Teepublic vs Teespring: Which POD Solution is Best?

Teespring vs Teepublic: Which print-on-demand solution is most likely to help your business grow?

As the print on demand market has continued to grow in size and popularity, various new solutions have emerged to help creators and merchants rapidly create and sell their own custom products.

With both Teespring and Teepublic, would-be business owners can quickly create and sell all kinds of unique products, without having to deal with the challenges of production and fulfilment themselves.

The question is, which platform is best for your business?

We’ve evaluated the features and benefits of both services, to help you make the right choice.

What is Teespring?

Let’s start with the basics. Teespring (now Spring) is a free and easy-to-use print on demand platform that allows users to create and sell over 50 different types of products. The solution promises a straightforward way to launch your own business. Spring handles everything from item production to shipping, delivery, and even customer service on your behalf.

This means all you need to worry about as a business owner is building a memorable brand, and advertising your items to your target audience. Spring can even help with the promotional work, offering access to a “Boosted Network” for sales, and integrations with social media platforms.

What is Teepublic

Similar to Teespring, Teepublic is an all-in-one online marketplace for print on demand sellers. Owned by the Redbubble company, the platform offers quick and easy access to a range of customizable products, as well as helpful design tools, educational documents, and resources for creating your own virtual storefront.

Like Teespring, Teepublic handles all of the order production and fulfillment process for you. It also eliminates the need to create your own separate online store. Creators can create a unique profile on the platform and start selling items to thousands of customers worldwide in minutes.

How Do Teespring and Teepublic Work?

On the surface, Teespring and Teepublic seem to have a lot of similarities. They both allow creators to sign up for an account for free, and start producing custom products in minutes. Each platform comes with dedicated design tools, such as a mockup generator, and templates to help you create products.

Plus, with both platforms, you don’t need an existing ecommerce store to get started. You can create a profile and start accepting orders immediately, with no upfront costs. Both solutions also handle many of the complex parts of running an ecommerce store on your behalf, such as sourcing materials, creating products, packing, and shipping orders.

There are some slight differences in how the two services work, however.

How Teepublic Works

Teepublic allows merchants to sign up for an account and create a dedicated “Storefront” on its marketplace, where they can showcase products to potential customers from across the web. Rather than linking your store to an existing ecommerce platform or a marketplace like Ebay or Amazon, you sell directly through Teepublic, using their payment processing and order tools.

You can create as many custom products as you like on Teepublic, browsing through a range of options for home décor, garments, and accessories.

Every time you upload a new design to your storefront, it’s listed on the platform at a discount price for the first 72 hours. This helps to attract potential buyers to your store. After that, the product remains listed on your storefront for as long as you like, at your chosen price. When orders are placed, Teepublic handles the production of your items, and ships them to customers.

However, you have to handle customer service yourself. Additionally, with Teepublic, you don’t earn 100% of the sale price for each product. Artists and merchants are awarded a commission for every sale they make. Once you hit the minimum earning limit, you can extract your income.

How Teespring (Spring) Works

Like Teepublic, Teespring, or “Spring” doesn’t integrate directly with other ecommerce platforms. Instead, you create a storefront on the platform, and gain access to a dashboard with all of the tools you need. This dashboard allows users to create customized products using Spring’s library, track orders and sales, and access promotional tools.

However, Spring does allow merchants to potentially increase their profits by accessing their “Boosted Network” to list products on platforms like Amazon and Ebay. You can also create promotional codes, and showcase products on YouTube, Streamlabs, and Twitch.

This makes Spring a more enticing option for content creators, and influencers selling their own merch online. Once you make a sale with Spring, they’ll handle order production, fulfillment, and customer service on your behalf, which means you can focus on building your brand.

Teepublic vs Teespring: Ease of Use

If you’re new to the worlds of print on demand and dropshipping, then choosing a platform that’s easy to use will be crucial to your success. Fortunately, both Teepublic and Teespring keep things relatively straightforward. Neither platform requires business owners to have an existing ecommerce website to get started. You can sign up for an account, and start selling without accessing extra software.

Teepublic Ease of Use

On Teepublic, artists can sign up either with their email address or Facebook account, and start browsing through the range of products available. Once you’re ready, you can start adding your best print designs to everything from t-shirts, to phone cases, stickers, and more, using Teepublic’s built-in design tools. The mockup generator is extremely straightforward, even for beginners.

When you’re finished customizing your range of products, you can list them on your Teepublic storefront, adding your own SEO ready descriptions, and titles. Teepublic also allows you to share links to your products on various channels, to boost your chances of finding customers.

Teespring Ease of Use

Teespring (Spring) offers a very similar experience. Once you create a free account, you can use the platform’s built-in tools to upload your designs to a range of different products. Unlike Teepublic, however, the Teespring print-on-demand marketplace has a lot more selling tools to choose from. You can create custom discount codes for your products, and optimize your listings however you choose.

There’s also the option to leverage Spring’s “Boosted Network”, and list your wall art, tank tops, and other POD products on channels like Amazon and Ebay. Spring has its own product launcher to help you get started, as well as tools for creating unique promotions.

There are integrations available with common creator sales channels like the YouTube merch shelf. Plus, your Teespring dashboard comes with access to analytical tools, so you can track your sales, and make intelligent decisions about how to boost your profit margins.

The wider range of features available from the Spring Print-on-Demand service means there are more components to learn about and get used to. However, you may find you can achieve higher sales on the platform as a result.

Teepublic vs Teespring: Products and Design Quality

If you’re hoping to make a significant profit with your print on demand business, choosing a vendor with a diverse selection of high-quality products is crucial. Both Teespring and Teepublic have a variety of product categories to choose from.

With both print on demand sites, you can create a wide number of items, ranging from sweatshirts and tees, to canvas prints, hoodies, tote bags, and accessories. Both companies also use state-of-the-art printing processes, such as screen printing, to ensure your designs look great.

Teepublic may be particularly appealing to companies with a focus on eco-friendly production. All of the apparel products sold on the company are WRAP certified. This means the garments and customization options available don’t use any hazardous materials.

Spring doesn’t offer the same sustainable options, but it does have a lot of unique design tools that can help you improve the quality of your designs. You can even hire a designer from the team to help you. Plus, the company has a fantastic quality assurance program. This helps to guarantee every item you produce will meet the highest quality standards.

With both merchants, however, it’s probably a good idea to consider purchasing samples of your products before you start selling them to consumers. That’s the best way to get a clear idea of how your items are going to look and feel.

Teespring vs Teepublic: Pricing and Shipping Costs

For beginners launching a print on demand business, one of the most important considerations will always be price. The good news is that both Teespring (Spring) and Teepublic don’t charge users any subscription fees to access their services. However, you also won’t earn 100% of the profits from selling your products on either platform.

With Teepublic, whenever you create a new product, you’ll see the base price of the item you’re going to make in the mockup generator. This is the price that will be deducted from your earnings when you make a sale. There are no shipping fees to worry about, as Teepublic collects them from the buyer, rather than you as a storeowner.

The good news is you can set your own profit margins. The amount you earn will depend on the base price of the product and the margins you set. For instance, if you sell a classic T-shirt for $22, you’ll earn $4 in profit, which you can transfer to your PayPal or bank account.

Spring takes a similar approach to pricing. The profit you’ll make depends on the base costs of each item, and the profit margin you set. Notably, pending payouts worth less than $100 can be requested only once every 3 days, so you might want to group your requests.

One interesting thing that sets Spring apart from Teepublic, is it’s solution for flat pricing, and pricing discounts. The more products you sell, the more discounts you can apply to your products, boosting your chances of sales. You can learn more about the discount structure here.

Similar to Teepublic, Teespring will collect the cost of shipping from your customer. Usually, it costs around $3.99 to ship a standard T-shirt in the US. However, shipping costs can increase depending on your customer’s location, and the number of items you’re sending. There is an option for rush shipping available on Spring, for an extra fee.

Teespring vs Teepublic: Customer Support & Integrations

Both Teespring and Teepublic focus on the marketplace approach to print on demand selling. That means you’re not going to find any integrations with ecommerce platforms like Shopify or WooCommerce. If you want to connect a POD solution straight to your existing store, you might want to consider an alternative tool like Printify or Zazzle.

However, Spring does offer a few more integration options than Teepublic. For instance, the Boosted Network allows you to boost your chances of increased passive income by showcasing your designs on Ebay and Merch by Amazon. Plus, you can use integrations to list your products on the YouTube merch shelf, Streamlabs, and the Twitch merch store.

In terms of customer support, Spring and Teepublic take a slightly different approach again. Teepublic has its own “Design Guide” for artists, an FAQ page for common questions, and a blog section. You can also reach out to the team through email or physical mail.

Spring also offers a variety of self-service resources and valuable how-to guides. However, you can contact the team through live chat or email. The company also offers access to advanced design support and similar solutions for business leaders.

Teespring vs Teepublic: Pros and Cons

Teespring and Teepublic both offer business owners an easy way to get started in the world of print on demand. However, despite various similarities, both platforms have their own unique pros and cons to consider. Let’s break down the positives and negatives of each service:

Teespring

Teepublic

Teespring vs Teepublic: The Verdict

If you want to launch a print on demand business and start selling your own designs without creating an online store of your own, Teespring and Teepublic are both great platforms. Both solutions come with a range of products to choose from, high-quality printing methods and straightforward tools.

They also don’t require any initial investment from business owners, so you can experiment with as many products as you like without incurring any risk. However, Spring does offer a lot more options for omnichannel-selling and promotion. It also promises faster customer service, more advanced design tools, and a range of features to help boost your profits.