Teelaunch vs Printify: Which Comes Out On Top?

Suppose you're considering launching a print-on-demand business (POD) and have started researching your options. If so, you'll likely have encountered TONS of different print-on-demand services. 

So, to help cut through the noise, I'm comparing two noteworthy contenders: Teelaunch vs Printify.

With that said, let's delve straight into this Teelaunch vs Printify comparison:

How Teelaunch Works?

Teelaunch’s website tells me it uses technology to connect eCommerce stores to its POD partners worldwide. 

Signing up with an email, password, store name, and phone number is easy and free.

Once you have your account, simply connect Teelaunch to your online store and start customizing products to list. 

Teelaunch's catalog of print-on-demand products is 300+ strong and organized into the following categories:

• Accessories
• Apparel
• Drinkware
• Home Goods
• Jewelry
• Kitchenware
• Lifestyle
• Office
• Pets
• Wall Art
• Sports

Although I could browse the Teelaunch product catalog without an account and see details about each product, including shipping prices, I couldn’t start customizing without signing in. 

Some categories, such as jewelry, only offer a limited choice of products. In contrast, the widest choice of POD items can be found in the apparel, sports, and wall art categories. 

At this point, it's worth highlighting that apparel products are branded. For example, American Apparel, Bella, Champion, and District. 

Moving on to customization, I clicked on a product I wanted to design (once I signed up for an account). As you can see, I went for the Champion Hoodie. 

Where product design is concerned, you must have your artwork ready to go and sized as per Teelaunch's specific requirements. These vary depending on what you’re designing. For apparel, you have to upload PNG files, for example. For other products, Teelaunch has templates you can edit. For example, when designing a bathmat, I could add my artwork image or download and edit the Teelaunch template for that particular product. 

However, you can't edit your design within Teelaunch; you can only upload and place it in the predetermined spaces or use the template provided. 

In each instance when you’re designing, you can view specific product design guides for the relevant product. 

I found design guides for all the products Teelaunch offers. For example, Teelaunch has a specific product guide for its mugs. 

Once you’ve finished your design, click the Next button at the bottom of the page. This will take you to a page where you can add a product title and description to appear on your storefront. This page is also where you set your product price. 

When I tested this, I could see that Teelaunch showed me the following:

• The price it will charge me for the product 
• Shipping rates
• A suggested sale price
• The profit I’d make

Please note that it's possible to edit the suggested price.

When customers place orders through your site, Teelaunch receives the order and starts processing it at one of its global print facilities (as mentioned in my summary at the start of this review). 

It's also worth highlighting that Teelaunch doesn't offer sample products for you to try. 

How Printify Works?

Printify allows its customers to create and sell beautiful custom products in minutes.

Users will find 800+ competitively priced products in the following categories: 

• Clothing for men, women, and children: including sweatshirts, t-shirts, sportswear leggings, and vests
• Accessories: including phone cases, hats, underwear, tote bags, backpacks, pets, and car accessories
• Home and living: including mugs, glassware, posters, magnets and stickers, and home decor

To sign up, Printify asks for the following:

• Name
• Store details
• Payment details for when you start selling

However, unlike Teelaunch, I could browse Printify’s product customization capabilities without doing this. 

In each instance, I clicked on a product I liked the look of and could see details about its sizes, material, fit, price, key features, care instructions, and more. As you can see, I checked out the Unisex Heavy Blend Sweatshirt.

Each product page lists which of Printify’s print partners offer a POD service for that product. Plus:

• Their location
• Product price
• Estimated shipping cost
• Average production time
• Product sizes and colors

Once I’d chosen which provider to go with, I clicked their “start designing” button, which brought me to Printfy’s easy-to-use Mockup Generator.  

This tool makes it easy to:

• Upload your own design file from your device, Dropbox, Google Drive, or Fiverr
• Add text
• Choose a Shutterstock image for free and only pay for it when you sell
• Choose from Printify’s selection of graphics

Then, once you're done designing, you can preview it before sending it to print. Understandably, you can’t move past this step unless you’ve signed up for an account and connected your store. 

At the time of writing, Printify was developing its AI image generator (Beta), which is only available to a select number of merchants. 

Printify Premium Plan subscribers also get access to discounted base prices. However, please remember that Printify doesn't provide additional discounts for sample orders. It’s also important to note that Printify’s Print Providers cannot offer unprinted products (blanks).

Finally, you can add a product title and description and set any product variants and prices. Then when you're good to go, you can publish to your store! 

Teelaunch's Pros and Cons

Pros

• Teelaunch offers a well-rounded variety of products.
• It's free to use
• Some users praise Teelaunch's product quality.
• Some users applaud the affordability of Teelaunch's products, leaving room for a decent markup. 

Cons

• Some users complain about very slow customer service.
• Over a year ago, it seems Teelaunch implemented an update that caused some users to miss customer orders.
• You can't make design tweaks within Teelaunch.

Printify's Pros and Cons

Pros

• Printify's product catalog is vast – there's a wide range of products.
• Customizing Printify's products is effortless, making it an excellent choice for beginners.
• Printify integrates with lots of eCommerce platforms and online marketplaces.
• Some users praise Printify's excellent customer service.

Cons

• Some users complain that designs fade quickly after washing.
• There aren't any product discounts unless you’re signed up for a paid plan
• Printify uses individual print partners, so they don’t have final product control; that’s down to the print partner.

Teelaunch vs Printify: Pricing

Teelaunch

Teelanch is free to use unless you want to access unlimited graphics and fonts via its partner Creative Fabrica. This will set you back $29 a month.

Printify

Printify has three plans:

1. Free: This is great for merchants starting a business. You can connect up to five stores per account and create unlimited product designs.
2. Premium: This is best for entrepreneurs with growing sales and costs $24.99 a month paid annually or $29 a month billed monthly. You get everything in the free plan, plus you can connect up to ten stores and enjoy up to 20% discount on all products.
3. Enterprise: For merchants with 10,000+ daily orders, you'll have to contact Printify directly for a custom quote. You'll get everything above, plus you can connect unlimited stores.

Teelaunch vs Printify: Integrations

Teelaunch

Integrates with Shopify and Etsy (via your Shopify store for the latter), WooCommerce, and BigCommerce. You can also access Teelaunch API.

Printify

Printify integrates with the following:

• Shopify
• Etsy
• Walmart
• PrestaShop
• BigCommerce
• eBay
• Wix
• WooCommerce
• Squarespace
• Shutterstock
• Printify Popup Store

You can also access Printify API

Teelaunch vs Printify: Fulfillment and Shipping Costs

Teelaunch

The Teelaunch app batches orders every four hours. Once an order is in the Teelanuch system, it's checked, assigned to a print facility, printed on paper, and sent to the production floor. At this phase, Teelaunch can’t guarantee that you can cancel or change your order. 

Then, once the order meets its quality control standards (I couldn't find a reference to what these are), a shipping label is printed. This then triggers a tracking number sent to your store to be emailed to your customer. 

Once an order is ready for shipping, it can take 12-24 hours for the tracking to update, as the courier will still need to pick up the orders from the print facility. 

Shipping costs vary according to the product and where you are shipping to and from. For example, returning to our Champion Sweatshirt, this costs $9.50 to ship to the US, $14.50 to Canada, $13.00 to the UK, and so on. 

The good news is I could easily see all shipping costs on each product page. 

Printify

When an order comes into Printify, it charges your linked credit card or Printify balance for your product's production price and shipping charges. Once paid, the order is sent to production. 

When an order is shipped, tracking is synced with your sales channel. You can set automatic shipping notifications to allow customers to receive tracking details. 

Shipping costs vary according to which:

• Printify print partner you go for
• The type of shipping
• The product you’re selling

For example, a Unisex Jersey T-Shirt can be shipped for various prices depending on your location, the print partner’s location, and where it’s going (as you can see in the above screenshot).

Like Teelaunch, I found it simple to see how much it would cost me to ship something I’d just created and sold to a customer. 

Teelaunch vs Printify: Customer Support

Teelaunch

You can get in touch with Teelaunch's support team via their contact form. However, there's no information available on response times or office hours. That said, I received a response within minutes when I contacted them. 

There's also an online Knowledge Base where you can type in questions. This will then populate relevant resources that hopefully answer your query, but this is somewhat limited. 

There are links to a few external podcasts in which Teelaunch is mentioned and a website called Storehacks, run by a Teelaunch user called Ronnie McKenzie, which offers some eCommerce-related strategies and ideas. 

Lastly, there’s a blog where you’ll find posts, news, tips, and suggestions on how to make your products stand out. Although the blog looks hopeful, nothing is categorized. I had to wade through the content or use its limited search bar. 

Printify

Printify has an online Help Center with featured articles, a search bar to type in your questions, and articles categorized into topics like:

• Getting started
• Design
• Fulfillment and shipping 

…And much more. 

You can reach Printify by completing an online form, but no information is given about response times. 

Once you have a Printify account and are signed in, the platform keeps all your help requests in one place on your dashboard. 

Teelaunch vs Printify: My Final Thoughts

So you’re at the end of my Teelaunch vs Printify review; I hope you’ve found it a good source of information!

So, which of the two is the best print-on-demand platform?

Overall, I think Teelaunch is a worthy contender; however, I’d pitch Printify as the more comprehensive POD partner. Its website is super user-friendly, its product choice is enormous, and it has relationships with competitively priced print providers in more countries for you to choose from. 

But where Printify really shines over Teelaunch is its design capabilities; these far outstrip Teelaunch’s. 

But why not give them both a try for yourself before diving in? Let us know which one you end up with in the comments below. Or are you considering other print-on-demand companies like Gooten? Either way, we want to hear your thoughts!