9 Best Printful Alternatives (2024 Comparison)

Welcome to our roundup of Printful alternatives.

Printful is one of the most popular print on demand companies out there, and it has a lot going for it—but it isn’t perfect.

To help you explore some of your other options, we’ve put together this roundup of the best Printful alternatives on the market.

Below, you’ll find everything you need to know about each of them, including their pros and cons, pricing, key features, and more.

The top Printful alternatives 

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#1 – Gelato

Gelato is our overall favorite Printful alternative. It’s probably the best print on demand company on the market right now. The prices are excellent, the print quality is great, and shipping is fast and reliable. What’s not to love?

Gelato has a great reputation in the seller community. Its reviews speak for themselves: It has a 4.7 rating on Trustpilot and a 4.5 rating on the Shopify App Store.

To get started, you’ll first need to connect Gelato’s API to your existing store. It integrates with all the leading ecommerce platforms including Shopify, WooCommerce, Squarespace, BigCommerce, Wix, and Etsy.

Then, find the print on demand products you want to sell in Gelato’s extensive catalog, add your designs, and import them to your store.

From then on, whenever a customer orders one of those products from your store, Gelato will send it to one of their production partners for localized fulfillment.

There are over 130 production facilities in 32 countries around the world, and orders are sent to the nearest location to the customer for the fastest possible delivery times. 

You’ll only pay for the product and shipping when the customer has already paid you, so there are no upfront costs to worry about.

Because Gelato offers competitive rates, you can get pretty good margins even on the free plan. But to get the best prices, it might be worth signing up for one of their monthly subscription plans, which come with up to 50% discounts on shipping costs.

The Gelato+ plan starts from $14.99/month, while the Gold plan starts from $99/month. Each comes with different discounts and features. There’s also a Platinum plan for larger enterprises but it uses bespoke pricing, so you’d have to request a custom quote if you wanted to go down that route.

Key features

• Global fulfillment
• Ecommerce integration
• Local tax & VAT handling
• Multi-currency wallet
• Monthly & bulk discounts
• Mockup studio
• Custom packaging
• DTG printing
• Mobile app

Pros

• Competitive prices
• Beginner-friendly
• No minimum orders
• Lots of integrations
• Good quality

Cons

• Don’t own printing facilities (this is common practice in the industry)
• Shipping discounts require a paid subscription (however, it is quite cost effective)

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#2 – Printify

Printify is probably Printful’s biggest competitor. It’s a hugely-popular print on demand fulfillment solution that integrates with your existing website.

There are a couple of reasons you might prefer Printify to Printful.

First off, it has a much bigger product catalog. We’ve yet to see a POD provider with as many different products as Printify.

There are over 800 items to choose from, which is more than double the size of Printful’s catalog, and that includes some super niche products, so no matter what kind of merch you want to sell, there’s a good chance you’ll find it.

Secondly, Printify’s prices seem to be a little more competitive than Printful for the most part, and the margins tend to be higher (at least in our experience).

The reason for this is likely because Printify works with a much larger global print network, and partners have to compete with each other on prices to win your business. 

Printify partners with hundreds of different printing providers spread all over the world. That includes dozens of printing partners each in the US, Europe, Asia, Canada, and Australia.

You can choose your print provider for certain products but if there’s a stock shortage, the order may be rerouted for faster fulfillment, so you can never be sure exactly where orders will be fulfilled. 

However, the Geo Routine feature ensures that orders are automatically sent to the closest available printing facility to the customer to reduce shipping delays and customs fees. 

Key features

• Global fulfillment network
• 800+ products
• Geo routing
• Ecommerce integrations
• Mockup generator
• Merchant protection

Pros

• Massive catalog
• Easy to use
• Fairly good margins
• Great for international sellers

Cons

• Limited quality control (Printify uses third-party print providers)
• Requires existing website

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#3 – Sellfy

Sellfy is a great Printful alternative if you don’t have an existing website. It’s a complete ecommerce solution with integrated print-on-demand features.

Sellfy is different from the other alternatives on this list in that it isn’t a dedicated print on demand fulfillment provider or marketplace. 

It’s actually an ecommerce platform just like Shopify, BigCommerce, etc. So it comes with all the features you need to create and manage an ecommerce store, including a drag-and-drop site builder, ecommerce site templates, inventory management tools, marketing features, shopping cart & checkout, etc.

But what makes it unique is that it also doubles up as a print on demand provider. It has its own built-in POD catalog that lets you import merch and customize it with your own designs in one click. 

Sellfy will fulfill all print-on-demand orders for you, and you’ll only pay for the base product cost and shipping after you’ve made the sale. You set your own prices so you can control your profit margins

Aside from print on demand merchandise, you can also sell regular inventory through Sellfy, as well as digital downloads and subscriptions.

You can get started with Sellfy’s free trial, and paid plans start from $19/month depending on your billing period.

Key features

• Store Customizer
• Themes
• Connect custom domain 
• Shopping cart
• PayPal & Stripe
• Email marketing
• Upsells
• Discounts
• Print on demand
• Digital products
• Subscription memberships

Pros

• Can sell digital and physical products
• All-in-one ecommerce platform
• Create your own store
• Integrated POD
• Beginner friendly

Cons

• Monthly subscription fees
• Limited payment gateway integrations

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#4 – SPOD

SPOD is another popular print-on-demand service, with its own production centers on both sides of the Atlantic. It’s been around for 20 years, and in that time, it’s built up a stellar reputation.

To get started with SPOD, you’ll first need to sign up and choose where you want your orders to be produced.

They ship worldwide, but they only have production sites in the US (Las Vegas), and the EU (Germany, Poland, and Czech Republic). 

If you’re selling to any of the above countries, expect fast delivery times as the orders will be produced locally. But if you’re selling elsewhere, overseas shipping can take a while.

Once you’ve signed up, you can hook SPOD up to your chosen shop system (it integrates with Shopify, Amazon, eBay, WooCommerce, and more) and start creating your products.

There are over 200 products to choose from. You can upload your own designs or create them from scratch using SPOD’s designer tools and 50,000+ pre-made designs.

Fulfillment is completely automated once you’ve set everything up. As soon as orders come in, they’re sent to SPOD, who produce them in-house within 48 hours and ship them out.

Quality tends to be good in our experience, but you can check for yourself with discounted test samples before you start selling.

Key features

• In-house facilities
• Global shipping
• Native ecommerce integrations
• Premade product designs
• 200+ products
• Sample discounts

Pros

• Good quality
• Great design tools
• Excellent integrations
• Strong reputation

Cons

• Only four production centers
• Local fulfillment only available in EU & US

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#5 – Zazzle

Zazzle is a print on demand marketplace where you can create your own custom merchandise and list it for sale.

What makes Zazzle different from the other print on demand providers we’ve looked at so far is that it comes with a built-in customer base for you to sell your products to.

With Printify, you have to sell through your own online store. So it’s down to you to drive traffic to that store and do all your own marketing if you want to stand a chance of making sales.

But with Zazzle, you’ll be selling your products directly on Zazzle’s marketplace, which millions of shoppers already visit every day. So potential customers are bound to stumble across your stuff even if you don’t put any effort into marketing.

It’s fantastically easy to get started with too. There are no barriers to entry: Just register with Zazzle and create your free store. Then browse their catalog to pick out blank products you like, and open them up in the editor to customize them with your own designs.

You can upload designs from your computer or build them from scratch using Zazzle’s repository of graphic elements, backgrounds, emojis, and text.

You set your own royalty rates and receive a payout for every product sold that features your designs. Zazzle handles all the fulfillment side of things: You just cash the paychecks.

Key features

• Marketplace
• Store creator
• Design tools
• Premade templates and illustrations
• Set your own royalties
• PayPal or Check paymentsd
• Zazzle LIVE (sell design services)
• Referral program
• Free Adobe Photoshop Design to Print plugin
• Community hub

Pros

• Lots of existing website traffic
• Great selection of products
• Easy to get started
• Nice design tools

Cons

• Lots of competition from other sellers
• Not as much control as selling through your own store

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#6 – Inkthreadable

Inkthreadable is the best Printful alternative for anyone selling to customers in the UK or Europe.

While Inkthreadable offers worldwide shipping, they only have one production center, and it’s in the UK. So deliveries are super fast inside the UK (and not bad to Europe), but it takes a while to ship to the US and elsewhere.

But on the flip side, like most EU- and UK-based providers, Inkthreadable offers superb quality. They’re not as big as companies like Printful and Printify, so they don’t have to cut corners in order to mass produce products quickly. And the result is premium quality prints. 

They use top-of-the-line commercial-quality materials. For example, their Stanley/Stella range of t-shirts are made with GOTS-certified organic cotton, and they look and feel really nice.

It’s not just t-shirts either. There are over 250 products to choose from, including mugs, sweatshirts, socks, hoodies, tote bags, cushions, hats, wall art, embroidered clothing, and more. If you’re a serious seller who cares about quality, I’m sure you’ll like what they have to offer.

Aside from quality, Inkthreadable also gets top marks for support and ease of use. Setup is super straightforward: Just sign up and connect it to your preferred ecommerce platform (e.g. Shopify, WooCommerce, Etsy, etc.) then add your product designs.

There’s an extensive help center filled with useful tutorials to guide you every step of the way, and live chat support if you need to speak to someone during weekday office hours. 

Once you’re all set up, Inkthreadable processes orders automatically. They come in, go through to Inkthreadabe’s production center, and get printed and shipped out straight to the customer as soon as possible.

Key features

• Product design tool
• Ecommerce platform integrations
• Global shipping
• UK production center
• No minimum orders
• Live chat support

Pros

• Ideal for selling to the EU & UK
• Excellent product and print quality
• Easy to use
• Great support

Cons

• Just one fulfillment site
• Slow shipping to US & elsewhere

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#7 – Gooten

Gooten is a reliable, scalable print-on-demand solution, and a good choice for larger businesses. It’s produced and shipped over 4 million products to date, and 95% of those products are shipped on time.

There are 150+ products in their catalog, grouped into six main categories: fashion & apparel, home & lifestyle, wall art, accessories, pets & baby, and holidays.

Its accessories selection is particularly good. It’s not all just tote bags and phone cases, but also things like mousepads, puzzles, yoga mats,  notebooks, beach towels, and more. And they’re typically very good quality. 

You can get started by plugging Gooten into your existing store. There are native plugins to make this easy, or you can build your own custom solution with Gooten’s robust API.

Once it’s connected, you can start selling with automated fulfillment. Just choose what you want to sell from Gooten’s catalog, add your designs to them using the intuitive mockup generator, import them to your store in a couple of clicks, and wait for the sales to roll in.

You can keep track of orders and gather insights through the Order Management System. Gooten will charge you for production, fulfillment, shipping, and taxes on each order, and you’ll keep the difference between that and the sale price as profit. You have full control over the retail price so you can choose your own margins.

They offer a variety of different printing and manufacturing techniques, depending on the product. That includes direct to garment printing, dye sublimation, woven, and embroidery.

Just keep in mind that Gooten themselves say that they’re not well-suited for brand new stores that are just getting off the ground. Their solution caters more towards established businesses that are ready to scale up their operations, and recommend that you have over 250+ orders/month in order to benefit from their technology and network.

Key features

• 150+ products
• Flexible pricing
• Mockup generator
• Ecommerce integrations
• Worldwide shipping
• Order management

Pros

• Reliable
• Good quality
• Great selection of accessories
• Scalable

Cons

• Not suitable for startups/small businesses with low sales volume
• Product catalog is smaller than some alternatives

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#8 – Prodigi

Prodigi is a global POD platform that is a great choice if you’re looking to sell art prints. Unlike Printful, Prodigi offers really great paper quality and high quality prints on canvases and posters. 

You can also print artwork panels made from premium materials like aluminum and acrylic as well as maple wood and dibond. 

In addition to this, you can also find some unique items in the catalog like photo books, device cases, stationery and more. 

Prodigi integrates with all the major ecommerce platforms including Shopify, BigCommerce and WooCommerce. You can also use it to sell products on Etsy.

The product catalog also features some useful categories such as trending products, recently added products and seasonal products which makes it very easy to find hot new products to sell. 

Prodigi works with over 50 specialist print partners worldwide, so your customer can purchase high quality products from your print-on-demand business no matter where they’re located in the world. 

Overall, Prodigi might not be as well known as Printful, but it’s nonetheless a good option for POD, particularly if you’re an artist selling prints and wall art. 

Key features

• Wide selection of products
• Global print partners 
• High quality art printing 
• Integrates with major ecommerce platforms 
• Integrates with Etsy 

Pros

• Great for artists 
• Good selection of products 
• Global printing network 

Cons

• Not very well known
• Not many options for apparel

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#9 – Amazon Merch On Demand

Last but by no means least, we have Amazon Merch On Demand—Amazon’s own POD service. It’s another excellent alternative to Printful for anyone who’s looking for faster shipping times.

The main thing Amazon Merch On Demand has going for it over other POD providers is lightning-fast shipping times.

The big problem facing print on demand sellers is that most companies only offer 1-2 week+ turnarounds, and a lot of customers aren’t prepared to wait that long for their orders.

But with Amazon Merch On Demand, all the products you sell are eligible for Prime Shipping, which gets them to the customers door within just 2 days. That’s a huge win.

That’s not the only great thing about selling POD through Amazon though. Another big benefit is that it is unparalleled in terms of reach.

Amazon’s the most popular ecommerce platform in the world and has hundreds of millions of shoppers. So by selling through Amazon, you’ll have access to this enormous market

To sign up, you’ll need to register for an account and wait for approval. You’ll be notified by email when they’ve had a chance to review your request.

If you’re accepted, you can start uploading your artwork straight away and adding it to products in Amazon’s catalog. You set your own prices, add your own description, and tweak your customization options as needed, and then Amazon will publish it to the marketplace under its own product page.

When an order comes in, Amazon handles it for you. They’ll produce it, ship it, and take care of all the customer service. And they’ll pay you royalties based on the purchase price.

The amount you earn will vary depending on what you’re selling and how much you’re selling it for, but don’t expect much—margins are pretty low. For example, on a $19.99 t-shirt, you’ll be paid a little less than $5 in royalties. It’s still possible to make good money, but you’ll probably need to sell a large volume.

Key features

• Amazon marketplace
• Customization options
• Design uploads
• Flexible prices
• Global fulfillment
• Prime Shipping
• Analytics

Pros

• Enormous reach
• Credible platform
• 2-day deliveries with Prime Shipping
• No upfront fees

Cons

• Poor profit margins
• Your application might not be accepted

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Printful pros and cons

Not sure whether or not you should just stick with Printful? To help you weigh things up, here’s what we think are Printful’s biggest pros and cons.

Printful pros

• Owns its manufacturing facilities. Most global POD sites act as an intermediary for a network of third-party print providers, but Printful is one of the few that actually owns its own printing facilities. This allows them to tightly control product and print quality with strict maintenance procedures, which leads to more consistency and reliability. 
• Very easy to use. Printful’s design tools are super easy to use. You can create product mockups in minutes. And the UI is very beginner-friendly. There’s basically zero learning curve. 
• Lots of supported integrations. Printful offers more integrations than most of its competitors. You can connect it to Shopify, Squarespace, Etsy, Amazon, etc.
• Global distribution. Printful has facilities spread all over the world, spanning multiple continents. Your orders are usually fulfilled from the facility nearest to the end customer, which is great for international sellers.
• Large product range. Printful has a pretty great variety of products on offer. There are hundreds of items to choose from, and more than most of its competitors (but still not as many as Printify).
• Range of printing & branding options. Printful offers a bunch of different printing options, like direct-to-garment (DTG), all-over printing, UV printing, cut and sew, embroidery, and more. And they also offer branding options like custom labels, packaging, packing slips, thank you cards, etc.

Printful cons

• Small margins. Printful isn’t as competitive as some of its competitors when it comes to pricing. The base product costs and shipping fees are on the pricey side, so margins are pretty small.
• Quality could be better. While Printful’s quality is more consistent than platforms like Printify, it’s still not the best. And according to some anecdotal reports from Reddit, some Printful users report that the quality has dropped over the last year.
• Shipping times are only estimates. Printful provides estimated shipping times for each product. But that’s all they are—estimations. They don’t guarantee shipping times, so there’s always the risk of late deliveries and frustrated customers.
• Not an all-in-one POD solution. Print on demand isn’t an all-in-one solution, so you can’t use it to actually build your store. It requires you to have an existing store to link it to. If you don’t have your own website yet, an ecommerce platform with built-in print-on-demand like Sellfy might be a better solution.

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Choosing the best Printful alternatives for your business

Not sure which of these Printful alternatives to choose?

Ultimately, it comes down to what you’re looking for in a POD provider. Here’s what we’d suggest:

• Choose Gelato if you just want the best overall Printful alternative. It gets top marks across the board with excellent quality, decent shipping times, stellar support, and reasonable prices.
• Try Printify if you can’t find the products you want to sell in Gelato’s catalog. It has the largest product catalog we’ve seen (800+ items), good prices, and a huge global print network.
• Use Sellfy if you don’t already have an existing online store to sell your merch through. It’s a complete ecommerce platform that has its own built-in print-on-demand functionality.

And if none of the options in this list seem like a good fit for your online business, you can find more sites like Printful in our roundup of the best print on demand sites.

Interested in starting your own dropshipping business? Check out these posts to get started:

• Is Dropshipping Worth It? Pros And Cons
• 9 Best Dropshipping Websites Compared
• 26 Best Products To Sell Online
• 9 Best Etsy Print-On-Demand Companies
• 26 Top Print-On-Demand Statistics And Trends

Thanks for reading!

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