Printful vs Printify: Prices, Quality and Profit Per Shirt

Printify is cheaper and Printful is more consistent. On 2 November 2026 a Bella+Canvas 3001 tee cost $11.29 through Printify Choice ($9.04 on Premium) and $11.25 to $11.95 at Printful, with US shipping from $4.29 against $4.95. Pick Printify for margin, Printful for one company printing every order, and Gelato for buyers outside the US.

That is the short version. The rest of this page puts real numbers on it: what each supplier charges for a shirt, a mug and a poster, what you keep on a $30 Etsy sale, when a paid plan pays for itself, and the dates that matter for Christmas orders this year. If you have not decided whether print on demand is worth your time at all, start with our print on demand guide, which covers niches, designs and the margins on each product type. This page assumes you have decided and need to pick a supplier.

How do Printful and Printify actually differ?

They solve the same problem in two different ways.

Printful prints its own orders. Its pricing page describes "in-house production with automatic, quality-checked fulfillment for every order" and a 3-step quality check. It lists 594 custom products on the free plan. When something goes wrong, there is one company to deal with, and it covers a free reprint or refund for manufacturing errors.

Printify is a marketplace of printers. Its pricing page lists 70+ print providers, 140+ print facilities and 2,000+ products. You either pick a provider for each product, or you use Printify Choice, which picks one for you on every order. Printify's help centre says Choice products have a fixed price "regardless of the fulfillment provider", and that "specific Print Provider details will not be disclosed and may vary for each order". Printify's Merchant Protection covers a free reprint or refund within 30 days for manufacturing errors.

The trade is control against price. Printful gives you one printer and one standard. Printify gives you a lower price and more products, and you accept that two orders of the same shirt may come off two different machines.

What does a shirt, a mug and a poster cost at each?

These are base prices for the product with one print, plus standard shipping to a US address for a single item. Prices change by size and colour, so the table uses the most common variants.

Sources: Printful's product catalog and shipping rates; Printify's 3001 product page, Printify Choice shipping and holiday surcharge notice. All checked 2 November 2026.

Two things in that table catch new sellers out.

First, Printify's non-Choice prices depend on which provider you pick, and the cheapest provider is not always the one with the best reviews or the fastest dispatch. The Choice price is the fair comparison, because it is fixed.

Second, the holiday surcharge is not added to your listing prices. Printify's notice says it "isn't automatically reflected in your store prices", so unless you raise prices, the 40 cents comes out of your margin on every US order until 17 January.

How much profit do you make on a $30 shirt?

Here is the arithmetic for one tee sold on Etsy at $30 with free shipping, to a US buyer, during the holiday surcharge window. Etsy's fees come from its Fees and Payments Policy (a $0.20 listing fee and a 6.5% transaction fee) and its payment processing page (3% + $0.25 in the US). We left out sales tax and Offsite Ads to keep it readable.

That is our arithmetic from the published prices. The gap is $1.32 a shirt between Printful and Printify Choice, and $3.57 a shirt once you pay for Printify Premium. Run your own prices through the Etsy fee calculator, especially if Etsy's Offsite Ads have sold the item: the policy charges 15% on those orders for shops under $10,000 a year in sales, which on a $30 shirt is another $4.50.

If the buyer adds a second shirt, the extra item costs $2.20 to ship at Printful and $2.09 at Printify Choice, which is why bundles ("two for $50") lift margins more than any supplier switch.

When does a paid plan pay for itself?

All three suppliers sell a subscription that cuts product prices.

Sources: Printful pricing, Printify pricing, Gelato support.

The break-even maths is simple. Printify Premium saves $2.25 on each 3001 tee ($11.29 down to $9.04). At $24.99 a month you need 12 tee sales a month to come out ahead. On the $39 monthly plan you need 18. Below that, stay on the free plan.

Printful's "up to 33%" depends on the product, so check the discounted price on the products you actually sell before you subscribe. Printful's FAQ says the Growth plan becomes free once you reach $12K a year in sales.

Which one prints better?

Neither company publishes defect rates, so nobody can give you a sourced quality ranking. What you can control is the test.

Order the same design on the same blank from both, in the colour you expect to sell most. Printful gives 20% off sample orders on its free plan. Printify Choice routes each order to whichever provider is nearest the delivery address, so a sample shipped to you may come from a different printer than a sale shipped to a buyer across the country. If consistency matters for your brand, pick a named Printify provider with high ratings instead of Choice, and accept a slightly higher price.

The products where quality gaps show most are dark shirts with white ink, large full-colour prints and anything with fine detail. Mugs and posters vary less.

Which is better for art prints and posters?

Posters ship flat or rolled and weigh little, so the shipping line hurts less than on a hoodie. At Printful, an 18x24 enhanced matte poster costs $11.95, and small and medium posters ship to the US for $4.99 plus 40 cents for each extra poster, per its shipping rates. That last number is why poster sets ("three for $45") work well: the second and third prints add almost nothing to shipping.

Printify's poster prices and paper options depend on the provider you pick. If you sell art, order the same print from two Printify providers and from Printful, and compare paper weight and colour on your own walls before you list.

What about selling to the UK, Europe and Canada?

Printful publishes its shipping rates by region. For a tee, the first item costs $4.99 to Europe, $4.79 to the UK and $8.59 to Canada, with each additional tee adding $1.45, $1.50 and $1.95 (Printful shipping, checked 2 November 2026). Those rates assume Printful can make the item in or near that region.

Printify Choice is priced for the US. Its help centre says Choice "offers the best value with the United States as your target market", and that orders without a nearby facility ship from the US at international rates. If a large share of your sales go abroad, price your bestsellers on Printful and Gelato as well.

Can you use both Printful and Printify?

Yes. Both connect to the same Etsy or Shopify store, and each product listing is tied to one supplier. A common setup is to keep your bestselling tee on whichever supplier prints it best and use the other for products the first does not carry. The cost is admin: two dashboards, two sets of samples and two invoices to check each month.

Switching a listing later is possible but not instant. You recreate the product on the new supplier, check the mockups match and reconnect the listing. Pick carefully for your first ten designs and you will rarely need to.

Is Gelato worth a look as a third option?

Gelato is the one to consider if a large share of your buyers are in Europe, the UK or Australia. Its pricing page says it sends each order "to the production partner nearest to your customer" and that "Gelato does not charge commission". You pay the product and shipping cost per order, like the other two.

The drawback is that we could not confirm Gelato's per-item tee price from a public Gelato page on 2 November 2026, so the table above leaves its product prices blank. Sign up for the free plan and price your top three products inside the dashboard before deciding.

What are the Christmas order deadlines for 2026?

On 2 November 2026 neither Printful nor Printify had published its 2026 cutoff dates. Printful's holiday hub says "We'll share cutoff dates soon". Printify's fulfillment status page, where it posts holiday cutoffs, listed none for 2026.

Use last year and the carriers as your planning floor:

Sources: Printful's 2025 deadline guide and USPS 2026 holiday shipping dates, both checked 2 November 2026.

The USPS dates are the day the parcel must be sent, and print on demand adds production days before that. A reasonable plan is to put "order by 10 December for Christmas" on your listings now, then move it once the suppliers publish their 2026 dates. Printify's own holiday hub says demand peaks 24 to 32 days before each holiday, which puts the Christmas peak in late November.

Who should skip this?

• Anyone hoping to list designs and wait. Etsy is crowded with print on demand shirts. The margin in the table is about $9 to $13 a shirt before ads, so you need volume, and volume comes from designs for a specific audience.
• Sellers who want to print other people's characters, logos or team names. That is trademark or copyright infringement, and it is the quickest way to lose an Etsy shop.
• Anyone starting after 10 December who expects Christmas sales. Build the shop now for January and Valentine's Day instead.

If you would rather sell files than physical products, digital products on Etsy skip the base price and shipping lines entirely, and the AI art print on demand route covers making designs faster.

Your first week, dated

• Mon 2 Nov: Open free accounts at Printful and Printify. Connect both to your Etsy shop.
• Tue 3 Nov: Make one design for one audience you know. Create the same tee on both suppliers.
• Wed 4 Nov: Order a sample from each (Printful's free plan gives 20% off samples).
• Thu 5 Nov: Price your listing using the profit table above, adding the $0.40 surcharge to the price.
• Fri 6 Nov: Write five more designs for the same audience. Do not publish until samples arrive.
• When samples arrive: Keep the supplier whose print you would wear. Publish all six designs on that one, with an "order by 10 December for Christmas" line in each listing.