Launching a print-on-demand (POD) business is an exciting venture, offering a low-risk way to sell custom products online. However, your success heavily relies on one critical decision: selecting the right print-on-demand supplier. Whether you’re selling through Etsy, Shopify, or another e-commerce platform, your chosen supplier can significantly impact your business’s trajectory. A subpar supplier can lead to increased costs, dissatisfied customers, shipping delays, and various operational challenges.
In the competitive landscape of print-on-demand services, two platforms consistently emerge as frontrunners: Printify and Printful. While other POD providers exist, Printify and Printful are the dominant players in the market. This article provides an in-depth comparison of Printful Vs Printify, examining nine crucial aspects to help you determine which platform best suits your needs.
We’ll evaluate these two platforms across key categories, awarding a point to the superior platform in each. By the end of this comparison, you’ll gain a clearer understanding of which provider aligns better with your business goals. Furthermore, we’ll explore the possibility of leveraging both Printify and Printful to optimize your print-on-demand operations.
Please note that the following analysis is based on our expert assessment and experience in the print-on-demand industry. Your individual experiences may vary, and we encourage you to conduct your own research and testing to make the best decision for your business.
Table of Contents
- Understanding Printify and Printful
- Printify vs Printful: Key Service Differences
- Product Catalog Comparison
- Print Quality and Consistency
- Printing Technology and Methods
- Mockup Generation and Customization
- Order Fulfillment Speed and Reliability
- International Shipping Capabilities
- Customer Support and Assistance
- Branding Options for Your Products
- Price Comparison: Printify vs Printful
- Printful vs Printify: Final Verdict
Understanding Printify and Printful
Print-on-demand providers like Printify and Printful are essential partners for e-commerce businesses focused on custom products. As a seller, you are responsible for product design and marketing. Once a customer places an order, these platforms take over the production process. They print your designs on the chosen products, manage packaging, and handle shipping directly to your customers. This streamlined process eliminates the need for inventory management and complex shipping logistics on your part.
Essentially, Printify and Printful empower you to concentrate on the creative and marketing aspects of your business, while they manage the production and fulfillment behind the scenes.
Printify vs Printful: Key Service Differences
While both Printify and Printful offer print-on-demand services, their operational models differ significantly, impacting the seller experience.
Printify operates as a print-on-demand marketplace, connecting you with a vast network of third-party print providers located globally. Think of Printify as a broker; they don’t handle printing themselves. Instead, they offer a platform where you can browse and select from various print providers based on factors like price, product range, location, and quality ratings.
Printful, in contrast, manages its own fulfillment infrastructure. Printful has invested in its own printing facilities and partners with a select network of printing companies worldwide. When an order is placed, Printful automatically routes it to the most suitable facility within their network for production and shipping.
The core difference lies in control and choice. With Printify, you have the flexibility to choose specific print providers for your products. Printful provides less direct control over the print provider but offers a more streamlined and potentially more consistent experience due to their in-house production and managed partner network. The implications of this difference will become clearer as we delve into the nine comparison categories.
Category 1: Product Catalog Comparison
Let’s begin by comparing the product ranges offered by Printify and Printful. Both Printify and Printful boast extensive product catalogs, providing a wide array of customizable items for your store. You’ll find a diverse selection of apparel, accessories, home goods, and more on both platforms.
However, Printify currently offers a significantly larger overall product catalog. Printify provides access to approximately 900 different products, while Printful’s catalog features around 350 products.
Printify also excels in offering greater depth within product categories. For example, if you’re looking to sell t-shirts, Printify offers around 50 different t-shirt styles, whereas Printful provides approximately 30. This broader selection allows for more niche targeting and catering to diverse customer preferences.
Category Point: While the “best” product range depends on your specific product focus, Printify’s significantly larger and more diverse catalog earns them the point in this category due to its greater flexibility and potential for expansion.
Point for Product Range: Printify
Category 2: Print Quality and Consistency
Product quality is paramount for customer satisfaction and building a reputable brand. Both Printify and Printful prioritize print quality and have measures in place to ensure customer orders meet acceptable standards.
Printful, with its in-house production and tightly managed partner network, generally offers more consistent print quality. Their centralized control over the fulfillment process allows for greater standardization and quality assurance.
Printify, being a marketplace of various print providers, inherently introduces some variability in print quality. Since you’re choosing from different providers, quality can fluctuate depending on the specific printer you select.
However, Printify addresses this by providing quality scores and ratings for each print provider on their platform. This transparency empowers sellers to make informed decisions and choose providers with a proven track record of quality.
Category Point: While Printful might offer slightly more consistent quality due to its centralized model, Printify’s quality scores provide sellers with the information needed to select reliable providers. Both platforms are committed to delivering quality products. Therefore, we consider this category a tie.
Point for Print Quality: Tie (Printful & Printify)
Category 3: Printing Technology and Methods
The printing methods available can impact the look, feel, and durability of your designs. Both Printify and Printful utilize standard print-on-demand printing techniques, including direct-to-garment (DTG), direct-to-film (DTF), sublimation, and all-over print.
However, a key differentiator emerges in embroidery services. Embroidery, while technically not printing, is a highly sought-after customization method, adding a premium and textured feel to apparel and accessories.
Printful currently offers more extensive embroidery options compared to Printify. Printful allows embroidery on a wider range of products, including hats, shirts, sweaters, and more. Embroidery is increasingly popular and can be a valuable offering for many brands.
Printful’s mockup catalog
Printify’s embroidery options are currently more limited. While they may expand their embroidery offerings in the future, Printful currently holds a significant advantage in this area.
Category Point: Both platforms offer robust standard printing methods. However, Printful’s superior embroidery capabilities give them the edge in this category, particularly for businesses looking to offer embroidered products.
Point for Printing Methods: Printful
Category 4: Mockup Generation and Customization
High-quality product mockups are crucial for visually appealing product listings and effective marketing. Both Printify and Printful provide mockup generators that integrate directly with your online stores, allowing you to showcase your designs on various products.
However, Printful’s mockup generator and catalog are generally considered more extensive and versatile. Printful offers a wider variety of mockup styles and scenes, providing more creative flexibility in presenting your products.
Printify’s mockup catalog
Printify’s mockups are often perceived as more basic and less customizable within the platform itself. While Printify’s mockups are functional, sellers may need to utilize external tools or resources like Etsy to source more visually compelling mockups if using Printify.
Category Point: Printful’s more comprehensive and customizable mockup catalog provides a superior user experience and greater creative control over product visuals, earning them the point in this category.
Point for Mockups: Printful
Category 5: Order Fulfillment Speed and Reliability
Efficient order fulfillment is vital for customer satisfaction and repeat business. Both Printify and Printful strive for timely fulfillment, but their fulfillment processes and average times differ slightly.
Printful generally boasts a slightly faster average fulfillment time, typically ranging from 2-5 business days across their product catalog.
Printify’s average fulfillment time is slightly longer, ranging from 2-7 business days. This variance is partly due to Printify’s marketplace model, where fulfillment times can differ between print providers.
However, Printify offers an “Express Delivery” feature for certain products and providers. This option significantly reduces fulfillment times to approximately 2-3 business days, rivaling Printful’s speed and providing a faster option when needed.
Furthermore, Printify provides transparent fulfillment timelines for each print provider, allowing sellers to factor this into their provider selection and manage customer expectations effectively.
Category Point: While Printful’s average fulfillment is slightly faster, Printify’s “Express Delivery” option and transparent timelines, combined with comparable overall speeds, give them a slight edge in flexibility and earn them the point in this category.
Point for Fulfillment: Printify
Category 6: International Shipping Capabilities
Global reach is essential for many e-commerce businesses. Both Printify and Printful facilitate international order fulfillment, enabling you to reach customers worldwide.
Printful operates its own fulfillment centers in various regions globally. When an international order is placed, Printful automatically routes it to the nearest fulfillment center, optimizing shipping times and costs for international customers. For example, orders from European customers are typically fulfilled from Printful’s European facilities.
Printify’s approach to international shipping is different due to its marketplace model. When setting up a product on Printify, you choose a specific print provider, often located in a particular region. Initially, international orders might be fulfilled from that chosen provider’s location, potentially leading to longer shipping times and higher costs for distant customers.
However, Printify offers an “Order Routing” feature designed to optimize international fulfillment. With Order Routing enabled, Printify intelligently routes orders to the most efficient provider based on factors like location, production capacity, and fulfillment times. This means an order from Germany, initially linked to a US-based provider, could be automatically rerouted to a European provider within Printify’s network for faster and more cost-effective delivery.
Category Point: While Printify’s Order Routing enhances their international capabilities, Printful’s simpler and more inherently streamlined international order system, leveraging their global fulfillment network, provides a more seamless experience for international shipping, earning them the point in this category.
Point for International Orders: Printful
Category 7: Customer Support and Assistance
Reliable customer support is crucial for resolving issues and ensuring smooth business operations. Both Printify and Printful offer customer support channels, primarily through email and live chat.
Printify’s customer support is often praised for its responsiveness and efficiency. Their live chat is particularly effective, with users frequently reporting quick connections to support agents (often within minutes) and prompt issue resolution, typically within 5-10 minutes. Printify’s support is also known for its helpfulness in resolving issues like print quality concerns or shipping problems, often offering refunds or replacements readily. They are generally proactive in investigating shipping issues and assisting with lost packages.
Printful’s customer support, while generally adequate, doesn’t consistently reach the same level of responsiveness and ease of resolution as Printify, based on user feedback. While support is available, it may not feel as quick or hassle-free as Printify’s. For example, address change requests after order placement are often denied by Printful, whereas Printify may offer more flexibility depending on the order’s production stage.
Category Point: Printify’s consistently faster, more efficient, and more flexible customer support experience gives them a clear advantage in this category, earning them the point.
Point for Customer Support: Printify
Category 8: Branding Options for Your Products
Building a recognizable brand often involves customizing products and packaging. Both Printify and Printful offer branding options, but Printful provides a wider range of choices and greater flexibility.
For clothing, Printify offers inside neck labels for some products through select print providers. However, branding options are not universally available across all Printify providers, limiting consistency.
Printful excels in product branding, offering neck labels, but also a broader selection of branding methods across more products. Printful provides more diverse and extensive branding opportunities beyond just neck labels for clothing.
In terms of packaging, Printify allows custom packaging inserts (small cards with your brand message) through some providers. However, like clothing labels, insert availability is provider-dependent.
Printful goes further by offering branded packaging. You can send Printful your custom packaging materials, and they will use them to ship your orders. This provides a fully branded unboxing experience, though it involves additional costs.
Category Point: While Printify is improving its branding capabilities, Printful’s wider range of branding options, greater product coverage, and branded packaging give them a clear advantage in this category, earning them the point.
Point for Branding: Printful
Category 9: Price Comparison: Printify vs Printful
Pricing is a critical factor for profitability in any business. Comparing prices between Printify and Printful requires examining product costs and shipping fees.
Generally, Printify tends to be slightly more cost-effective than Printful across various product categories. To illustrate, let’s compare the price of a popular Gildan 18000 sweatshirt on both platforms.
On Printify, using Swift POD as a provider, a navy Gildan 18000 sweatshirt in size large with a single print area costs $17.39, with shipping at $8.49.
The same sweatshirt on Printful costs $18.50, with identical shipping fees of $8.49.
This results in a total cost of $25.88 for the sweatshirt from Printify and $26.99 from Printful. While the per-item difference might seem small ($1.11 in this case), it can accumulate significantly as sales volume increases. For example, selling 1,000 sweatshirts would result in a $1,110 difference in cost, directly impacting your profit margin.
Both platforms offer membership plans that provide discounts on products. Printify Premium costs $29.99/month, while Printful Growth costs $24.99/month.
Printify membership
Printful membership
With memberships, the same sweatshirt becomes even cheaper: $13.39 on Printify Premium and $14.90 on Printful Growth. Even with membership discounts, Printify remains more cost-effective.
Printify membership fee
Printful membership fee
Category Point: Considering both standard pricing and membership discounts, Printify consistently offers more competitive pricing, making it the more budget-friendly option and earning them the point in this category.
Point for Pricing: Printify
Printful vs Printify: Final Verdict
After evaluating Printful vs Printify across these nine critical categories, the comparison concludes in a tie. It’s essential to recognize that this result is nuanced. The “better” platform isn’t universally defined; it depends on your specific business priorities and needs.
Both Printful and Printify are excellent print-on-demand platforms, each with distinct strengths. To break this tie for your business, consider weighting each category based on its importance to your specific goals. For example, if pricing and product variety are paramount, Printify might be your stronger choice. If branding and embroidery options are crucial, Printful might be a better fit.
Ultimately, the best approach is to test both platforms firsthand. Explore their product catalogs, order samples to assess quality, and interact with their customer support. Direct experience will provide the most valuable insights for determining which platform aligns best with your print-on-demand business and brand. You might even find that utilizing both Printify and Printful strategically for different product types or business needs is the optimal solution.
