comparison thumbnail

If you want to start a print on demand business, you’ll need a printing provider. Now that you’ve started making print on demand designs, (which we taught on our Canva and Place It design tools review and tutorial), the next step is to pick your best provider. We’ve gone through a lot of them in the past, and have narrowed down the best 2 options in our opinion. These would be, Printify and Printful. When you’re deciding which of these 2 are best for you, you need to really go over all of the strengths and weaknesses of each provider. Sometimes one thing won’t matter to you personally, but another can be really important. We’ll give you our opinion after we go through everything, so you can choose yours without a bias. 

Print Providers Integrate With Your Store

Both platforms integrate extremely well with almost every online store platform, (like Shopify, SquareSpace, Etsy, etc…) , so they’ll be able to upload your products to your print on demand store; Additionally, they’ll automatically receive your orders. When you receive an order, it will show up by your print provider. Your customer’s information will be sent to your print provider automatically, so you’ll just need to click fulfill to have everything done for you.

printify order visual
Automated Order Information Fulfillment Preview Tutorial

It’s really convenient. The tracking details will automatically be sent to your customer, and your platform will mark it as shipped when it’s sent out automatically. This works because both companies have formed partnerships with most online store platforms, so everything has already been set up to work smooth and efficiently.

The Upsides To Printful

We’ll start with Printful’s upsides. Their platform is very extensive. They have an extremely high volume of products, and they actually manufacture everything they sell.

Printful Product Catalog Selection Preview Tutorial
Printful Product Catalog Selection Preview Tutorial

They have a lot of different brands that they print on. They allow you to select which one you want, and they show reviews from previous buyers who’ve tried them out. This will help you get relevant advice on the quality of the item you’re printing on. If you’re planning on making a brand, it’s a good idea to use quality clothing for your merch since people won’t buy anything they don’t like twice.

Printful actually comes with a passable mock up generator. This means they allow you to put any image on their model and product mock ups, so it will appear like you took these photos for your brand. This is like Place It’s tool, (which we discussed in our Place It review and tutorial), but it’s not nearly as good.

printful product catalogue

This tool is completely free even if you don’t use Printful as your provider, but it will integrate automatically to your listings if you do use them; Otherwise, you’ll need to manually swap out the photos. This is not a big deal, but you’d be able to connect your Place It mock ups, (which are a lot more professional), for the same effort. 

The Downsides To Printful

The biggest downside of Printful is their prices. They’re not insanely high, but you could get some of their items for a lot less using another provider, (like Printify). This is only a downside when you can print the same item cheaper for somewhere else, but it’s not a negative when they’re the only ones who make the product since you wouldn’t be able to get it for a better price anyway. 

The Upsides To Printify

Now we’ll talk about Printify’s up sides. Printify is a very good platform to begin with. so you shouldn’t have any problems if you choose them regardless of anything else. Their greatest strength is their price. They’re easily cheaper than any other good program that we’ve looked at. This makes it easier to price however you want since your upfront cost is so little. 

printify catalogue preview
Printify Product Search With Pricing Preview Tutorial

This isn’t even accounting for Printify Premium, (Printify’s Premium Subscription) which takes off up to an extra 20% off the price of most items. If you’re getting a lot of sales, this would be completely worth it very quickly.

They use different manufacturers to print your products for you, so they give you the choice to choose the one you want.

printify providers visual
Printify Product Providers Preview Tutorial

They give you all of the provider’s information, so you can pick the best one for your needs. The number next to the name rates the provider based on past customer’s experiences. You’ll see all of the other relevant information on the bottom. They tell you initial price, shipping costs, estimated production time, and which colors of the items sell.

The shipping cost is something you always need to factor in for your pricing. This way you’ll get a good idea of what your profit margin is.

The Downsides To Printify

Printify does have a couple of down sides though. Their system is a little less organized due to the multiple providers they use. This won’t be a big deal, but it could be slightly more of a hassle to deal with any issues.

We’ve also found that it takes longer for your customer’s orders to show up in your Printify order feed. This means you’ll need to wait a couple of hours to show up before you process it. This won’t actually harm your store, but Printful does do this significantly faster, (at least in our experience).

Conclusion

All in all, you’ll be able to do well with either platform. We personally actually use both. This means we get the full benefits of Printify’s pricing, and we get all of Printful’s extensive range of products. We use whichever provider works best for the situation at hand. We hope you learned what you were trying to here!

Here are some important links in case you missed them:

Printify’s Print Provider Website

Printful’s Print Provider Website

Printful’s Free Mock Up Generator

Place It’s Website

Place It Free Tools

Canva Free Month Trial

Canva Place It Print On Demand Review And Tutorial

All Of Our Print On Demand Tutorials

Similar Posts