Printful Affiliate Program - Everything You Need to Know

Imagine earning income from the comfort of your home, simply by promoting high-quality, customizable products to your audience.

With affiliate marketing, that’s possible, but only if you recommend the right products and services.

We’ve explored countless affiliate programs over the years, and always look for: long-term payouts, desirable products, and simple marketing tools.

Lo and behold, the Printful Affiliate program checks all those boxes.

Picture this: Every time a Printful sale is made through your referral link, a commission lands in your pocket.

Sure, it’s a lot more complicated than that, but during our research we found that Printful at least makes it incredibly easy for those who want to give it a try. If you’re keen on affiliate programs in the ecommerce or print-on-demand (POD) space, Printful may be the perfect partner for you.

Keep reading and we explore every facet of the program, like the amount of money you can make and the marketing tools included.

First Off: What Exactly is Printful?

Printful is a print-on-demand and fulfillment company, with dropshipping elements, for ecommerce businesses.

What does that mean?

An online store can sign up for Printful and upload custom designs on countless products, like apparel, tote bags, and pillows.
Using product pictures provided by Printful, merchants can sell the products on their stores, without having a single piece of inventory.
When a customer purchases an item, the order gets sent to Printful, and they print the design on the appropriate product (like a hoodie or mug), on demand.
Printful also handles product storage, packaging, and shipping to customers, similar to a dropshipping operation.

This means that printing, warehousing, and shipping are all left to Printful, leaving merchants to focus on product design and marketing.

Printful integrates with major ecommerce platforms like Shopify, WooCommerce, and Etsy, making it easy for store owners to add a wide variety of print-on-demand products to their stores.

There are over 333 products in the Printful collection, including:

T-shirts
Hoodies
Hats
Mugs
Posters
Phone cases
And more

The Printful business has, over the years, evolved to allow merchants, and regular consumers, to order custom print-on-demand products for themselves. This is similar to custom merchandise printing services like Custom Ink and Zazzle.

Target Audience of the Printful Affiliate Program

Printful's affiliate program is ideal for influencers, bloggers, YouTubers, podcasters, and website owners who want to earn commissions by promoting Printful products and services. It makes the most sense to sign up for the Printful Affiliate Program if your target audience might find selling print-on-demand products useful.

So, affiliates aren’t marketing the actual print-on-demand products; they’re promoting the overall Printful service—so that other businesses and individuals can take advantage of the print-on-demand process.

Affiliates might try to promote Printful to:

Ecommerce business owners looking for print-on-demand fulfillment
Online creators making merchandise for their brand or audience
Crafters and artists interested in selling their designs without inventory risk
Bloggers and online creators who want to add an extra source of income by way of branded merchandise

How the Printful Affiliate Program Works (And Earnings Potential)

Printful offers a simple and appealing rate to affiliates:

10% base commission on all sales

That’s all you have to remember, no complicated commission charts, or changing rates, like with Amazon’s Affiliate Program.

This is a unique affiliate program, because your income actually comes from the users of Printful, not by promoting the 300+ products from Printful.

Printful is free to use, though. So, how do you make money as an affiliate?

Well, merchants do eventually end up spending money on Printful. Here’s how:

By selling a product: Store owners pay a base fee for each product they sell, so affiliates get a cut of those sales.
By loading their accounts with money: Merchants often do this to pay for upcoming sales.
When merchants pay for special services or products: Printful charges for extras like custom package inserts and graphic design services. There’s even something called “Printful Memberships,” some of which have paid options.

Here’s how it works to get an affiliate referral:

Someone clicks through your link.
They sign up for a Printful account.
They set up a store that uses Printful’s print-on-demand services.
You get 10% of every purchase that Printful fulfills through that store.

That could make for some rather impressive income, especially if you direct someone to Printful who builds a highly successful store.

It’s important to know, however, that there’s an expiration to each referral:

After 12 months, you no longer receive commissions from the referred store.

Still, one year is an incredibly long amount of time when compared to other affiliate programs. That’s 12 months of recurring income and, if you continue referring customers to Printful, the new ones start the clock all over again.

We estimate that with each sale by a merchant, affiliates can make anywhere from $1 to $10+ per product sold, and that’s not including multi-item orders. It all builds up, since affiliates are linked to the merchants they refer to Printful. For instance, if a store you’ve referred has sales of $5,000 in its first month, you get $500.

Not surprisingly, success stories from Printful affiliates report 4-figure monthly earnings for top affiliates when they promote through multiple channels.

Eligibility Criteria for Affiliates

Printful has a few basic requirements affiliates need to meet to join the program:

Have an email address, website, blog, or social media account to promote your link
Agree to Printful's terms of service

Other than that, you can sign up as a Printful affiliate for free and start earning. There are no minimum sales requirements, fees, or locational restrictions.

Key Features and Perks of Printful's Affiliate Program

What else do you get with the Printful Affiliate program? There’s actually quite a bit on the Affiliate Dashboard.

Marketing Materials and Resources

Printful provides affiliates with a variety of marketing materials and resources to help promote Printful products and services. These include:

Banners, badges, and text links to use on websites and social media
Email and social media templates
Product images and lifestyle photos
Brand guidelines and logos
Marketing copy and suggested posts
Discount codes to share with audience

Having these professionally designed assets makes it easy for affiliates to start promoting Printful quickly and effectively.

Tracking and Reporting Tools

Printful provides affiliates with access to their dashboard, which includes helpful tracking and reporting features such as:

Real-time stats on clicks, impressions, conversions, and earnings
Data exports for analyzing performance
Campaign tracking for monitoring ROI
Affiliate link management

These tools enable affiliates to monitor their promotional activities and identify top-converting campaigns, allowing them to optimize their efforts for maximum commissions over time.

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Affiliate Support and Feedback

In addition to providing marketing assets and tracking tools, Printful also offers helpful support to affiliates. Affiliates can reach out with any questions and get assistance from the Printful affiliate team. Printful also provides feedback and suggestions to help affiliates improve their promotional strategies and increase conversions.

Navigating the Affiliate Dashboard

Printful's affiliate dashboard is clean, modern, and easy to navigate. Key features include:

Getting started guide for new affiliates
Account overview showing earnings and clicks
Link management for creating/customizing affiliate links
Promotional materials library
Real-time stats and reporting
Settings for updating payment info
Custom landing pages
FAQs
Tax and legal information

The dashboard has all the tools affiliates need while still being simple enough for beginners to use effectively.

How to Apply for the Program

If you're interested in joining the Printful Affiliate Program, the application process is straightforward. Here's a step-by-step guide to help you apply:

Go to the Printful Affiliate Program page and click “Get started.”
Fill out the application form with your personal and website information. Make sure to provide accurate and up-to-date information to avoid any delays in the approval process.

Include other information like your country and languages.

Agree to the “Terms and Conditions, and click “Submit” to complete your application.

Once you've submitted your application, the Printful team will review it and notify you (within 2-3 business days) of your acceptance status via email. If your application is approved, you'll receive access to your unique affiliate link and other promotional materials to help you get started.

In our experience, it’s really easy to get into the Printful Affiliate program, but not all applications are approved. Printful reserves the right to decline any application that does not meet their requirements or standards. If your application is declined, you'll receive an email explaining the reason for the denial.

Strategies for Maximizing Earnings

If you’re wondering how best to improve your chances of making money with the Shopify Affiliate program, we’ve got you covered with several tips below.

Promoting Your Affiliate Link

Here are some effective strategies affiliates use to promote their Printful link and drive conversions:

Regardless of your medium, actually use/test Printful and promote it as a user, someone who’s found value in it for your own business
Share the link prominently on your website and social media bios
Promote Printful in blog posts, videos, and podcasts as a sponsor
Include your affiliate link in YouTube video descriptions
Leverage email marketing and send dedicated promo emails
Promote custom product design contests and giveaways
Use incentive offers like discount codes or free shipping

Diversifying Your Affiliate Activities

Successful affiliates promote their link across multiple platforms and formats including:

Website display ads
Social media posts
YouTube affiliate marketing
Sponsored blog content
Email lists and newsletters
Paid advertising campaigns

Diversification allows Printful affiliates to reach a wider audience and maximize conversions.

Leveraging Printful's Products and Brand

Printful has a strong brand reputation and high-quality products that convert well. Affiliates should leverage this by:

Educating their audience about print-on-demand and how Printful works
Highlighting the quality and reliability of Printful's manufacturing
Promoting Printful's excellent customer service
Sharing positive reviews and testimonials about Printful

Pros and Cons of Printful's Affiliate Program

If you’re still on the fence about promoting the Printful Affiliate program to your audience, we put together some pros and cons to help you out.

Pros

A simple 10% commission rate
12 months of passive earning from every store you refer to Printful
The application process is very fast, without many requirements
You can promote Printful from any country, and your affiliates can come from anywhere around the world
Payments can be withdrawn whenever you want (into a PayPal account) as long as you have at least $25 in affiliate commissions
A quick affiliate link and intuitive dashboard without the clutter you see from other affiliate programs
Helpful marketing materials and resources provided
Strong brand reputation and high-converting products
Real-time tracking and reporting through affiliate dashboard
Excellent affiliate support team

Cons

Printful has a smaller product catalog vs some competitors, like Printify (but Printful’s product quality is significantly better that Printify)
Your passive income eventually expires after 12 months
Affiliates may need to educate audience about print-on-demand
There’s no way to promote individual products (and make a commission) from certain shops you’ve referred to Printful)

Final Verdict: Is Printful's Affiliate Program Worth Joining

Yes, Printful's affiliate program is definitely worth joining for most digital marketers and online influencers. The competitive commission rates, helpful resources, and strong branding provide a solid foundation for earning substantial affiliate income. As long as you are committed to actively promoting Printful on an ongoing basis (since those referrals do expire after a year), there is excellent earning potential.

With all that, please let us know in the comments if you have any questions about the Printful Affiliate program. If you’re a current affiliate, or you’ve promoted Printful in the past, share your thoughts on its perks and downsides!

Printful Affiliate Program – Everything You Need to Know