Printful vs Merchify: which solution is best for print on demand?
As custom clothing selling becomes increasingly popular in the ecommerce market, the number of platforms available to retailers is growing.
Today’s business leaders have a host of options to choose from, each promising a wide range of product options, easy fulfillment tools and more.
Both Printful and Merchify can help would-be entrepreneurs sell a variety of beautiful, customized products to customers around the world.
However, each solution has its own pros and cons to consider. Today, we’re going to take a closer look at each service, to help you make the right decision for your budding business.
Table of contents
What is Printful?
Printful is one of the best-known print-on-demand solutions on the market today, with customers all over the globe. The fulfillment company supports thousands of retailers in turning their creative ideas into products they can sell through their own ecommerce platform, or a marketplace tool.
The solution is extremely versatile, offering integrations with everything from Etsy, Amazon, and Ebay, to Shopify, Wix, and Squarespace.
Plus, it ensures business leaders can add their designs to various high-quality items, using DTG, embroidery, DTF, and all-over printing techniques.
How Does Printful Work?
Printful is a relatively straightforward solution for printing and fulfillment. Entrepreneurs can select products from a host of categories, ranging from home and living products, to accessories, clothing, and beyond.
Once they choose an item they want to customize, they can use the built-in mockup generator on the Printful site to add their own designs, and brand the product.
Using one of Printful’s integrations with a variety of marketplaces and online store builders, merchants can upload their item to their existing storefront. Every time a customer places an order, their information is sent directly to Printful.
The company then handles everything from customizing the item, to packaging it for delivery, and shipping it direct to the client. All business leaders need to do is choose the shipping rates they want to use.
What is Merchify?
Similar to Printful, Merchify is a printing and fulfillment company, dedicated to helping creators add their designs to custom products.
Located in Austin, Texas, Merchify focuses primarily on garment printing, though there are some options for customizing accessories, like drinkware and home products.
Merchify belongs to the Amplifier.com brand, and offers a variety of printing options, such as standard direct-to-garment printing, and laser engravement for stainless steel insulated tumblers and bottles.
The company is a little smaller than Printful, with fewer product options to choose from overall, but it does focus on delivering excellent quality for every client.
How Does Merchify work?
Like Printful, Merchify handles all of the production aspects of selling customized products to customers online.
However, the process is a little more complicated, as there are fewer integrations available for Merchify’s platform. Companies need to go to the Merchify website, choose an item they want to customize, and upload their designs to the integrated mock-up generator.
Unlike Printful, where it’s possible to order products one at a time, whenever a customer purchases something, Merchify requires companies to adhere to a minimum order quantity (at least 50 units).
You’ll also need to handle the inventory, shipping, and fulfillment yourself, unless you also leverage the support of the Merchify sister site, Amplifier.com.
Printful Pricing
The great thing about Printful is it’s possible to get started without any subscription costs. The solution has a free plan, which ensures you only pay for the products you create after a customer has already purchased something.
The free plan comes with access to a Design Maker, with built-in tools and visuals, mock-up generator, and automatic order fulfilment through integrations.
You can also leverage white-label packing slips for custom orders, global order fulfilment, round-the-clock-support, and a comprehensive resource hub.
Plus, there’s a logo maker available with more than 100 templates to choose from. If you want to upgrade your experience, you can choose between Printful Plus, and Printful Pro:
- Printful Plus: Starting at $9 per month for access to all the features of the free plan, plus more than 20,000 clipart images for your designs, an enhanced mock-up generator, and access to the promo maker, so you can produce compelling advertisements for your items.
- Printful Pro: $49 per month for all the features of Printful Plus, plus access to a Keyword Scout for Etsy, carrier-based shipping options, exclusive clipart images, a large image library, free embroidery file digitization, and access to premium images.
Outside of the subscription costs, the prices you’ll pay for Printful products vary depending on the item you choose, your customization options, and your preferred shipping methods.
For instance, if you want to add a specific label to your product, you’ll pay anywhere from $2.49 to $5.95 per label.
Extra branding options like pack-in flyers, business cards and stickers come with an additional fee too. Fortunately, Printful does have a profit calculator available on its website to help you determine how you should be pricing your items to get the best revenue.
Merchify Pricing
Merchify’s pricing is slightly more straightforward than Printful’s, as there are no premium subscription options to choose from. You exclusively pay the price required to customize your items according to your specific needs. Once again, the price of each product will vary.
A simple t-shirt with a custom-printed design on the front, for instance, will cost around $15 per item. However, the price will vary depending on the number of customizations you want to add, the type of printing method you choose, the color of your garment, and more.
However, you’ll need to adhere to a minimum order quantity of at least 50 products, every time you make a purchase. This means the prices for purchasing products on Merchify are often a lot higher than you’d expect from Printful.
Additionally, you’ll need to handle all of the logistics, packaging, and shipping costs of getting those items to your customers yourself. That is, unless you choose to use the Amplifier sister company service, which can handle fulfillment requirements for you, for a custom fee.
Printful Print Quality
So, how does Printful stack up against Merchify in terms of printing quality?
It’s often difficult to gauge print quality without ordering some example products from the POD company you choose yourself.
Fortunately, Printful does make it relatively easy to do that, as there are no minimum order requirements for your purchases. Plus, if you’re ordering a sample item, you’ll get 20% off the overall cost, so it’s not nearly as expensive to test out your designs as it would be with Merchify.
In general, Printful’s print quality is considered to be extremely good for the most part. While you will need to make sure you upload high-quality images to get the best results, Printful uses state-of-the-art technology to get every detail just right.
The items offered by the brand are also extremely good, with a range of options to choose from, including eco-friendly and sustainable garments.
You can choose from a host of different printing methods to get just the right finish, such as all-over printing, embroidery, DTG, and DTF printing too. Plus, the design maker makes it relatively simple to ensure you’re going to showcase your design in the best format possible.
Merchify Print Quality
Once again, Merchify takes various steps to ensure its print quality is as fantastic as possible. The Merchify production suite leverages state-of-the-art technology for printing, and can even offer laser engravement for some accessories, like stainless steel bottles.
The biggest challenge with gauging print quality from Merchify is there doesn’t appear to be any way to order samples of the product you want to create.
You’re limited to a minimum order quantity of 50 products, regardless of what you produce, so if the printing isn’t up to scratch, there’s a good chance you’ve already spent a small fortune on production.
While there doesn’t seem to be a lot of negative reviews out there about Merchify’s printing quality, it’s a lot riskier to get started with this brand than it would be to create your own designs on Printful.
On the plus side, it is worth noting that Merchify uses high-quality garments and products from well-known manufacturers, so you should find the overall durability and feel of the items is good.
Printful Best Selling Products
Printful offers a huge variety of products to choose from, ranging from clothing, to home and living products and accessories.
Although the most popular products offered by the company can vary from time to time, you can check out the trending items on the platform at any time by clicking on the “Bestsellers” tab. This will show you some of the top items offered by the company.
The Bestsellers tab allows sellers to filter through products based on the category they’re interested in exploring, such as apparel, or bags. In the apparel space, Printful’s premium t-shirts and hoodies are particularly popular. However, the company also offers a range of other trending options such as:
- Home accessories: Blankets, throws, and coffee mugs are all popular choices
- Art: Wall art, such as canvases, posters, and prints
- Drinkware: Cups, reusable bottles, and tumblers
- Accessories: hats, patches, and phone cases
- Stationary: notebooks, greeting cards, and stickers
- Sporting wear: Shoes, leggings, and hoodies
Merchify Best Selling Products
Merchify doesn’t have a “bestselling” section on its website, and there aren’t a lot of reviews out there about the platform to offer insights into which products are most popular. However, you can check out the “featured products” list on the site when you arrive on Merchify’s homepage.
Here, you’ll find a variety of t-shirts, tank-tops, hoodies, and similar solutions. Merchify’s custom-printed merch is all produced to the highest standards, so there’s a good chance you’ll be able to delight your customers regardless of what you order.
However, it’s worth noting there are significantly fewer options to choose from than you’d get with Printful.
For the most part, Merchify focuses on apparel, with options for women, men’s, and children’s clothing. However, you can also find a handful of drinkware options too. Products include:
- Drinkware: Insulated tumblers, cups, mugs, and ceramics
- Childrens apparel: Tees, onesies, long-sleeved shirts, and baseball tees
- Women’s clothing: Fitted V-necks, shirts, and tank tops
- Men/Unisex apparel: Hoodies, shirts, tank tops, and long-sleeved shirts
Merchify vs Printful: Which is Best?
Ultimately, while both Printful and Merchify produce high-quality products, they offer very different services. Printful is a full print-on-demand company, handling everything from production to fulfilment, one order at a time.
There are no minimum order quantities to worry about, plus you can order discounted samples to test print quality.
Printful also gives you access to a range of design and merchandising tools you won’t get on Merchify, and supports integrations with leading marketplaces and stores.
Alternatively, Merchify really just produces small batches of customized clothing, which you’ll need to manage, store, and ship yourself, unless you use the company’s sister fulfilment site.
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