Teepublic vs Redbubble (2024): Choosing your POD Solution

Teepublic vs Redbubble, which is the best option for your Print-on-demand store?

Choosing between two popular POD solutions can be complex, particularly when they have so much in common.

However, there are some slight differences between the two services. Today, we’re going to take a closer look at the pros, cons, features, and pricing of each solution, to help you make the right choice.

Pros and Cons

There are very few differences between Redbubble and Teepublic. Both platforms are owned by the same vendor from Melbourne, Australia.

They both offer a similar range of products, and the same approach to designing your own profit margin and products, and they offer creators an easy way to get started in the print on demand market. With both solutions, would-be retailers can create and sell a host of custom products.

What’s more, like most print on demand providers, both Redbubble and Teepublic handle the most complicated parts of running your own online store for you. They deal with producing your products, packaging them, and shipping them to customers, so you can focus on growth.

However, they do have some distinct pros and cons worth considering if you’re struggling to choose between the two options:

Redbubble Pros and Cons

Teepublic Pros and Cons

What is Redbubble?

Let’s start with the basics, Redbubble is a print on demand marketplace, first created in 2006. On the platform, creators can find a host of customizable products, from stickers and phone cases to hoodies and home décor, ready to modify with various designs.

The platform comes with useful tools, like a built-in mockup generator, so you can see how your own patterns and images will look on each product before you start selling. Plus, there are handy solutions for marketing and sales, designed to help you increase your profits.

What is Teepublic?

Teepublic is very similar to Redbubble. In fact, its actually one of Redbubble’s subsidiary companies, although the service operates separately from the main business. The print-on-demand platform also operates as an online marketplace, allowing creators to customize a variety of products and list them on the website for potential customers.

Teepublic is also home to a huge range of unique products, design tools for creators, and solutions to help you grow your brand. It even has its own handy design guide, with step-by-step instructions on how to make your custom merch stand out.

How Do Redbubble and Teepublic Work?

From an operational perspective, both Redbubble and Teepublic are extremely similar. Unlike some other print on demand companies and platforms, these two services don’t require merchants to have their own existing store to start selling.

Rather than integrating the solutions with ecommerce platforms like Shopify and Wix, merchants sell directly on Redbubble or Teepublic.

The two solutions operate as a dedicated online marketplace, where artists can list customized products and sell items to an existing audience. Both platforms are extremely popular, with millions of visitors from around the world ready to buy a range of items.

With both Redbubble and Teepublic, you’ll start by creating a free account on the platform, where you can monitor all of your sales, create products, and manage your listings. There are templates and design resources, created to help you add custom components to a variety of products.

Once you’ve added your design to an item, you list it on a dedicated page on the Redbubble or Teepublic marketplace. One slight difference between the two services, is that Teepublic lists every newly created item with at a discounted “sale price” for the first 72 hours.

This helps to ensure you can capture the attention of as many customers as possible when expanding your portfolio.

After the sale ends, the item stays on the platform at your chosen price for as long as you want. Whenever you make a sale on either Redbubble or Teepublic, you’ll earn a commission from the product, which can be deposited straight to your PayPal or bank account.

The items are created by the Redbubble or Teepublic team, packaged, and shipped directly to your customers, with no costs on your side. This means you can focus on marketing and finding ways to increase your sales.

Ease of Use

Since both Redbubble and Teepublic are so similar in terms of functionality, they also offer an almost identical level of simplicity to merchants. There are no minimum order requirements on either platform, and you don’t need to handle inventory or order fulfillment yourself.

Both tools are also packaged with very similar mockup and design tools, so you can examine what your products are going to look like in advance. Plus, you can order sample products from each vendor, to test their quality before you start selling to customers.

Both platforms allow you to create a “storefront”, with your own profile and bio to help you connect with your target audience. They also both deal with logistics, fulfillment, packaging, and shipping on behalf of retailers, so all you need to do is concentrate on growing your online presence.

Perhaps the biggest challenge retailers will face on these platforms is actively separating themselves from the high number of other merchants selling on the same platform. Both tools don’t offer many opportunities to make your brand stand out.

This means you may need to invest additional time into advertising on external platforms, like social media and Google.

Both POD platforms do give you opportunities to use things like search engine optimization in your listings, and both solutions can help you draw extra attention towards your items by becoming a “featured artist”. However, it does take time and effort to separate yourself from the competition.

Pricing

One thing that makes both Redbubble and Teepublic so appealing to potential merchants, is how little you need to pay to get started. There are no subscription fees for merchants on either platform, so you don’t have to worry about extra costs eating into your profits.

Any user can sign up, upload designs, and start selling tank tops, tees, canvas prints, and other products instantly. Plus, unlike other print-on-demand platforms, you don’t have to pay directly for the base price of your products, or the shipping and packaging fees associated with selling.

Instead, whenever someone purchases one of your products from these open platforms, you’ll earn a commission based on the markup you add to your products. This basically means the cost of producing your items is already removed from your earnings.

As an independent artist on Redbubble, your earnings are based entirely on your margin which defaults at 20%, but you can raise or lower that price at any time. On Teepublic, you’ll earn somewhere between 18-22% of the full price of every sale.

Both platforms do have “payment thresholds” however, so if you don’t earn a lot during your first month of selling, you may need to wait until the following month until you can access your profits. The good news is the price of the products from both services can be relatively low.

Shipping costs can vary depending on the location of your customers and other factors. For instance, Redbubble charges an average of $5.99 for shipping each product, with an additional $1.25 fee for every additional product added to the package.

Customer Support & Integrations

Since they’re both owned by the same primary company, Redbubble and Teepublic are very alike in terms of functionality, as well as customer support and integrations. Unfortunately, with both platforms, there are no integrations available for third-party ecommerce solutions.

You can add a link to your portfolio or storefront on Teepublic or Redbubble to an existing store, or marketplace like Ebay, Amazon, or Etsy.

This will direct customers back to the POD platform whenever they want to checkout and buy one of your t-shirts, art prints, or other items.

The good news is both tools do offer useful resources for beginners. You’ll be able to find articles and FAQ pages on the POD sites themselves. These walk you through things like choosing the right artist margin, creating a new design, or exploring product categories.

Both Teepublic and Redbubble also allow artists to reach out via email or contact form, though there aren’t any phone or chat services available.

You may also be able to access help with your t-shirt designs and other factors using social media channels like Facebook and Twitter.

Products and Design Quality

Both Redbubble and Teepublic offer a wide variety of products to choose from. You can sort through each type of product using categories on the website, and experiment with the mock-up generators to get an insight into how your fan art will look on different pieces. 

Both Redbubble and Teepublic offer relatively affordable products, ideal for beginners in the POD space. However, there are some differences in the variety of products you can access from both vendors. Teepublic offers more than 100 product options, ranging from pillows and pillow cases, to wall art, stickers, hoodies, tank tops and more. Plus, you can purchase designs from existing artists if you don’t have your own designs already. 

Redbubble has over 60 products to choose from, including popular options like T-shirts, Hoodies, socks, leggings, and sweatshirts. There are also various designs available from partners, brands, artists, and other designers on the platform. 

Following the design guidelines carefully should help to ensure you get a great result, but there aren’t as many quality assurance methods in place as you might expect from other leading vendors like Zazzle, Teespring, Spreadshirt, and Printify. 

The good news is that both vendors do promise to use high-quality materials and printing methods, but it’s worth doing your due diligence and testing the items for yourself before you start selling them. There’s always a risk that your design might not look exactly the same as it did on the mock-up generator

Teepublic Quality

With any POD vendor, it’s difficult to know for certain what you can expect in terms of product quality, without ordering samples of the items you want to sell. Teepublic does set high quality standards for third-party providers and partners, so you should be able to ensure a relatively good product quality for all of your customers. 

It will be up to you to ensure you’re following the design guidelines set by Teepublic carefully to avoid any printing errors. Teepublic does run quality checks, but there’s a risk that the occasional problematic product could slip through the cracks.

Saying that, Teepublic does have an excellent reputation on third-party review sites like Trustpilot, with an average score of 4.5 stars out of 5. 

Redbubble Product Quality

Like Teepublic, Redbubble does what it can to ensure high-quality products are delivered to customers consistently. There are quality check strategies in place to help reduce the risk of poorly printed or damaged items reaching customers.

Additionally, the brand partners with well-known printing companies, who use the highest-quality and most modern printing technologies to apply designs to a wide range of products. However, there are some negative reviews about Redbubble print quality on the web today. 

Redbubble’s reviews aren’t nearly as positive on Trustpilot as Teepublic’s reviews. The company has an average score of only 3.7 out of 5 stars, and many comments from customers reference inconsistent printing, or damaged items. 

Top Redbubble and Teepublic Alternatives

While both Redbubble and Teepublic are excellent options for beginners in the print on demand world, they don’t always offer the best profit margins and opportunities for growth as some of the other market leaders available. If neither of these vendors appeal to you, the top alternatives we recommend considering include:

1. Printful

Printful is one of the most reputable and popular print on demand vendors available today, offering a huge range of products to choose from, exceptional print quality, and fantastic design tools. The platform integrate with a host of online store platforms and marketplaces, you can automate various parts of your business with ease. 

Additionally, Printful offers unique services to help you make the most of your growing business, such as help with designs and photography. You can also benefit from rapid global fulfillment, excellent production times, and a convenient unified backend for order tracking and management.

2. Printify

Similar to Printful, Printify has an excellent reputation among print on demand vendors. It offers a range of printing options, as well as various excellent products. You can even invest in unique and eco-friendly items to help set your brand apart from the competition. Plus, Printify’s global partner network makes it easy to deliver items to customers quickly, wherever they are. 

Printify integrates with leading platforms like Shopify, Etsy, WooCommerce, and BigCommerce. Plus, you can order products in bulk if you want to store them in your own warehouse. There’s also a fantastic premium version of Printify available, which give you discounts on all of your orders, making it easier to scale and boost your profit margins.

3. Gelato

Offering mor than 150 different customizable products to choose from, Gelato is a great option if you want to expand your product line. You can explore everything from wall art to baby clothing, and Gelato’s huge global network of partners ensure you can ship products anywhere.

Gelato even takes steps to reduce its carbon footprint, making it a great option for eco-friendly brands. 

There are free design tools built into the platform to help you create highly professional products, plus, you can integrate Gelato with a variety of store builders and marketplaces, including WooCommerce, Shopify, Etsy, Squarespace, and many others. There are no prices to pay for a subscription either, so you should have no problem launching a risk-free business. 

4. Teespring

If you like the idea of using a pre-existing marketplace to sell your products, Teespring could be an excellent alternative to Redbubble and Teepublic.

Teespring company makes it easy to list your products online, without creating your own online store from scratch. Plus, there are tons of great products to choose from, ranging from hoodies and sweatshirts to accessories. 

Teespring has a boosted network, which ensures you can showcase your products to a range of buyers on different platforms. Plus, there are absolutely no monthly subscription fees, so if you want to start selling custom products without any upfront investments, this could be the ideal platform for you. Certain features do have an extra fee however, such as express shipping.

Redbubble vs Teepublic: The Verdict

If you’re looking for the best print on demand platform for beginners, both Redbubble and Teepublic have a lot in common. Both tools allow creative merchants to start customizing and selling a wide range of different products quickly, with minimal effort.

Additionally, there are no subscription costs or set-up fees on either platform. However, your profit margins will vary depending on the products you choose, your shipping method, and other factors. Both of these tools do make it easy to get started in the POD world, but they don’t offer much scalability. You might struggle to make a decent profit, and ensure your brand stands out.

If you want to create a more advanced online store, or sell products directly on a different marketplace environment or ecommerce platform, you might want to consider a different POD vendor.

There are plenty of alternative options out there if Redbubble and Teepublic don’t work for you, ranking from Printful and Society6, to Threadless, Teespring and more. Check out the other reviews and comparisons on the website for more insights into the top POD solutions.

FAQs:

Why is Teepublic shipping so expensive?

Some customers complain that Teepublic shipping can be quite expensive. Ultimately, it all depends on where you’re located. In the US, shipping can start at around $6.99. However, if you’re located in certain parts of the world, where Teepublic doesn’t have distribution partners, you may pay more.

Is Teepublic good for artists?

Compared to some other print on demand marketplaces, Teepublic does have a good reputation for supporting its artists. It offers a range of products to choose from, and allows artists to set their own prices, so you can maintain control over your profit margins and earnings. 

Does Teepublic offer free shipping?

Occasionally, Teepublic offers free shipping days for orders worth a certain price. This is only available to customers in specific areas, such as states within the United States. In general, however, you can expect to pay for shipping with Teepublic products. 

Does Redbubble offer free shipping?

Artists can choose to enable free shipping for certain products on Redbubble. Generally, you can access free shipping if an order costs more than $65. However, this does not apply to certain parts of the US, as well as P.O boxes, and various other areas. 

Can I upload same design on Redbubble and Teepublic?

Most POD marketplaces don’t require exclusivity. This means you should be able to upload the same designs to as many different platforms as you like. All you need to do is make sure you’re following the terms and conditions set by the marketplace. 

Is Teepublic owned by Redbubble?

Yes, Teepublic is a custom apparel and design platform owned by the larger Redbubble brand, the company was founded by Josh Abramson and Adam Schwartz, the entrepreneurs responsible for co-founding CollegeHumor and Vimeo. 

Is Teepublic legit?

Yes, Teepublic is a legitimate website and online marketplace based in New York. It’s safe to use for business owners and consumers alike, and implements various measures to protect both buyers and sellers around the world. 

Is Redbubble legit?

Yes, Redbubble is a legitimate POD marketplace with various protections in place for buyers and sellers. However, it does have some negative reviews online – more so than Teepublic at the time of writing, due to inconsistencies with printing quality.