Are you having a difficult time choosing between Printful vs. Printify? Well, fret not; you have come to the right place. As both PoD platforms are high-quality and great competitors, it is no mystery why you or anyone would have difficulty choosing between the two.
Both print-on-demand services get the job done well, yet it’s important to note that they are very different from each other.
This article will explain how both platforms work by diving into the many differences between the two companies. These differences are essential to know if you are starting your own online store.
Printful and Printify: Defined
What Is Printful?
Printful is a print-on-demand and a fulfillment company. This platform helps people customize and order from over 300 different kinds of products. And if you are looking to start your online business, Printful can help with that. You can create your online eCommerce store and sell products with your own brand and design.
Printful owns the entire production process – from evaluating products to their quality and printing technique. It also handles shipping, and they deliver items across the world. This platform has in-house fulfillment centers in the U.S., Mexico, Europe, and Canada. And since it does deliver across the globe, it has partners in Japan, Brazil, and Australia.
What Is Printify?
Printify is also a print-on-demand network that lets you design your own personalized products and create an online store. In addition, Printify offers multiple printing features and fulfillment providers that deliver products across the globe.
Printify differs from Printful because it doesn’t own a printing company. Instead, it serves as an intermediary between you and other printing companies sending orders to a printing company of your choice.
How Does It Work?
You decide what kind of goods you want to sell. You might, for example, offer mugs, phone covers, or T-shirts. These are the blank items on which you will create your designs.
You must make a design and apply it to the product. Both platforms provide design tools that allow you to add photos, logos, and other graphics. Simply add the design onto the product, then adjust the size and specify if you want something on the side or bottom of the object.
You must select a service provider. You’ll often have several options to choose from. This option applies only to Printify.
You place your product on the website you’ve created. Then, use Shopify, WooCommerce, Etsy, or other integrations to expedite the process. In addition, you can integrate with other platforms, not just these three.
You complete a transaction. Relax as the platform of your pick completes this entire phase for you. Manufacturing requests, order fulfillment, billing, and delivery are all included in this.
Pricing and Plans
Before choosing a platform to launch your online store, it’s essential to consider pricing. You need to know which platform offers free plans and payment plans.
Printful Pricing
Printful is entirely free, so you don’t have to worry about any subscription fees when opening your online store. However, it does offer a Pro plan that costs $49 a month, giving you access to many features that you won’t get in the free subscription.
It is best to go with the free plan as a beginner to see if the platform is truly for you. Then, later on, when you start earning more money, you can switch to the Pro plan. However, note that Printful also offers a 14-day trial period for free for the Pro plan. So you can still try out all the features before committing to a regular payment.
Printful Plans
Free Subscription
This is a great offer to start your business with 250+ custom products and integrations with 15 or more ecommerce platforms. You can also use the Mockup Generator to create your own templates and designs. Plus, you get to download mockups and print files in addition to using up to 700 clipart images.
Pro Subscription
With the features mentioned earlier, you can also use background removal tools, access to the Promo Maker, and 400 more exclusive clipart images. Also, carrier-based shipping options are accessible with this plan. Printful Pro is $49 per month for a monthly membership and $539 per annual subscription. If your billing address is in the United States, there is an extra sales tax.
Printify Pricing
Printify, much like Printful, offers a free subscription where you can enjoy many platform features. Yet, unlike Printful, Printify offers two additional plans.
The Premium plan costs $29 per month and $24 if billed annually. This plan’s pricing solely depends on your business and your needs. The subscription fee is charged right away, and it will automatically renew on the same day each month or year. To avoid being charged for the following month or year, you must unsubscribe before the renewal date. Unfortunately, Printify does not offer a free trial period for any paid plans like Printful.
Printify Plans
Free Subscription
You can access the Mockup Generator with a free subscription and have integrations with Shopify, Etsy, eBay, and many more. It is a good deal, considering it offers 24/7 merchant support if you have any problems during your business hours and a self-service help center.
Premium Subscription
In addition to the free subscription features, you get an additional 20% discount on all products and custom order items with a Premium plan.
Enterprise Subscription
With this plan, you can use any features, and you will be charged as needed per feature. As a result, you won’t be charged for the features you don’t require, as this plan follows a customized pricing model.
Additionally, you will have early access to the new features and custom API integration with the Enterprise plan. The plan also gives you access to a dedicated account manager and complete store access with unlimited product design.
Profit Margins
As a new business owner in the print-on-demand business world, you would want to make as much money as you can. So, how do you know which platform can make the most profit margins?
As said before, Printify and Printful are very different. They don’t have many similar products, except for manufacturers such as Gildan and Bella + Canvas. In that aspect, we will discuss the best-selling product on both platforms, which is Bella + Canvas 3001 T-Shirt.
First, you will have to consider two primary costs for this kind of business: production costs (usually a fixed cost) and shipping charges (depending on the customer’s location).
Printful vs Printify Pricing in the U.S.
Let’s start with ordering for the U.S.
The cost for ordering and shipping a Bella + Canvas 3001 T-Shirt on Printful will be $16.94. If we are ordering the same product in the U.S. using the Printify platform, the total will be $12.82.
However, not all of your customers will be from the U.S., and prices may change. In addition, shipping costs will differ for other countries.
Printful vs Printify Pricing in Europe
If you order the Bella + Canvas 3001 T-Shirt from Printful and have it shipped to Serbia, the cost will be $12.71. However, the same product to the exact location in Serbia, Europe, will be $13.21 using Printify.
When you look at both platforms, there isn’t a big difference in shipping and product costs. Printify’s production cost is cheaper than Printful’s, yet Printful has a much more affordable shipping rate to almost all countries. We will go into much more detail about shipping in our article’s shipping and order fulfillment section.
In short, you will have a more significant profit margin when selling in the U.S. using Printify. Yet, there isn’t a big difference in profit margins between the two platforms for sales to other countries.
Print Quality
Your print quality should be the best if you want to stand out from your competition. So, let’s take a look at how Printful compares to Printify.
When it comes to printing quality, Printful wins because:
- They invested roughly $50.3 million into the printing equipment last year.
- They do all the printing and shipping in-house. On the other hand, Printify uses different printing manufacturers and acts as the intermediary between you and those manufacturers.
Since Printful has all the new equipment, it can be much more expensive than Printify regarding production costs. In contrast, Printify didn’t invest in printing equipment, and they are not in charge of the printing quality and consistency, which can be a risk when giving them your business.
Printful has quality checks to ensure that you get the best right from their factories. However, while Printify can offer good quality, you get different items from separate manufacturers. This means that you can get amazing quality from some manufacturers, while from others, quality may vary.
There is no denying that Printful has a higher quality scale, and you always know what you are getting into while ordering. The same thing cannot be said for Printify.
Printful vs Printify Branding
Fifty-nine percent of shoppers prefer to buy branded products rather than products not from any brand because they feel more comfortable and safe purchasing from a familiar brand. So when opening your online store, you should consider working on your brand. Often branding and startups go hand in hand, so you will need to have some customer following to focus on your branding.
This is the reason why you should choose the better platform. A better platform offers more tools and opportunities for higher-quality branding.
Both Printful and Printify are white-label companies. As the name suggests, white-label means that the platforms won’t put their own brand on the packaging. Instead, they will be sold with your trademark and not the manufacturer’s branding.
So how can you choose from these two companies when it comes to branding? Let’s find out together with our comparison of the two platforms.
Printful Branding
Printful offers many more features and tools to make your website original than just selling quality items and having excellent services. They also provide you with design and branding opportunities to take your online store to the next level.
Without using this platform feature, you miss out on package inserts and branded receipts. These are small touches, but they can mean creating an original brand for yourself. Printful made a user-friendly branding process for you to avoid any unnecessary difficulty in making your brand. Note branding options cost extra. Branding options include:
- You can add inner shirt labels.
- You can add brand stickers to your shipping boxes.
- You can customize the return address.
- You can have packing inserts.
Printful’s design team is at your disposal so that you can design your brand with professionals. They can help you redesign logos, develop new designs, create custom artwork, and so on. Also, if you are using other sites, such as TeeSpring, Society6, or Kickstarter, the design team can help you create any projects, artworks, or graphics that you will need.
Printful is the perfect eCommerce business for newcomers who know what brand and design they want but don’t know how to bring it to life.
Printify Branding
Printify, on the other hand, does not come with as many branding benefits as Printful does. It relies on many print vendors to add branding to purchases. Most of their print providers let you add your logo or brand on only two areas of your product: the front and the back.
They also work with print providers such as SameDayPoD, Merch Made Easy, and TextilDruck Europa, who come with additional branding options. For example, Merch Made Easy provides interior and exterior labels on just a few T-shirts but not on all products.
Printify allows you to put your shop name in text but not a logo to packaging and deliver from the shipping label’s location. However, they do not allow custom message alternatives for your shoppers on your shipping or packaging label, while Printful supports that branding style.
Printful has a fixed price range for its branding costs as pricing goes. On the other hand, Printify’s branding expenses are not set because of the many print vendors. So they can be very different from each other.
Order Fulfillment and Shipping
Order fulfillment refers to the entire process of receiving an order and delivering an item to a consumer. The term is often used to refer to the more basic act of distribution or the logistical function. However, it relates to how platforms like Printful and Printify respond to consumer requests in a larger sense.
These platforms use contrasting operation procedures. However, they both take care of everything in order fulfillment, like manufacturing, packing, and delivering to the customer.
Printful Order Fulfillment and Shipping
Shipping consists of the physical movement of products from one point A to B or moving goods from the warehouse to the shopper in these platforms’ cases. When it comes to shipping, Printful and Printify are quite different from each other, including shipping rates, shipping time, etc.
Since Printful offers dropshipping services, you don’t need to handle or maintain any inventory. You also don’t handle any packaging, delivery, or distribution. Instead, Printful does it all for you.
Printful has two order fulfillment models :
- The print-on-demand model
The PoD order fulfillment approach is expected to take two to seven business days for clothing goods and two to five days for non-apparel items.
- The warehouse fulfillment service
This service provides same-day delivery, but only for orders filed by noon and orders that include warehouse products you have previously stored.
Please note that there is a monthly storage fee to store your inventory at their warehouses, and this service is only available in the U.S., Canada, and Europe. The cost is based on your storage needs.
Printful ships worldwide, except to a few countries such as Crimea, Cuba, Iran, North Korea, and Syria.
The platform’s shipping time depends on the destination, but it is 12 business days on average. This can change depending on where the items are being shipped.
Printify Order Fulfillment and Shipping
With Printify, you can customize, sell, and ship goods without needing your own inventory.
Printify will send the order to the printing provider when you make the sale. After printing, the printing provider will ship the product to your customer. Here all you have to do is acquire the orders, choose a printing provider and relax.
Each of these printing providers has a different production time. Much like Printful, Printify’s print provider’s order fulfillment is up to 2-7 business days from the order submission date for print–on–demand products. However, unlike Printful, Printify doesn’t offer warehouse services. Instead, they outsource your print-on-demand orders to a third party.
For international shipping, Printify is not that much different from Printful. Printify also delivers to most countries except Burundi, Belarus, Cuba, Central African Republic, Iran, Libya, North Korea, Sudan, Syria, Somalia, and Zimbabwe.
Printify’s shipping time depends on the printing provider you’ve chosen. Each provider has a different shipping time and rate in place. You can find out more about this on their website. There are 90+ printing providers to choose from, and all are in some ways different from each other.
Approximate shipping times from the top Printify providers are as follows:
- Shipping to the U.S.– most print providers have a 3-9 business days shipping time
- Shipping to Canada – the shipping time is 10-15 business days, but some providers ship your products in under 2-7 business days
- Shipping to the rest of the world – this can take a bit of time, and most printing providers ship your product to the customer in roughly 10-30 business days
Customer Service
Customer support refers to various customer services that help shoppers and clients make the most cost-effective and appropriate use of goods or services. It includes installation, planning, training, disposal of a product and items, etc.
For eCommerce platforms, customer support also includes help for the users with the platform’s tools, features, branding, marketing, etc. With only a few clicks or a call, you will be able to contact a platform’s customer service with any questions you may have about using their website.
Printful Customer Support
Printful offers customer support via live chat, email, and a contact form. It also has a customer support team and an excellent self-help center to answer the most common questions. The platform also offers tips, guidelines, video tutorials, and documents.
Printify Customer Support
Printify offers support via email, and it provides a help center with articles on the most common questions asked. In addition, they discuss shipping, tips, how-to guidelines integrations, and much more.
So which one has the better customer support when both of them are very similar to each other?
There are mixed reviews online about the customer service of both platforms. Some customers claim that it took the platforms several hours to respond. On the other hand, many customers were very satisfied with the quick replies, saying they only had to wait a few minutes.
Integration With Ecommerce Platforms
Integration is another essential factor to consider before choosing between Printful vs. Printify. If you want to sell T-shirts online, you need to connect to an eCommerce platform or an online marketplace with your own account. Both platforms are integrated with many third-party services, so you can choose which one is better for you.
Printful Integrations
This platform integrates with the most popular eCommerce platforms. The deployment on these platforms is fast and straightforward.
If you integrate Printful with your ecommerce platform, you won’t have to worry about losing orders or making mistakes on specifics. Orders will be sent to Printful automatically, so you can focus on other aspects of your business. This process is quick and easy, so you’ll be up and running in no time.
Printful integrations are available with these eCommerce platforms:
- BigCommerce
- Amazon
- WooCommerce
- Shopify
- Etsy
- Tictail
- Storenvy
- Big Cartel
- Gumroad
- Weebly
- Ecwid
- Inktale
You can link your store to Printful via API integration. If you want to read more and go into more detail about how it all works, you can check out Printful’s eCommerce Drop Shipping Integrations page.
Printify Integrations
There are two ways to integrate with the Printify platform. You can either use a Personal Access Token to manage a single Printify account or utilize OAuth 2.0 to manage several Printify Merchant accounts.
There are seven eCommerce platforms that you can connect to while using Printify:
- Shopify
- Etsy
- WooCommerce
- eBay
- PrestaShop
- BigCommerce
- Wix Stores
- Printify API.
When you integrate with these platforms, you will have no additional work, as in you won’t have to do anything manually. All you need to do is connect to any of these platforms, and your orders will be directly sent to Printify.
On the other hand, if you want to use a platform that isn’t integrated with Printify, you’ll need to create listings manually for each product. Of course, if you are not satisfied with the selection of the integrations that Printify offers, you can always check out other eCommerce platforms.
How to Decide Between the Two?
Printful is overall better than Printify in many aspects when choosing between the two platforms. But depending on what your priorities are, Printful might not be for you.
Printful Is Right for You If:
- You want a better print quality
- You need better shipping times and rates
- You want to build up a brand, and you want to have all the available features
- You don’t want to be limited in your customizing opportunities
- You would like to have warehousing services
- You want more eCommerce platforms integration options
- You are looking for more customer support
Printify Is Right for You If:
- Your primary customer base is in the U.S.
- You require better profit margins
- You don’t need warehouse services
- You want more product options
- You want to have the option of different print providers
Printful vs Printify: Which Is Better?
It is interesting to witness how popular online businesses and stores have become over the years. Our comparison of the two companies should be perfect for entrepreneurs who want to establish an online company selling T-shirts and other things but also want to do so on a reputable platform.
While both Printful and Printify have their selling points to consider, the ultimate factor should be product quality since that is why the customers will be returning.
Ultimately, you can try out both platforms since both offer a free plan and find out for yourself which PoD service suits you better.
