Printful vs Society6: Which is Better in 2025?

I’ve spent over 200 hours building and testing ecommerce businesses across every print-on-demand platform you can name.

But if you’re stuck between Printful and Society6, here’s the quick answer:

Printful is the better choice if you want full control over your brand and customer experience.

Society6 is ideal for artists who just want to upload their work and let someone else handle the rest.

In this detailed review, I’ll show you exactly how these two print on demand platforms compare on everything from profit margins to branding options and ease of use.

If you're trying to build a serious ecommerce business, these are the differences that matter.

Printful vs Society6: Quick Verdict

Platform	Best For
Printful	Creators who want to build their own branded store (Shopify, Etsy, WooCommerce)
Society6	Artists who want a marketplace to handle everything

Let’s be clear: Printful gives you full control but takes more work. Society6 is hands-off, but you give up ownership. I’ve sold with both—and they serve very different goals.

Quick Comparison Table

Feature	Printful	Society6
Model	Print-on-demand + store integration	Online marketplace
Branding	Full customisation	None
Store Ownership	You own the customer	Society6 owns the customer
Product Profit	Set your own prices	Fixed royalty system
Upfront Cost	None	None
Customer Support	24/7 live chat	Email only
Ease of Use	Moderate – requires integration	Very simple
Best For	Entrepreneurs, Shopify sellers	Passive artists

Best for Beginners: Society6 Wins for Simplicity

Getting started on Society6 couldn’t be easier.

You upload your artwork, pick the products you want to sell, and that’s it.

Society6 handles the printing, shipping, customer service, and even the SEO. No integrations, no storefront setup, and no apps to install. It's about as plug-and-play as it gets.

For new artists or anyone dipping their toes into print-on-demand, this ease of use is a major advantage.

The interface is clean, and the onboarding walkthrough helps you start uploading designs within minutes.

What I liked about Society6 setup:

• No technical setup or integration needed
• They take care of all fulfillment and logistics
• Your products instantly live on their marketplace
• No need to manage customer messages or order tracking
• They handle pricing on most products, so you don’t have to

This makes Society6 ideal for creatives who want to focus on their art—not business logistics.

On the other hand, Printful is more involved.

To sell anything, you need to connect it to an ecommerce platform—like Shopify, Etsy, WooCommerce, or BigCommerce.

That means you’ll also need to design a storefront, handle customer communication, set up policies like returns and shipping, and even figure out your taxes depending on the platform you use.

What Printful setup requires:

• Linking to a third-party sales platform
• Building your storefront and uploading product listings
• Setting your pricing and choosing shipping methods
• Managing customer support, reviews, and refunds
• Customising mockups and store design
• Setting up legal pages like terms of service and privacy policy

That said, Printful gives you more control, and once it’s set up, managing things becomes second nature. But if you’re looking for the absolute easiest way to get started, Society6 wins on simplicity.

Verdict: If you're brand new and just want to sell art without building a store, Society6 is easier.

Best for Profit Margins: Printful Gives You Pricing Power

Here’s where things swing hard in Printful’s favour: you control your pricing.

You decide what to charge, how to position your brand, and what kind of margin you want to aim for. That level of flexibility is critical if you're trying to turn a side hustle into a full-time income.

With Society6, your profit is locked into their royalty structure, and it’s not generous. While you can adjust your commission on select products like art prints, for most items, you're stuck with a small percentage.

Example profit breakdown:

Product	Printful (Custom Price)	Society6 (Royalty %)
Art Print	Sell for $29 – make $12 profit	10% of sale price
T-Shirt	Sell for $28 – make $10+ profit	Around $2.20 per shirt
Mug	Sell for $18 – make $6 profit	Around $1.80 royalty

With Printful, I’ve regularly set profit margins between 40% to 60% depending on the niche, audience, and competition. I can run flash sales or bundle discounts without eating into razor-thin margins.

That’s something you simply can’t do with a fixed royalty model like Society6’s.

And as your volume grows, Printful offers volume discounts. If you’re doing more than 300+ monthly orders, you can start getting better product rates, which means even better profit margins without raising prices.

Society6 limits:

• You can’t run promotions without cutting into already-low earnings
• No access to customer emails or remarketing options
• No flexibility in bundling or up-selling strategies

Printful benefits:

• You decide what you charge
• You can offer premium pricing or value bundles
• You can upsell, cross-sell, and run retargeting ads

Verdict: If profit is a priority, Printful wins by a mile. You set your price. You keep the difference.

Best for Product Selection and Print Quality: Printful Offers More Variety

Printful has a much broader product catalog than Society6. In fact, they offer over 300 SKUs, including many niche items that appeal to very specific audiences.

Whether you're building a streetwear brand, launching a pet accessories store, or selling workout gear, there's something for almost every niche.

Printful product examples:

• Clothing: T-shirts, hoodies, leggings, joggers, swimwear
• Accessories: Hats, bags, laptop sleeves, phone cases
• Home Goods: Pillows, blankets, towels, candles
• Print Products: Wall art, canvas, posters, stickers
• Specialty: Embroidered items, eco-friendly apparel, drinkware

Most items also allow custom branding like neck tags, packaging inserts, and logo labels—features that make your store feel like a legit brand, not a generic dropshipping site.

Society6, by contrast, sticks mainly to art-based products.

Their catalog is tightly curated for a specific audience—think home decor lovers, interior design shoppers, and art collectors.

Society6 product focus:

• Art Prints and Canvas
• Wall Tapestries
• Rugs, Pillows, and Blankets
• Tech Accessories: iPhone cases, laptop skins
• Furniture (limited)

The quality from both is excellent. I’ve personally ordered test samples from each platform:

• Printful’s garments are durable, and the DTG printing holds up after dozens of washes.
• Society6’s wall art is vibrant, well-packaged, and has a high-end look. Their throw pillows and tapestries feel like designer pieces from a boutique.

But if you want to scale across niches or launch multiple product types for a single audience (e.g. gym wear and shaker bottles), Printful gives you that flexibility.

Verdict: Printful offers more product types and more control over customisation. For anyone building a multi-product brand or store, that matters a lot.

Best for Brand Building: Printful Puts Your Name on Everything

This one’s no contest. Printful gives you the tools to build an actual brand—not just a storefront. From day one, you can customise almost every touchpoint of the customer experience. That’s critical if you're trying to create a business that feels professional and scalable.

Printful lets you:

• Add your brand to packaging slips and thank-you cards
• Customise neck labels and tags for clothing
• Use your own logo, domain, and visual identity
• Control product descriptions, store design, and pricing
• Capture and own your email list and customer data

You control the entire funnel—from running Facebook or TikTok ads, to capturing leads, to building loyalty and reviews. That ownership is what turns a side hustle into a real ecommerce business.

Compare that to Society6, which takes a very different approach.

Society6:

• Sells your products on their domain
• Handles all customer interactions, including service and feedback
• Gives you no access to customer names, emails, or buying data
• Focuses on their brand, not yours—every product is promoted under the Society6 name

So while you might get some passive sales through Society6, you're building their business, not yours.

For creators who want to build something long-term—whether that’s a lifestyle brand, fashion label, or product line—Printful is the only option that gives you the tools and flexibility to grow with intention.

Verdict: Serious about your brand? Printful is the only viable option.

Best for Passive Income: Society6 Handles It All

Now, if you want to upload your art and check out, Society6 is your winner.

It’s built for artists who don’t want to touch ecommerce infrastructure. No customer service. No integrations. No storefront. Just passive income potential based on organic traffic from their marketplace.

You don’t need:

• A storefront or website
• A marketing strategy
• Customer service systems
• Fulfillment or inventory tools
• Email marketing or retargeting ads

You simply upload your artwork, select products to apply it to, and Society6 takes care of everything from product rendering to shipping and payment.

I’ve used it to test out some of my art collections that I didn’t have time to promote. Some of them made sales, others didn’t—but either way, I didn’t touch anything after uploading. It’s as passive as selling art online gets.

Printful, in contrast, expects you to be hands-on. You're responsible for:

• Driving traffic (organic or paid)
• Handling questions or returns
• Creating product listings and store content
• Managing fulfilment timelines and support tickets
• Marketing via email, social, or ads

Society6 Pros:

• Zero maintenance
• No marketing effort needed
• Works well for niche artwork or decorative prints

Society6 Cons:

• Low royalties
• No customer ownership
• No way to scale or build a brand

Verdict: Want to be completely hands-off? Go Society6.

Pricing and Fees: Both Are Free to Start, But the Models Differ

There’s no monthly fee for either platform. But the way they generate revenue—and how that affects your margins—is very different.

Printful

• Free to use (no subscription fee)
• You only pay when an order is placed
• You choose your retail price
• You keep the profit margin after product and shipping costs

Example:

Cost Item	Value
T-Shirt Base Cost	$13.95
Shipping (US)	$4.00
Retail Price	$28.00
Estimated Profit	~$10.00

You set the prices, run your own promotions, and manage your profit strategy based on your audience and goals. If you're great at marketing, you can earn significantly more. Want to charge $35 for a premium shirt? You can. Want to bundle items or run a holiday sale? It’s all up to you.

Another advantage is that Printful doesn’t touch your customer's money. The customer pays you directly through your storefront (Shopify, Etsy, etc.), and you pay Printful for the order afterward.

That means you're in full control of cash flow, refunds, and upsells. You’re not just selling a product—you’re running a full-fledged ecommerce business.

Printful also provides volume discounts if you hit higher monthly order thresholds. These discounts can significantly increase your margins, especially if you're scaling through paid ads or running bulk promotions.

Society6

• Also free to use
• You earn a fixed royalty per sale
• Society6 sets the retail price on most items
• You can adjust royalties on art prints only

Example:

Product	Retail Price	Artist Royalty (10%)
Art Print	$24.00	$2.40
T-Shirt	$28.00	~$2.20
Mug	$18.00	~$1.80

You get paid monthly, and there’s no control over margins beyond art prints. While it's easy, it doesn't offer much upside in terms of scaling profit. Whether you sell 10 mugs or 1,000, your royalty stays the same.

That flat model works well for passive sellers, but it can be frustrating for anyone trying to grow beyond a casual income stream.

Society6 also doesn’t provide detailed analytics or conversion data. You can’t track which designs perform best or why certain products aren’t selling.

Without that insight—and with no pricing control—it’s difficult to run any kind of test-and-optimize strategy to increase revenue per product or per visitor.

Verdict: Both are technically free, but Printful offers better profit potential and flexibility.

If you want to grow beyond hobbyist income, Printful’s pricing model gives you more control, more upside, and more ways to scale.

Integrations and Channels: Printful Is Omnichannel

Printful integrates with almost every major ecommerce platform and marketplace, giving you the ability to build and sell across multiple channels.

Popular integrations include:

• Shopify
• Etsy
• WooCommerce
• Squarespace
• Amazon
• eBay
• Wix
• BigCommerce
• Ecwid
• TikTok Shop

I’ve personally run Printful through both Shopify and Etsy, and the sync between platforms is seamless. It updates inventory automatically, pulls order data, and handles fulfilment based on your storefront settings.

This makes it possible to sell in multiple places at once, build diverse revenue streams, and test different audiences without switching platforms.

Society6, on the other hand, is a closed marketplace. Your listings live only within their site. You can't sell those same products on your own website or Shopify store. You also can’t export your data or direct customers elsewhere.

If you want to branch out or grow beyond one marketplace, Society6 quickly becomes a ceiling rather than a springboard.

Verdict: If you want flexibility and multiple revenue streams, Printful wins hands down.

Customer Support: Printful Wins on Responsiveness

Customer service matters—especially when you’re running a business that relies on third-party fulfilment.

Delays, misprints, or lost orders happen. How quickly and clearly a platform supports you makes a big difference.

Printful offers:

• 24/7 live chat
• Email support
• Extensive help centre with articles and tutorials
• Fast response times (typically under 5 minutes via chat)
• Proactive alerts if there’s a delay in fulfilment or inventory

They’ve also added a ticket system inside your dashboard, so tracking open issues is easy. I’ve contacted Printful support at least 20 times over the years, and they’ve consistently resolved issues fast.

Society6, in comparison, only provides email support.

There’s no live chat or phone support, and response times can range from 24 to 72 hours. If you’re not managing your customer experience directly, that’s probably fine. But if you’re trying to resolve a delay or issue mid-launch, it can be frustrating.

Verdict: Printful offers faster, more accessible support, especially if your business relies on keeping customers happy.

Design Tools and User Interface: Printful Is More Robust

Creating products inside Printful feels like working in a real studio.

Their mockup generator is powerful, responsive, and packed with useful features that help you visualise your product exactly as your customer will see it.

Printful’s design tool lets you:

• Upload high-res artwork
• Choose product variants (colour, size, style)
• Position designs on front, back, sleeves, or all-over
• Generate live product mockups for your store
• Apply the same design to multiple products at once

This gives you more creative control and ensures brand consistency across every product.

Society6, by contrast, is more hands-off. You upload a file once, and they automatically apply it to dozens of products using their standard layout templates. It’s fast, but you don’t have much input on how designs are positioned or scaled.

This can result in mismatched product visuals or less-than-ideal image placements unless your artwork fits their templates perfectly.

Verdict: Printful gives more control. Society6 saves time. Choose based on how hands-on you want to be with product design.

Who Should Use Printful?

Printful is built for ecommerce entrepreneurs who want to build a brand and run a real business.

If you're comfortable putting in the effort to market your products, build a customer base, and manage your storefront, Printful gives you the tools to scale without sacrificing control.

Choose Printful if:

• You want to build your own ecommerce store and own your customer journey
• You care about brand identity, packaging, and having a consistent aesthetic
• You want to set your own prices and manage your profit margins directly
• You plan to sell across multiple platforms like Shopify, Etsy, Amazon, and WooCommerce
• You’re okay with managing orders, running ads, and optimising conversion rates
• You want to create upsells, collect emails, and build long-term customer relationships

Printful is a better fit for people who see ecommerce as more than just a side hustle.

Whether you’re launching a niche apparel line, building out a custom product brand, or experimenting with omnichannel selling, Printful gives you the infrastructure to do it all.

This platform requires more involvement, but the trade-off is full control over your pricing, brand perception, and customer experience.

Who Should Use Society6?

Society6 is best suited for independent artists, illustrators, or designers who want to monetise their art with minimal effort. If you don't want to run a store or deal with customer support, it removes all of that friction.

Choose Society6 if:

• You’re an artist and just want to upload designs and earn royalties
• You don’t want to manage orders, fulfilment, or customer questions
• You’re okay with earning a fixed royalty on each sale
• You value simplicity over control, and don’t need to customise packaging or pricing
• You’re using it as a secondary income stream without active marketing

Society6 is ideal if you're focused more on creativity than commerce. It works especially well for artists who already have a backlog of artwork and want a quick way to monetise it passively without committing to ecommerce infrastructure.

The lack of brand ownership and pricing flexibility makes it less ideal for those with long-term business ambitions—but for passive income or creative exposure, it’s an easy and reliable solution.

Printful vs Society6: Which is The Best Print on Demand Service?

After selling with both platforms, my recommendation is clear:

Use Printful if you want control, brand-building, and the ability to scale.

Use Society6 if you’re an artist looking for passive sales with zero admin.

They’re not really competing tools—they solve different problems. One is for growing a brand and building an ecommerce business from the ground up. The other is for creatives who want a hands-off approach to monetising their work.

If you’re unsure which path fits best, try both.

Test your designs on Society6, and if they gain traction, consider migrating your bestsellers to a branded Printful store where you can scale with strategy.