Printful vs Sellfy 2024: The 101 Comparison Guide

Printful vs Sellfy: Which solution should you choose for your growing business?

We’ve used both of these tools in the past, both experimenting with them for comprehensive reviews, and leveraging them to help ecommerce businesses design and grow their print on demand stores.

While both Sellfy and Printful support the print on demand business model, they take a slightly different approach. Printful gives you the fulfillment network and resources you need to sell products through an existing ecommerce store or marketplace. Sellfy is an all-in-one ecommerce platform, with built in print on demand services.

So, which is right for you?

Quick Verdict

Printful is our go-to print on demand platform, thanks to it’s exceptional range of products, ability to integrate with a variety of platforms and marketplaces, and commitment to quality.

However, if you want an all-in-one solution that also offers the tools you need to build your ecommerce store, Sellfy might be an attractive, and affordable alternative.

Printful vs Sellfy: Key Takeaways

Here are some of the key takeaways we gathered from this comparison:

• Printful offers a wider range of products in the POD market to choose from, as well as more customization methods, and potentially higher product quality.
• Sellfy allows users to build their own custom storefront, though the customizations are limited compared to other website builders.
• Printful is cheaper on the surface with access to a free plan. However, you will need to pay for your online presence, products, and shipping.
• Printful offers more integrations and selling options, thanks to its API, and a wide range of native connections with other platforms.
• Printful provides more value-added services and customer support, as well as access to a wider selection of self-help resources.

Printful vs Sellfy: Pros and Cons

Both Printful and Sellfy are excellent tools for evolving ecommerce vendors. They’re both ideal for those interested in the print on demand business model, set to reach a value of $64.3 billion by 2023. However, they have distinct positives and negatives to consider.

Printful Pros and Cons

Sellfy Pros and Cons

Printful vs Sellfy: The Core Features

Although both Printful and Sellfy support print on demand vendors, they take a different approach to empowering business owners. Printful is a platform that integrates with existing stores and marketplaces, and offers global fulfillment solutions.

Sellfy is an ecommerce platform with integrated print on demand capabilities.

Printful Key Features

Printful is one of our favorite print on demand platforms, offering access to a huge variety of white-label products across different categories. There are hundreds of products to choose from, and the excellent approach to quality management boosts your chances of high profits.

Core features of Printful include:

• Huge product collection: Printful offers access to a wide variety of customizable products, including unique premium and eco-friendly products, accessories, branded collections, and more. There are even specialist products available for fast delivery.
• Selling options: While you can’t build a store with Printful, you can sell through a host of platforms and marketplaces, including Shopify, Wix, Amazon, and more. You can also sell through social channels, or use the Merch Share option to collaborate on products.
• Design creation: Printful comes with fantastic design tools, and a dedicated mockup generator so you can see what products will look like before they’re printed. There are even various customization techniques to choose from, such as embroider, DTG, and DTF.
• Resources: Printful’s platform is packed with resources for beginners, such as an educational academy, help center, a range of guides, demo options, and a newsroom for up-to-date trending information in the POD landscape.
• Fulfillment and support: As a leading fulfillment provider, Printful ships products all around the globe, from a network of fulfillment centers. Only 0.24% of these orders are re-shipped thanks to the company’s quality assurance methods.

Printful also offers 24/7 support in various languages, via both chat and email.

Sellfy Key Features

Sellfy is an ecommerce platform built for beginners looking to embrace the benefits of both online selling and print on demand. You can use Sellfy to sell white-label, digital, and subscription products, through a dedicated and customized storefront.

Key features of Sellfy include:

• Product options: Retailers can use Sellfy to sell digital products like eBooks, print-on-demand products (such as hats and t-shirts), physical products, subscriptions, and even video streaming memberships.
• Store builder: Unlike Printful, Sellfy allows users to build a store they can customize with their logo, colors, and layout preferences. You can use this store to sell in multiple languages and currencies, on the web and via mobile. Plus, you can connect to a custom domain.
• Integrated shopping cart: Sellfy has its own integrated shopping cart and checkout, which supports a range of payment processing options, including Stripe and PayPal. All payments are secured with PCI-DSS standards.
• Protections: Alongside PCI-DSS security, Sellfy also offers a range of other ways for business leaders to protect their store. You can limit the available downloads users can access, and add buyer email addresses to your PDF products.
• Embedding: With Sellfy’s embedding tools, users can sell through a range of channels, including YouTube, social media, and via buy now buttons on existing websites. You can essentially turn any website into a store.
• Marketing: Built-in marketing features like email marketing solutions, upselling systems, tracking pixels, and discount codes help Sellfy users increase conversions, and learn more about the purchasing behaviors of their target audience.

Ease of Use: Which Platform is Simpler?

Both Sellfy and Printful are extremely simple tools for beginners. Neither option requires any technical or coding knowledge to use. Plus, since both platforms support print on demand, business owners don’t have to worry much about dealing with inventory, packaging, and fulfillment.

With Printful, you can sign up for an account and start designing your own products in seconds. Printful has some of the best design tools available today, with integrated AI solutions to ensure you always get a high-quality print. The mockup generator features drag and drop components, and simple segments where you can change colors, fonts, and images.

Plus, once you’ve designed your products with Printful, selling them is extremely easy, thanks to the straightforward integrations the platform has with tools like Amazon, Etsy, Shopify, Wix, and many others. You can even use Printful’s API to automate various aspects of your business.

Sellfy is also wonderfully straightforward. Users can create a stunning storefront in minutes, using pre-existing templates, and an easy editor to adjust logos, and colors. Each store is automatically optimized for mobile devices, and can be adapted to any language. Plus, it comes with an integrated shopping cart, and the ability to connect to your own domain.

Sellfy even allows users to bypass the process of creating their own store, by embedding links for products into buy-now buttons, product carts, and more. You can turn any existing website into a store with a simple line of code, and even add your products to YouTube end screens and cards.

However, if you do choose to build a store with Sellfy, we found the templates were a little basic. You won’t be able to build the same type of store you could create with an alternative like Shopify.

Printful vs Sellfy Product Variety and Quality

One major difference between Printful and Sellfy comes in the variety of products you can sell, and their overall quality. One of the reasons we often recommend Printful to POD vendors, is that they offer a huge selection of high-quality products and customization techniques.

You can create a range of different items, from pins, patches, and hair accessories, to bags, sweatpants, t-shirts-, wall art, laptop cases, and drinkware. Printful also gives you more ways to customize your products, with all-over print, embroidery, DTF, and DTG printing.

Although some of Printful’s products are more expensive than those you’d get from other POD vendors, they benefit from exceptional quality. Only a fraction of Printful products are ever returned, thanks to their strong quality assurance methods and AI-driven design tools.

From a Print on Demand perspective, Sellfy offers far fewer options to choose from. There are common product types available, like t-shirts and sweatshirts, and the design tools are relatively basic. However, you can choose from both embroidery and digital printing for customization.

Additionally, Sellfy leverages eco-friendly development methods, making it an ideal choice for eco-conscious companies.

The product quality can vary, although Sellfy does its best to deliver exceptional results. Notably, you can sell various products on your Sellfy store alongside POD products, such as physical, digital, and subscription products.

Sellfy’s checkout solution makes it easy to accept secure payments through various processors, and protect your intellectual property. You can sell access to video streams.

Marketing and Selling Tools

When it comes to marketing and selling tools, Sellfy does have a slight edge over Printful. With Printful, you can sell products through a range of platforms, including social media channels, marketplaces, and ecommerce platforms like Shopify and Wix.

However, you can’t build your own branded store. Sellfy allows users to create a custom storefront (with a dedicated domain and checkout).

You can add your own logo and branding, and leverage templates pre-optimized for mobile. While the storefronts aren’t as impressive as the ones we’ve created with tools like Shopify, they’re a good option for beginners.

They also come with access to built-in marketing tools you don’t get on Printful, such as discount codes, email marketing options, tracking pixels for social media, and upsell offers.

Of course, if you’re using Printful with a tool like Shopify, you can access all of these resources through your ecommerce platform, but there may be additional fees to consider.

Additionally, Sellfy also allows users to sell through multiple channels with buy now buttons, product cards, store embed options, product links, and more. There are also affiliate marketing and cart abandonment tools on some plans.

Sellfy vs Printful: Customer Support

Both Sellfy and Printful take a similar approach to customer support. They both offer assistance through live chat and email. However, Sellfy does promise “priority” support to companies with more expensive plans. What gives Printful an edge is its self-help resources.

Sellfy has a handful of FAQ, guides, and articles available on its Help Center. However, Printful has its own learner academy, blog, news section and more. The company also offers access to extra services for a price, such as help with product videos and photography.

Sellfy vs Printful: Pricing and Plans

If you already have an online store or marketplace storefront, Printful is likely to be the cheapest option for you. The free plan offered by the platform includes everything you need to get started, including automatic global order fulfillment, and Printful’s design maker.

You also get a logo maker, with 100+ templates, mockup generator, white-label packaging slips, and around-the-clock support. Alternatively, you can upgrade and access additional services for an extra fee, such as additional branding options, custom pack-ins and packaging, warehousing services, and creative services (video and photo shoots).

Keep in mind, with all Printful plans, you’ll need to pay for the base cost of your products, shipping, and any other extras you need (such as an ecommerce platform subscription).

Printful also offers “memberships” which come with unique benefits:

• Printful Growth: $24.99 per month or free if you make over 12k in sales in 12 months: 20% off DTG products, 30% off other products, 7% branding discounts, product transfer assistance and more.
• Printful Business: Only for sellers with more than $60k in sales in 12 months: Up to 33% off most product categories, 22% off DTG products, 25% off sample orders, 9% off branding options, priority support and free embroidery digitization.

Sellfy users can get started with a 14-day free trial. After that, there are three premium plans to choose from, with discounts on yearly and two-year subscriptions. Options include:

• Starter: $29 per month: Support for up to $10k in sales per year, unlimited products, subscription and digital products, email marketing and custom domain options.
• Business: $79 per month: All the features of Starter, plus support for up to $50k in sales each year, cart abandonment, product upselling, affiliate marketing, store migration, and the ability to remove branding by Sellfy.
• Premium: $159 per month: The features of Business plus support for $200k in sales per year, priority support, and product migration services.

Alternatives to Sellfy and Printful

If neither Printful or Sellfy seem like the right option for your business, there are some excellent alternatives you can consider. Our favorites include:

• Printify: Similar to Printful, Printify integrates with a wide range of platforms, and offers access to a huge selection of customizable products. The company partners with vendors around the world, giving you access to exceptional versatility and diversity.
• Gelato: One of the most reliable print on demand vendors we’ve found, Gelato promises exceptional product quality, quick production and fulfillment times, and access to a huge range of products. It can also integrate with a variety of online sales platforms.
• Teespring: If you want to launch a print on demand business without creating an online store, Teespring allows you to create and list custom products on an existing marketplace environment, alongside other competing products, for no upfront costs.

Sellfy vs Printful: Which is Best?

We recommend Printful over Sellfy to print on demand vendors. Although you can’t create a store with Printful, you can sell a huge selection of high-quality products through virtually any channel, marketplace, or platform, through integrations.

The Printful design tools are more robust, and the company’s approach to customer service outshines Sellfy’s. However, if you’re looking for a simple way to get started with print-on-demand and don’t have an existing store, then Sellfy could be an affordable option.

When to Use Printful

We recommend using Printful when you:

• Want access to a huge range of unique print on demand items
• Prioritize exceptional product quality and design tools
• Want to connect with a range of sales channels and platforms
• Need access to bonus value-added services and support
• Have an existing store or marketplace presence

When to Use Sellfy

We’d recommend using Sellfy when you:

• Want to add ecommerce features to an existing website
• Need to build a simple online storefront
• Want access to marketing, store-building, and POD tools in one platform
• Have a limited budget
• Want to sell various products (digital and physical)

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