Zazzle vs Printful: Which Platform is Best for You?

Zazzle vs Printful: Which is best?

After testing both platforms, I think Printful is definitely the better pick if you’re looking for stronger design tools, more freedom to build an online brand, and higher profit margins. However, Zazzle does offer a fantastic product collection, and makes it easier to start selling online.

Though both are print on demand solutions, they approach the business model in different ways. Printful integrates with a range of sales channels, while Zazzle allows creators to sell on a pre-existing marketplace. Here’s everything you need to know about both platforms.

Zazzle vs Printful: Pros and Cons

Printful Pros and Cons

Zazzle Pros and Cons

Zazzle vs Printful: The Core Features

As I mentioned above, Printful and Zazzle do take a different approach to print on demand. Zazzle is an online marketplace where creators can upload and sell products to earn a royalty fee. Printful is a POD solution you can integrate with your existing sales channels.

However, they do offer some similar features.

Product Options and Customization

Both Zazzle and Printful allow companies and creators to customize a huge range of products. I’ve always loved how Printful puts quality first, allowing you to choose from countless luxurious and eco-conscious items. However, the company does focus more on apparel than anything else.

Zazzle takes a slightly broader approach, with unique products ranging from sports accessories and games to party supplies and skateboards. One major difference is in how you can customize your products on both platforms.

Both solutions have excellent design tools, but I think Printful’s mockup generator is more robust, and I appreciate the AI-powered upscaling tools, which boost the quality of any images you want to add to products.

Printful also offers more “printing options”, such as all-over print and embroidery, while Zazzle focuses mainly on direct-to-garment printing.

Product Quality and Profitability

Product quality is an important consideration when choosing a Print on Demand supplier. The better the quality of your products, the more you can potentially charge for them. Printful has a fantastic reputation for quality, with a 99% customer satisfaction rate.

It sources high-quality garments and materials from well-known vendors, and the printing team uses the latest high-tech machinery.

Zazzle does take a comprehensive approach to ensuring that products meet with customer standards, but the overall print quality can be somewhat variable, depending on the files you use. That’s one of the reasons why I love Printful’s AI upscaler as it reduces the risk of blurry images.

In terms of profitability, both companies give you a lot of control over what you can charge for your products. With Zazzle, you can set your own royalty rates, although the company retains a 15% commission on all sales.

Plus, it’s worth noting that you’ll be competing for customers with a lot of other sellers, so you might struggle to make sales if prices are “too high”.

Printful allows you to sell products directly through your own channels, so you have full control over pricing. However, it’s worth noting the base cost of Printful’s products can be quite high, particularly when compared to other POD vendors.

Fulfillment and Sales Channels

The biggest difference between Printful and Zazzle is that Printful integrates with dozens of different sales channels, while Zazzle only give you the option to sell through its existing marketplace.

The fact that there’s already a marketplace to sell on does save you a lot of time and effort running your own store, but it means you’ll be competing for attention with a lot of other vendors.

On the plus side, I do like that Zazzle actively promotes the site to help bring new traffic to your product pages.

However, Printful’s ability to integrate with ecommerce platforms like Shopify, marketplaces like Etsy, and social media channels means you’ll have more opportunities to build a memorable brand, and scale your sales.

Both companies support global fulfillment. They also both allow you to access both standard, and “express” or expedited shipping. With Zazzle, customers can choose which shipping method they want and pay extra for the delivery.

With Printful, it’s up to you to decide whether you want to charge a higher shipping fee, or include that in the cost of your product.

Ease of Use and Customer Support

I had no problem using either Printful or Zazzle. You don’t need any previous design knowledge or coding skills to use either of these platforms. You can create an account for free in a couple of seconds, and start creating designs.

However, Printful’s design tools are a bit more intuitive, and make it a little easier to ensure you’re creating great items, thanks to the added AI.

Zazzle’s design tools are a little more restrictive, but they’re still very easy to use. The biggest difference is that with Printful you’ll also need to set up and run your own storefront, whereas Zazzle takes this task off your plate completely.

All you need to do is add designs to the marketplace, and market them (however you like), to draw attention to the site.

For customer support, both platforms have fantastic self-help resources available, like guides, blogs, and videos.

They’re also active on social media. Zazzle primarily offers email support, though I did find a phone number for the company. Printful offers 24/7 support through email and live chat. I found both vendors to be pretty prompt at responding to questions.

Read more:

• Printful Review
• Printify Review
• Zazzle Review
• Printify vs Zazzle

Zazzle vs Printful: Plans and Pricing

Creators can get started with both Printful and Zazzle without paying anything. In fact, Zazzle doesn’t have any premium plans at all. It simply takes a 15% commission rate from each product sold on the platform. The site will pay you once you earn a specific amount, usually via PayPal.

Printful’s free plan gives you absolutely everything you need to start selling products. It includes all of the design tools you need, access to global fulfillment, and more. However, it does offer “premium” membership plans which can give you additional benefits.

The Growth plan, for instance, is free if you earn more than $12k in revenue per year, or costs $24.99 per month. It gives you a range of discounts, such as up to 20% off DTG products, 30% off other categories, and 7% off branding. Plus, it includes product transfer support.

The “Business” membership is only available to organizations earning more than $60k in revenue per year, and increases the discounts you can access. For instance, you get 33% off various product categories, 22% off DTG products, and 9% off branding, plus free digitization for embroidery.

Notably, there are some extra fees you might choose to pay for additional services from Printful too, such as help with design, custom labels and extra branding options.

Printful vs Zazzle: The Verdict

Ultimately, I think Printful is probably the best option overall if you’re looking for exceptional scalability and flexibility. It gives you more freedom to build an amazing brand and sell across multiple channels, and has slightly better design tools.

Zazzle gives you more products to choose from, and allows you to start selling without setting up an online store. However, it does expose sellers to a lot of competition from other creators, and doesn’t support omnichannel selling, which makes it much harder to scale.

Choose Printful if you want a comprehensive solution for building a full print on demand business, and choose Zazzle if you want to start selling custom products online with very little initial effort, and basically no upfront costs.