CafePress Review (2023): A Simple Print on Demand Solution

In today’s CafePress review, we’re taking a closer look at one of the most popular solutions for print-on-demand production and selling.

The interest in print on demand (POD) business models has skyrocketed in recent years, with the market expected to reach a value of $586.2 billion in 2032.

Here’s everything you need to know about the CafePress platform.

What is CafePress?

CafePress is a custom online marketplace, designed specifically for the Print on Demand landscape. The business was initially launched in 1999, and in 2001 won the People’s Voice Webby award for the Commerce category. According to the company, based in Louisville, Kentucky, CafePress is on a mission to bring designers and customers together, with an easy-to-use marketplace environment.

With CafePress, creators and merchants can start selling customized products to customers around the world instantly, with no minimum order quantities or inventory management issues.

In fact, with CafePress’s marketplace, you don’t even need your own ecommerce platform to start selling.

What sets CafePress apart from other Print on Demand solutions like Printify and Printful, is that it’s an all-in-one solution for creating, and selling POD products. You can sign up to become a shopkeeper in seconds, and start listing products on the marketplace straight away.

How Does CafePress Work?

The platform is extremely straightforward. All you need to do to get started is click the “Join” button on the CafePress website, and enter your details.

After that, you can start choosing products you want to customize, and upload your designs to the platform.

CafePress Pros and Cons

Every print on demand solution has its pros and cons to consider, even the most popular apps on the marketplace today.

CafePress has a lot of benefits to offer retailers and their customers, but there are some downsides too. Here are the main pros and cons to be aware of.

CafePress Pricing: How Much Does it Cost?

Since the way you make money on CafePress is a little different to on other POD platforms, the fees you can expect to pay are different too. It costs nothing to create a store with Cafepress, and start listing your custom products for sale. However, running your store isn’t entirely free.

There are two ways to “pay” for your CafePress store:

The first option is to minimize your upfront costs by allowing CafePress to take 10% from your monthly checks. There’s a maximum charge of up to $10, based just on your royalties, rather than your sales volume.

For example, if you earned $30 in royalties for the month, $3 would be deducted. If you earned $300, CafePress would deduct $10 and send you a check for $290.

The other option is to “pre-pay” for your store services. Each month, you’ll be charged $6.95, or you can pay in bulk for several months. It’s $18.95 for 3 months, $34.95 for 6 months, or $59.95 for 1 year. Both options are relatively cheap, but the chances are your profit margins will be relatively low in both cases, particularly since you only earn 5-10% from each sale.

CafePress Products and Design

CafePress offers a diverse selection of products for merchants to choose from, in a wide range of categories. Options range from men and women’s clothing, like t-shirts, hoodies, and sweatshirts, to water bottles, mugs, tumblers, aprons, coffee mugs, flasks, and even bumper stickers.

In fact, the company offers quite a few unique products you won’t find with other print on demand vendors, making it an excellent choice if you want to stand out from the crowd.

When it comes to creating your own products, CafePress offers plenty of resources to ensure high quality, including convenient templates. The templates include all of the information you need to ensure your images are in the right resolution, size, and format.

You can upload images in JPG or PNG format, and choose from a range of printing processes depending on the items you want to create, including:

• Digital press printing
• Large format digital inkjet
• Thermal wax resin printing
• Heat transfer
• Large format digital solvent-based inkjet
• Sublimation
• Direct printing
• Digital inkjet

Notably, while CafePress invests in quality assurance methods to preserve the value of every product produced, colors and prints may vary depending on the solution you choose.

When you upload your images to CafePress, the company will automatically suggest products that best suit your image, and allow you to choose which ones you want to add to the marketplace.

Your “seller shop” will give you complete control over your product selection, pricing, and marketing strategies. Additionally, if you want to purchase any samples, you’ll only pay the base price for each item you order from your own store.

Speaking of promotion, CafePress won’t do any advertising on your behalf, but you will be asked to describe every image you upload with tags and a title.

These are the search terms your customers can use to find your items on the marketplace. You’ll also get a unique seller ID for your storefront, and a URL you can share on other platforms to drive customers back to your store.

Getting Paid on CafePress

CafePress approaches the process of paying merchants a little differently to some POD vendors. Instead of earning the full payment for every print on demand product you sell, you get a retailer royalty for your custom products.

This allows CafePress to retain the shipping costs, and production fees for making your quality products. There are two ways to receive royalty payments: by PayPal, or check. There’s a minimum for both payouts, $100 for checks, and $25 for PayPal.

All royalties accrued from your store are paid within 60 days of the sale. Additionally, customers are offered a full 30-day money-back guarantee. Merchants can track their sales and payments using the “reports” section of their account.

The order report provides insights into the orders for your products, showcasing cancelled, pending, and completed orders in different sections. There’s also a “design” report, and a “product” report to help you track which of your items are earning the most income.

In terms of taxes, you can either submit your tax information as a US citizen, and have CafePress withhold taxes on your behalf, or you can address your tax requirements yourself. If you earn more than $600 in revenue each year, CafePress will automatically file form 1099 with the IRS.

CafePress Production and Shipping

To ensure your products reach your customers as quickly as possible, CafePress offers a variety of shipping methods. Shipping prices are calculated at the checkout for each customer, based on their preferred shipment method, and the quantity of items they want to order.

The good news is that CafePress does give customers and merchants a way to track shipments on their website. This makes it easier to determine when each item is going to arrive. The bad news is that customers won’t really be able to see their shipping costs until they’ve proceeded to the checkout page.

The shipping options available will vary depending on the quantity, type, and weight of items in the order, as well as the production process chosen. Since items are made-to-order, it can take between 2-3 days for products to be ready for shipping.

CafePress is quite speedy with its production and shipping times compared to most POD vendors. This is particularly true for US customers, since the company is based in America.

In terms of refunds and returns, CafePress offers a 30-day satisfaction guarantee to all customers, to minimize the risk of poor quality products.

CafePress Customer Service

Like many POD vendors, CafePress attempts to make its service as easy to use as possible, so there’s a good chance you won’t need a lot of guidance or support. However, there are templates available to help you create your designs, as well as various useful resources.

There are FAQ pages, as well as guides on shipping, returns, and selling. Plus, you can follow CafePress on social media, and subscribe to their email newsletter for more information about new product releases and changes to the platform.

If you need direct customer support from a member of the service team, there are two ways to get in touch:

• The first option is to email the company using their online form. The business aims to respond to customers within 5 business days, which is a little slow compared to some competitors.
• The second option, if you need rapid support, is to contact the company via phone number. The phone lines are open between 9am and 6pm EST Mondays to Fridays, except for during public holidays.

CafePress Integrations

Unlike other POD companies, such as Printify, Zazzle, and Printful, CafePress unfortunately doesn’t offer a lot of direct connections or integrations with other marketplaces or platforms.

Since you sell your products directly on CafePress.com, there aren’t any APIs to help you list your items on different platforms. This could be a problem if you want to link your products to your own ecommerce store.

There are no connections available for Amazon, Etsy, or Ebay. Plus, you can’t use the print on demand service to sell tees and merch on social media. However, since you’ll get your own dedicated URL for your CafePress storefront, you can still drive customers to your page from other channels.

You can share your link across various platforms, but all transactions will take place on the CafePress marketplace itself.

CafePress Review: The Verdict

Ultimately, if you’re looking for an easy way to get started with print on demand selling, CafePress could be an excellent option. You can launch your store with virtually no upfront fees, and you don’t even have to worry about designing a store with a separate ecommerce platform.

CafePress is likely to be a good choice for merchants and creators who want to create an online store as quickly and painlessly as possible. But it may not be the right pick for ecommerce store owners who want to scale and grow quickly.