Printify Review (2020): How to start your own print on demand company

9 min readOct 29, 2020

Have you ever dreamed about seeing your designs on cushions, phone cases, or shower curtains?

Or maybe you have an incredible tagline that would make an instant hit on a t-shirt?

The print on demand (POD) market is booming, and the internet is full of people making money by selling custom products and designs.

The global market for custom t-shirt selling is expected to hit $10 billion by 2025, so now is the time to seize the day and start your print on demand business.

This lucrative idea is a great passive income earner.

Best of all, the usual headaches like fulfillment, shipping, and printing are all taken care of for you, thanks to Printify.

The all-in-one POD service is dubbed the best, so in this Printify review, we’ll deep-dive into all the features, pricing, and the rest to see if it’s all it’s cracked up to be.

What is Printify?

Printify is a free print on demand dropshipping provider in the Shopify App store. It’s an all-in-one solution, where you can create your products, sync with your online Shopify or Etsy store, process orders and ship your products directly to your customers. There’s no need for a big upfront investment, and you get access to top printing companies in the U.S., UK, Germany, Australia, and China.

How Does Printify Work?

Even if you’ve never dabbled with print on demand, the process is super simple. Printify guides users every step of the way, but the goal of print on demand is to make money at low costs. Printify excels at that and here’s how it works in six simple steps:

Create an account: Click the “Get” button in the Shopify App store to get started with your account. Enter all your personal information to set up your account, and then you’re good to go.
Choose your products: Printify has an impressive 250+ products range to choose from, and you find everything from socks to phone cases to flip flops to the good old t-shirts. Decide on what products you’d like to sell, and pick your favorites.
Upload your design: There are great design tools on Printify and a powerful Mockup Generator. All you need to do is drop in your design, and you can adjust size, color, and placement on the product within Printify.
Pick your printing partner: There are a lot of top-class printing providers to choose from, and you can test out the products before you commit to any of them. Request samples directly from the platform, find providers based on quality, customization options or price.
Get your product to your store: Integrate with Shopify or Etsy to speed up the process, and you don’t need to worry about storing any inventory yourself. Decide on the price, product description and you’re ready to go.
Start selling: Hit publish and wait for your first sale. Once you get an order through, just relax. Printify will take care of the billing, manufacturing request, packaging, and shipping for you.

Printify Products

What really stands out on Printify is the large variety of products. Not only do they offer different categories (from apparel, to home, to stickers), they also offer many different materials, sizes, cuts, and colors within each category. Wearable products are segmented by male/female/kids, which makes it easy to find what you need. In total Printify offers 200+ products, here are some that stand out:

Clothing: hoodies, varsity jackets, skirts, dresses, hats, bikinis, leggings, socks and more
T-shirts: long sleeve, scoop neck, crewneck, v-neck, sleeveless, tank, polo, box cut, fitted cut, all-over-print (AOP) and more.
Shoes: flip flops, sneakers, Martin boots, high-tops, high-heels
Home decor: wall art, wall decals, cushions, blankets, towels, bath mats, mugs and more
Accessories: tote bags, shopping bags, backpacks, accessories pouch, phone cases and more
Jewelry: dog tags, bracelets, necklaces
Stationary: notebooks, stickers

There’s also a handy Mockup Generator, where you can easily customize each product, choose where to print your designs, create product information and adjust pricing.

Printify Suppliers

The large array of products come from a large pool of excellent suppliers. Most of the suppliers are based in the U.S., U.K., and China. There’s also lots of information about the suppliers to help you find the right fit, from the location to pricing, to size options, and everything else in between. Best of all, you can request samples from suppliers to make sure your designs are coming through fine before you start selling.

Printify Shipping

Printify manages all the printing and shipping, so all you need to is choose your printing provider. There’s a large list of providers with varying shipping rates for each country, so you’ll find yourself spoiled with choice. Some household names that work with Printify are Art Gun, DJ, T Shirts and Sons, and more.

You can set up weight base, flat rate, and express shipping depending on your printing provider and destination. On average, shipping rates are between $8 — $15, but you can check all shipping rates for each printing provider. Most suppliers will provide tracking information, except UK printers.

Printify shipping times vary, but on average here’s how long it can take:

USA — 5 days
Canada — 10–15 days
International — 10–30 days

Printify Shipping Calculator

Advance plan holders can use the Printify Shipping calculator to make sure the right shipping rate is charged every time. The calculator automatically applies a flat shipping fee in the shopping cart, which means you don’t need to do it manually for each purchase.

Printify Pricing

There are 3 flexible plans to choose from, and you can get started with Printify for free. The more you pay, the more features you unlock. Here’s what you get for your money with each plan:

Free: 5 stores, unlimited products, mockup generator, integration with Shopify and Etsy, manual order creation, 24/7 customer support, and self-serve help center.
Premium $29: 10 stores, custom order import, 20% off of products and all of the above.
Enterprise Custom: Unlimited stores, unlimited products, dedicated account manager, branded customer support and all of the above.

What is Printify Premium?

The Premium plan is ideal for merchants with growing sales that may need more space and support. The main advantage of the Premium plan is that merchants receive 20% off of all products, and a one-time joining bonus credit, which is automatically applied to your Printify balance. The bonus will be applied the next time you place an order, regardless whether it’s a sample request or a customer order.

How Much Does Printify Charge?

There are no hidden fees with Printify, which means there are no transaction or commission fees. You pay as you sell, and your profit margins depend on the total cost of printing and shipping. Here’s how it works:

Let’s say you’re selling this Bella Canvas t-shirt for $20.

You have the option to choose from 4 printing providers that currently print on the shirt — 3 in the U.S. and 1 in the U.K.

Among other differences (like color availability, size, two-way printing, etc), each provider also charges different base prices. Let’s say you decide to go with MyLocker, which means you’re paying $8.89 for the product and printing.

Then click on the “Shipping and more details” button to see shipping rates for each region.

Imagine you’re shipping within the U.S., which would mean you’re paying $4 to send a single shirt. That brings your total base prices from $8.89 to a total of $12.89.

So your profits would be $20 — $12.89 = $7.11 for a single shirt.

And that’s the case regardless of the product, or total amount — whatever you make is yours.

Printify, Shopify, and Etsy

Printify is an extension, or add-on, to an already existing online store. It’s a Shopify print on demand service, which means it effortlessly integrates with your online store. It also means it doesn’t work on its own.

In addition to Shopify, Printify also works with WooCommerce, the sister ecommerce platform for WordPress.

Lastly, you can also connect your Printify account with your Etsy shop, in a few clicks.

How Does Printify Work With Shopify?

If you already run an existing (or new) Shopify online store, just head over to Shopify’s App store, search for Printify, and click install. Once you’re all set up, all shipping, production, and publishing of your POD products will automatically sync with your Shopify store.

All you need to do to get your products on to your Shopify ecommerce store is use Printify’s free Mockup generator to create your custom products in four steps:

Upload your design,
Choose your products,
Customize,
Hit publish.

You can also adjust product information, description and prices while you’re mocking up your designs, and those too will automatically appear in your Shopify store.

Printify vs. Printful

Printify is one of the best print on demand providers today, but the POD market is growing fast, which means competition is getting tight. Let’s take a look at how Printify measures up next to its biggest competitor, Printful.

Printful is another print on demand service, which lets users create custom products, and not worry about holding inventory.

Is It Cheaper Than Printify?

There’s only one subscription plan that Printful offers, and it’s absolutely free. Once you sign up, you don’t need to pay to get access for any additional features.

Printing Network

Printify offers the ability to choose your printing provider, whereas Printful doesn’t. Also, you have a larger variety of printers to choose from with Printify.

Merchandising

Printify also has a larger range of products than Printful, faster average shipping times, and Premium plan holders on Printify receive a 20% discount on all products. However, Printful offers more ways to brand your products, including packaging, neck labels, and pack-ins, whereas Printify only lets you brand neck labels.

Overall, Printify is a winner here. Not only do sellers get a larger pool of products to choose from, but they can also find the best printing provider for each product. Both services offer great features, but Printify seems to have a stronger grasp on what sellers and designers need to grow their business fast.

Printify Review: Is It The One?

Printify is not a do-it-yourself service for your customers. It’s an app that lets you get your brilliant design for sale online fast, without the need to invest a lot of money or worry about leftover inventory. You just need to worry about the designs and sales, while Printify takes care of the rest.

It’s an excellent print on demand service, which makes it super easy for sellers to get their designs online and even easier to get them into the hands of paying customers.