Printful vs Printify – Which One Is Better For You? (Oct 2020)

Last Updated: October 21, 2020

Are you thinking of starting a print-on-demand business but not sure whether you should use Printful or Printify?

Printful vs Printify is a showdown between the two top custom print-on-demand platforms, each with their own pros and cons.

As a business owner, choosing the right POD order fulfillment service that fits your business needs is crucial for your success.

But if you’re trying to choose between these two platforms, how do you know which one is better?

In this guide, we’ll show you an in-depth comparison of Printful vs Printify to help you choose the best option for your business.

In a hurry or eager to get started? Click the plus (+) below to know which one is a better fit for you quickly.

Since it’s a detailed comparison, here’s a quick table of content:

• Overview: Printful vs Printify
• Pricing
• Which One Is Cheaper?
• Print Quality
• Packaging & Branding
• Shipping Rates & How Does It Work
• Support Options
• Integrations
• Payment & Billing
• Conclusion: Printful vs Printify – Which is Better?

Overview: Printful vs Printify

Before starting our in-depth comparison of the two most popular print-on-demand platforms, it’s important to cover the necessary information about them.

What is Printful And How Does It Work?

Printful is a print-on-demand order fulfillment drop shipping and warehousing service that allows you to create and sell custom designs through different eCommerce platforms, and they’ll ship them directly to your customers.

Whenever a product sells, Printful charges you for manufacturing and you keep the profit (read further on).

On Printful, you can create custom designs clothing, accessories, and much more and order for yourself as well.

About Printful

Printful was founded back in 2013 and set their order fulfillment center in Tijuana, Mexico, Charlotte, NC, Riga, Latvia, and one coming soon in Barcelona, Spain.

Today, they have become one of the fastest-growing POD companies.

At the time of writing, they claim to power over 8.92M fulfilled orders and $310M+ sold by customers through Printful, with more being added every day.

What is Printify And How Does It Work?

Printify is a print-on-demand printing service where the merchant creates and sells their own custom design products online through different platforms eCommerce platforms such as Shopify, etc.

Whenever you sell an item, Printify charges you for manufacturing and you keep the profit (see video).

About Printify

Printify is a bit younger – founded in 2015 and has an office in San Francisco.

They are also on a growth trajectory and serve more than 300 000+ merchants globally with total funding of $4.1M currently.

That being said, Printful experiences a much more rise than Printify and seems to be attracting more clients every year.

Take a look at this comparison via Google Trends of the last five years (Printful in blue):

As you can see, both platforms are growing up but Printful is growing above Printify.

Pricing: Printful vs Printify

The pricing is the most important consideration when choosing any platform, and that’s perfectly understandable.

Let’s evaluate the cost of getting started.

Printful Pricing

Printful is free to set up a store but once an item sells then they deduct a fee from the final order price. For example, the product costs $15 and the retail price is $25, your profit will be $10.

Confused? Actually, there are two transactions for every order.

1. The retail price you set and charge your customer
2. Printful charges you for the product and fulfillment

Once Printful charges you, whatever is left over is your profit.

Printful also offers a profit calculator to see how different prices affect your profit margin to get a better understanding of pricing products.

The actual cost of Printful depends upon the type of customization and specifications provided by the customer.

One important note to keep in mind and that is pricing your product can make or break the profit, so you need to be careful when setting up the pricing.

Don’t know how to price products? Watch this video.

Printify Pricing

Printify is free but offers a premium and enterprise plan. The premium plan costs $29 per month and the enterprise plan costs depend on your business needs and it is for high volume businesses that need custom integration and features.

What’s Included In Each Plan?

As we know, Printify offers three plans, and each comes with its own features, so let’s see what we will get in each plan.

What you get with Printify free plan:

• 5 stores per account 
• Unlimited product designs
• Mockup generator
• Integration with Shopify, Etsy, eBay and more
• Manual order creation 
• 24/7 merchant support
• Self-serve help center

What you get with Printify premium plan:

• 10 stores per account 
• Custom order import
• Up to 20% discount on all products
• Plus all free plan features

What you get with Printify enterprise plan:

• Unlimited stores per account
• Early access to new features
• Custom API integration
• Dedicated account manager 
• Branded customer support
• Custom order import
• Up to 20% discount on all products
• Plus all free plan features

Which Printify Plan is Right for You?

So, after reading all the features that come with each plan, I hope you’ll have a better idea of which plan is right for you.

But, let me give you my recommendation to choose the right Printify plan for your business.

Printify Free Plan

You could try Printify for free in case you want to test it out first because this plan is perfect for those just starting out and not getting any or one to two sales a month. 

Also, if you are not sure whether you’ll do print-on-demand (POD) business for the long term then the free plan is right for you.

Printify Premium Plan

The premium plan of Printify is worth it if you are getting sales and want to do your business for the long term.

Why it’s worth it? 

Because the main benefit of a premium plan is the 20% discount on all products which is probably the big draw of this plan.

Here’s the discount example of this plan.

Printify Enterprise Plan

This plan comes with more advanced features than the premium plan and best for high volume businesses that want custom integration and features.

Unlike subscribing to a free or premium plan right from the pricing page, but for this plan, you have to contact them if you want to subscribe to it.

Which One Is Cheaper?

Whether we choose Printful or Printify, we have to spend money but we must know which platform is less cost-effective.

Let’s take a look at which platform between these two is overall cheaper.

Printful Product Cost & Profit

Overall, Printful products cost a little bit extra than Printify but it’s worth it.

Why? Because you get high-quality printing shirts.

The margins aren’t as good but for long term branding, it’s better to have higher quality products to make your customers happy.

Now let’s calculate your profits whenever you sell an item on Printful (Example).

Printify Product Cost

No doubt, the overall cost of Printify’s products is cheaper than Printful which means high margins as a seller.

Let’s calculate your profits whenever you sell an item on Printify (Example).

The final verdict is that overall Printify is cheaper than Printful.

Which Has the Better Print Quality?

The print is often the most important consideration when choosing any print on demand service provider platforms.

Before choosing any platforms between these two, you’ll always want to know which platform provides high print quality.

To stand out from the competition, your products must be in better print quality than the rest.

Let’s take a look at how Printful and Printify compare when it comes to print quality.

Printful – Print Quality

When it comes to print quality, there’s no doubt Printful offers high quality printed products because they invested a lot in printing equipment.

According to Printful, they invested $20 million in printing equipment to make your products looking awesome.

Printing equipment Printful uses to print products

• Kornit series printers and inks for DTG apparel
• Happy and Tajima embroidery machines for hats
• SubliJET HD ink for mugs
• Epson series printers and inks for wall art
• Mimaki UV printers and inks for phone cases
• Mimaki series printers and inks for cut & sew and sublimation products

Whenever we see a review comparing a shirt of Printful and Printify, both look good but we forget one thing which is how it will look after a few months. 

I personally like Printful when it comes to print quality because their print quality is excellent in the long run.

Printify – Print Quality

Don’t get me wrong – the print quality of Printify is also good when it comes out from the package.

But as compare to Printful, it isn’t good because after washing it for a few months, the print looks faded and the actual colors don’t look as it was before.

To sum it up, if you want to get high print quality then Printful is the right choice for you.

Check out the video comparing shirts from both companies after 6 months of purchase to see the results.

Packaging & Branding: Printful vs Printify

You might be wondering, Can I print my brand logo on the packaging and what’s included in them, right?

Here we are going to know what’s included in the package of both platforms and are they white-label or not.

Let’s dive in!

Printful Packaging & Branding

Printful is white-label which means that the branding does not appear anywhere on the shipment’s packaging.

You can upload your own custom branding logo which will be printed on the shipping label and outside of the package as well.

Here’s some information you need to know about branding on Printful.

• Upload your own “3 x 2” logo
• The background for the logo must be white or black
• Custom inside and outside label which costs $2.50
• Packaging slip will also be included in your product
• Your customer will receive a white polybag

What’s good about Printful is that your customers will also get packing slips with your own customized message as well.

Wondering how the package slip looks like? See the sample below.

So, these are the information you need to know about custom labeling and packaging.

Printify Packaging & Branding

Printify is also white-label so there’ll be no branding of them on the package or the shipping label.

Unlike Printful, the shipping label on Printify includes your store name as a text, not a logo, see this Printify shipping label example below.

Some Print Providers of Printify such as DTG2GO and Fifth Sun allows you to include neck label printing on few products.

Shipping Rates & How Does It Work

Designing own products is fun but setting up shipping rates isn’t, and also understanding how shipping works is confusing at first.

But, you must know everything about shipping to avoid any loss.

So, here we’ll compare what are the shipping rates of both platforms are and how the process works.

Printful Shipping

Let’s start with printful shipping.

Shipping Rates

Printful standard shipping rates are fixed and calculated based on various categories and shipping destination. If you ship to europian countries your shipping rates are going to be cheaper than shipping worldwide.

Let’s take a look at shipping rates for each category and country.

How Printful Shipping Works?

Once you got a sale, the order goes through to Printful for shipping and fulfillment.

After that, they charge you a set amount for the printing and shipping, and whatever is left over is your profit.

Here’s how shipping works.

Calculate Shipping Rates For Your Store

As I said earlier, the standard shipping rates are fixed, so you have to set up them accordingly based on shipping destination and the products you are going to use in your store.

Besides that, setting up shipping is different for each platform.

Printify Shipping

Now, let’s know what are the shipping rates of printify and how it works.

Shipping Rates

The shipping rates of Printify are based on supplier-by-supplier and various categories and shipping destinations as well.

Here’s the list of Printify print providers.

Printful vs Printify – Shipping: The Verdict

Both Printful and Printify shipping rates are based on various categories and shipping destination. 

Printful have their own warehouses and print orders themselves whereas Printify print products through different print providers.

According to Printful, their average shipping time is 4 business days to the U.S but for other countries, it depends on the order destination.

Since Printify shipping depends on supplier-by-supplier, so you have to choose a supplier for each product that you’re going to sell.

Overall in shipping, Printify is less cost-effective than Printful.

Support Options for Printful vs Printify

Both Printful and Printify offers extensive how-to guides, video tutorials, blogs, etc. 

However, sometimes you may need help to learn how to do something new in your store or maybe facing an issue with orders. 

So for that, let’s see how Printful and Printify handle support and what are your options to get help when needed.

Support Options for Printful

Printful provides support via phone, email, live chat and contact form. If someone wants to fix things on their own, Printful offers detailed how-to guides, knowledge base, documentation and video tutorials.

Besides that, you can even join their official social media community! 

• Printful Facebook Group
• Printful Youtube Channel
• Printful Instagram

Need contact info? You can get in touch with them via:

1. Email: [email protected]
2. Live Chat & Form: Chat
3. Phone: +1 (818) 351-7181 (Monday–Friday: 9:00 AM–5:30 PM EST (2:00 PM–10:30 PM GMT)

You can contact them through these contact details whenever you need help.

Support Options for Printify

Printful allows you to contact via email and contact form only.

The official website offers users blogs, documentation, how-to guides and video tutorials to help yourself.

Want to contact? 

You can get in touch with them via this email ([email protected]) or their contact form.

Currently, they don’t have an official Facebook group where you can communicate with them or other members.

For video tutorials, you can visit their youtube channel, and for how-to articles you can visit their help center.

Integrations

No matter how robust any platform is, you’ll always need third-party services and tools to grow your store, especially in print-on-demand networks.

Both Printful and Printify have integration with third-party services, so let’s know what they are.

Which Platforms Printful Has Integration With?

It is integrated with many eCommerce platforms and other online platforms which allows you to dig deeper into high-impact areas.

You can seamlessly connect your store to any popular platform you need to sell effectively.

Printful has integrations with these ecommerce platforms:

And, integrated with these marketplaces and custom as well:

To know more about Printful integrations watch out the video below.

If you have any questions about integration, you can visit their integration faq page.

Which Platforms Printify Has Integration With?

To compare it with Printful, it has very few platforms where you can integrate your store and sell your products on those marketplaces.

Printify currently has integration with popular solutions such as Shopify, Etsy, WooCommerce, and eBay.

If you want to sell on other marketplaces instead of these then Printify isn’t for you.

Payment & Billing Options

Now it’s time to talk about Printify vs Printful in terms of payment and billing options.

When you make an order online, your orders will not be fulfilled unless these platforms have been paid.

So, it’s essential to know how billing and payments work on the platform you’re going to choose. 

Take a look at how Printful and Printify compare when it comes to billing and payment methods.

Payment & Billing Options in Printful 

The payment methods to receive money from your customers depend on your store payment providers.

For example, if your Shopify store is integrated with Printful some of the payment methods are going to be.

• Stripe 
• PayPal 
• Credit and debit cards 
• Apple Pay Square

So, when your customer places an order using these payment methods, you’ll receive money.

Since your store is synced with Printful, your order automatically comes through to them and they’ll bill you through your connected payment method.

How does Billing work On Printful?

There are two billing methods available for merchants, automatic and manual depositing money to a Printful wallet.

1. Automated Billing: You add your credit card or PayPal account and simply charged at the end of the order process.
2. Printful Wallet (Recommended): You add balance to Printful and whenever a sale is made, the money will be deducted from your wallet.

Now let’s talk about…

Payment & Billing Options in Printify

As I said earlier, the payment methods to receive money from your customers depend on your store payment providers.

There are two payment options available for merchants, automated or add balance to Printify.

1. Automated Payment: Add your credit card and simply charged by Printful at the end of the order process.
2. Printify Balance (Recommended): You add balance to Printify through PayPal and whenever you got a sale, the money will be automatically deducted from your wallet.

How do I set up payments in Printify?

The comparison of payment and billing methods is a tie because both platforms work almost the same.

Conclusion: Printful vs Printify – Which is Better?

Comparing Printful vs Printify isn’t about deciding the best platform. It’s more about deciding which is the best for you.

Printful is right for you: If your primary concern is print quality which means delivering a great product, and make a brand then go with Printful. 

Printify is right for you: If your goal is to maximize revenue and that’s your primary concern but compromising in print quality then go with Printify.

Which one you’re going to choose or have you ever tried Printful or Printful? Please let me know your experiences and thoughts in the comments below.