complete an order. You may also have to pay fees to whatever ecommerce platform you’re integrating SPOD with.
TPop is a European, eco-responsible print-on-demand site with the largest selection of top-quality, environmentally-friendly products.
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Like Printful, it’s more of a back-end solution that provides the products and order fulfillment for you but leaves you responsible for actually making sales.
It integrates seamlessly with Shopify, Etsy, and WooCommerce but if you don’t have a site to sell on yet, you can also sell directly through TPop with the Direct Orders feature.
There’s a lot to like about TPop, but let’s start with the branding features. TPop offers by far the best branding options on the market.
You can add your logo and brand name on every package and delivery note, plus your brand’s social networks on the packing slip. If you want, you can add inserts and send a custom thank-you text with your order—TPop will even translate it to the language of the destination country for free for you.
Now let’s talk about sustainability. Not only does TPop only offer eco-designed products with small ecological footprints, but they also ship all orders without plastic, use green printing techniques, and ship with carbon-neutral postal operators.
Orders are printed in France. It typically takes 2-4 days for them to ship products following an order, and shipping to France and Europe is fairly fast (3-7 days). International orders take a little longer (5-10 days)
ProsConsEco-friendly products and shippingInternational shipping times could be betterExtensive branding options Great for selling to European customers Good selection of fashion and accessory merchTPop is free to get started with. You’ll only be charged when you make a sale for the product base cost and fulfillment.
Fine Art America is another print-on-demand marketplace where you can sell your designs. It primarily focuses on wall art, posters, and prints, so if you’re selling this type of merch, it’s worth checking out.
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While not quite as popular as Redbubble or Zazzle, it gets a good amount of organic traffic and is trending upwards in terms of popularity. Plus, it’s less saturated than these other more well-known platforms, so it can be easier to get noticed and make sales.
Most of Fine Art America’s user base are shoppers looking to buy original art, prints, and home decor, though they do support other types of products like apparel too. It’s best suited to artists/photographers.
If you want to try it out, all you have to do is sign up, upload your images, choose your products, and set your price, then wait for the sales to roll in. Fine Art America will handle the fulfillment and take a cut of sales—you keep the difference as profit.
Aside from the marketplace access and fulfillment service, Fine Art America also gives you access to a bunch of useful marketing and sales tools that you can use to sell prints on Facebook, set up newsletters, etc.
ProsConsGreat for photographers and visual artistsNot as much traffic as some other marketplacesLarge selection of prints, posters, and wall art Fast-growing marketplace Provides marketing and sales toolsFine Art America offers a free standard plan. You can upgrade to the Premium plan for $30/year to unlock additional exposure and sales opportunities.
Displate is another POD marketplace specializing in wall art — specifically metal wall prints. It’s growing incredibly fast thanks to an effective social media campaign, so now’s the perfect time to sign up and start selling your designs.
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Unlike Fine Art America, which focuses more on traditional wall art prints, Displate only offers one very specific product category: metal wall art. This is a relatively new type of product that’s become very popular, particularly amongst the gaming community.
If you want to tap into this emerging market, you can sign up and upload your designs. The upload process is nice and simple, and once you’re done, Displate will promote your prints to their audience of 50 million people per month. When your design sells, you’ll earn royalties and Displate will fulfill the order for you.
On top of that, you can also earn a 50% total commission on each sale you refer through your affiliate links.
It’s free to open a shop on the Displate marketplace. However, you’ll have to send your portfolio to their team first and can only sign up if/when you’re approved.
Lulu xPress is the best print-on-demand solution for authors and self-publishers. It provides global fulfillment services for books.
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It’s the POD branch of Lulu (an online self-publishing platform) and makes it easy to plan, create, and sell your own print-on-demand written products like books, calendars, comics, and magazines.
You can choose from over 3,000 different format options, layouts, and binding types and customize everything from the paper type to the finish. In addition to physical books, you can also use Lulu to sell ebooks, and distribute them to marketplaces like Amazon and Barnes and Noble.
ProsConsFast shippingLimited products supported (mostly books)Great for authors and self-publishers Plenty of product customization options Global distributionIt’s free to self-publish your books on Lulu xPress. When an order is placed, you’ll be charged the printing and fulfillment costs for the order, which will vary depending on the printing options.
No list of the best print-on-demand sites would be complete without mentioning Merch by Amazon. This is Amazon’s own invite-only print-on-demand program. It lets you sell your POD merch on the Amazon marketplace.
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Naturally, the best thing about selling on Merch by Amazon is that it makes your products visible to an enormous number of online shoppers — no other print-on-demand marketplace comes close to Amazon’s sheer size and reach.
It’s the most visited online shopping website in the world and commands a huge chunk of all ecommerce sales.
Another reason to like Merch by Amazon is its shipping times. Amazon prints and ships products faster than most other POD fulfillment services, which means happier customers. It also offers flexible royalties — you set your own margins
So, what’s the catch? Well, unfortunately, anyone can’t just go and sign up for Merch by Amazon. You’ll have to request an invitation and get approved before you can start earning.
ProsConsHuge reachLimited branding opportunitiesHigh conversion rate (trusted platform)Invite only accessFastest worldwide shippingIt’s free to sign up for Merch by Amazon. They’ll take their fee as part of the base cost when you make a sale.
What is print-on-demand?
It’s a variation of the dropshipping business model. With dropshipping, you sell directly to customers, and a third-party company fulfills the order. You don’t hold any stock.
Print-on-demand works much in the same way. The difference is that products are printed or customized before being sent to the customer.
If you’d like to get started with dropshipping instead, check out our roundup of the best dropshipping websites.
What is a print-on-demand site?
A print-on-demand site helps you with every step of the process of running a print-on-demand business, including selling, printing, and fulfillment. This includes print-on-demand marketplaces like Redbubble, print-on-demand ecommerce platforms like Sellfy, and print-on-demand fulfillment companies like Gelato & Printful.
What all print-on-demand sites have in common is that they facilitate the sale of white-label products and fulfill them for you by printing and shipping them to your customers on a per-order basis.
Print on demand sites are different from print on demand companies. POD companies only print the merchandise for you and don’t help with fulfillment, facilitate payments, or do anything else.
Does Etsy print on demand?
Etsy allows print-on-demand products to be sold in the marketplace. However, it doesn’t offer a print-on-demand fulfillment service. If you want to sell print-on-demand products through Etsy, you’ll need to sign up for a POD site like Gelato or Printful and then connect it to your Etsy shop.
What is the best POD site?
We think Sellfy is the overall best POD site. It’s very beginner-friendly, affordable, powerful, and gives you complete control of your product catalog.
As an all-in-one ecommerce solution, it also gives you access to a bunch of other tools to help you to grow your print-on-demand business, including built-in marketing tools. And what’s more, it’s not just great for POD but also other types of businesses. For example, it’s also our favorite ecommerce platform for selling digital products.
That said, there are plenty of other great POD sites too. If you have an existing store (e.g. Shopify or WooCommerce), then platforms like Gelato and Printful are worth checking out. They can also connect to marketplaces such as Etsy.
Alternatively, you might prefer to list your products on a print-on-demand marketplace like Redbubble.
Can you still make money with print on demand?
Yes, you can still make money with print on demand. The business model is as popular as ever, and while it’s true that there’s more competition these days than a few years back, there’s also more demand.
In fact, digitization and changing consumer habits have caused global ecommerce sales to grow rapidly in recent years; they were estimated to reach a whopping $4.89 billion last year. There are more online shoppers than ever before, which means more potential customers to buy your print-on-demand products.
What are the most profitable print-on-demand products?
There’s no single ‘most profitable’ print-on-demand product. The profitability of your business will depend on lots of factors including how good your designs are, your product-customer fit, how well you market your products, where you list them for sale, etc.
However, there are lots of best-selling print-on-demand products that can be very profitable. In particular, I’d recommend looking into sneakers, stickers, and tote bags. All three of these product categories tend to sell well and are less saturated compared to T-shirts and mugs.
That concludes our roundup of the best print-on-demand sites. As you can see, there are plenty of great POD sites out there to choose from. The best choice for you will depend on the needs of your business and how you want to sell your products.
To recap, here’s what we’d recommend:
It’s also worth considering the location of your audience, and which POD sites have printing facilities locally. This will ensure faster and more cost-effective shipping. Fortunately, the likes of Sellfy and Printful have fulfillment facilities all over the world. In locations such as USA, Europe, Canada, UK, Australia, and more.
We hope this helped point you in the right direction.
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