Printful vs Teespring (2024): Which One Is the Absolute Best?

Printful vs Teespring… which ranks better?

Launching a business is never an easy process. There are a lot of different factors to think about if you want to make sure that everything works.

However, these days, there are a lot of tools out there that can make it easier to get into the world of ecommerce.

For instance, if you’re thinking of selling products online but you don’t have enough money or space to buy and store stock yourself, you can choose to get involved with dropshipping.

Dropshipping is one of the easiest ways to sell, as it allows you to simply purchase a product from a supplier whenever one of your customers requests it. The supplier then handles the fulfilment strategy for you.

There are even different types of dropshipping that you can get involved with. For instance, if you’re the creative type, and you want to get involved with fashion or making your own t-shirt designs, then you can try a print on demand strategy.

Print on demand works in a similar way to dropshipping.

You work with a third-party who handles things like creating your items and getting them to your customers.

You can even find print on demand apps that work with Shopify, WooCommerce and Amazon.

So, which print on demand tool do you use?

Today we’re looking at two of the top options: Printful and Teespring.

To compare Printful and Teespring, we’ll look at:

• Ease of use
• Pricing
• Integrations
• Order fulfillment
• Customer service
• Print quality

How Does Printful Work?

Printful is one of the most popular tools for print on demand dropshipping around. It’s better known than many of the alternatives on the market, thanks in part to it’s presence in various parts of the world, including Europe, Mexico, and the USA.

The company also covers a large part of the world, so you can connect with customers anywhere.

Printful makes running your creative company simpler by providing you with all the tools you need to get started.

You can sign up and connect your store to Printful, then you can add any items you create directly to your website, from hoodies to leggings and phone cases.

There’s a mockup generator available on Printful to show you what your items are going to look like, and Printful doesn’t skimp on the options.

There are more than 200 products to choose from. With Printful, you can explore everything from clothing through hoodies and t-shirts, to accessories like stickers, and bracelets.

Tote bags, laptop bags, streetwear, beach towels, pillows and canvas prints are all options too. After you’ve created your mockups, Printful will let you import the designs you want to sell to your store.

After that, it’s just a matter of enticing your customers to come to your store and buy your products.

If someone does hit the buy button on one of your items, Printful will handle the fulfillment process, and you’ll pay for their service to get it sent to your audience.

While it’s annoying to have to pay an extra fee, it’s much cheaper to do things this way than to create your products alone.

How Does Teespring Work?

Teespring is very similar to Printful, as they’re both POD dropshipping companies.

If you’re a total beginner to print on demand and selling online, then Teespring might be one of the best print companies to get started with, simply because everything is so simple.

You sign up, just like you would with Printful, and use the tools available on Teespring to create your designs.

Once you’ve got something that you’d be happy to sell, select your desired products and add them to your website. You can use Teespring’s handy designer tool to get everything looking great.

Teespring’s designing tool comes with access to text, images, and artwork, so you can create something from scratch, or use templates.

Once you’re finished designing your product, Teespring will even show you how much it’s going to cost to print the item.

With your items ready to go, you can set the price and minimum quantity for selling your products. Theis is how you start making money with Teespring.

Once you’re satisfied with the design, you can choose how much you want to sell it for and add it automatically to your website.

The fact that you need to set a minimum for how many of a certain item you’re going to sell is part of what makes Teespring so different to other POD services.

If you don’t sell as many items as you’ve predicted, then your product isn’t printed or shipped. It’s a little like having a kickstarter for every item you’re going to sell.

While the minimum option can save you some money on printing items that customers don’t really like, it’s also a bit risky. You’ll need to be careful to set a realistic minimum number.

On the plus side, Teespring does suggest recommended selling prices for your products to get you started.

Teespring is also one of the few print on demand solutions that gives you extra tools you can use to market your product. You can even enter Facebook ad IDs to track your results.

Printful vs Teespring: Pricing 💰

Pricing is always an important part of choosing the right tool for your business.

It doesn’t matter whether you’re choosing a website builder, or you’re looking for an email marketing service, you need something that’s going to suit your budget.

The good news with POD or print on demand companies is that they can often save you a lot of money.

You don’t have to pay an ongoing subscription or membership fee to use the service with Teespring or Printful. Plus, you only pay for the items that you actually sell.

Printful Pricing

Printful’s pricing makes it easy for anyone to get involved with selling white label products. You can even choose to have the label inside of your item changed to match your brand.

Print on demand companies offer features like this for an extra price. For instance, you can add extra branding to your item for $2.49 from Printful.

You’ll also need to pay if you want to access various other kinds of print.

For instance, an outside label would cost you around $2.49, while a long-sleeve print costs you $5.95 per sleeve, and a short sleeve print is $2.49 per sleeve. You can even just have your logo embroidered onto the item.

The amount you actually spend on your Printful products will depend on a lot of factors, including what you choose to do with your design.

You’ll also have extra prices to pay if you want to do things like buy business cards or print flyers that can ship out with each order.

Ultimately, it’s up to you to determine how much you’re going to spend on making your items, and how much you need to charge your customers to make that money back.

Fortunately, Printful does make things a little easier by giving you a profit calculator so you can see what your profit margins might look like.

You don’t have to follow any specific rules for setting your prices, but Printful does recommend making sure that you have at least a 30% profit margin.

Teespring Pricing

Teespring, just like Printful, is completely free to sign up for. There’s no need to pay any long-term subscription costs, so you can enjoy getting started with your business as soon as you like.

There’s a flat price to pay for every product, which you can see when you’re designing the item on the built-in system. You can then choose the selling price for yourself.

The price of the products is a little complicated at times, because you may have to pay extra depending on what you want to do.

For instance, printing on the front and the back of your t-shirt would mean that you would pay a higher base price.

You can also earn discounts depending on the number of items you sell through Teespring, which is a nice bonus.

For instance, if you haven’t sold anything before, then you could purchase a classic t-shirt at a base price of $10.57. If you’ve sold over 20,000 t-shirts in the previous month, however, that price goes down to $5.77.

Like Printful, Teespring helps you to make the decision of how much you’re going to earn from each purchase by giving you a recommended retail price.

However, it’s up to you to determine whether you want to go with that price or keep costs low for your customers.

Printful vs Teespring: Integrations

One of the most valuable features you can find when you’re looking for a print on demand solution, is the option to integrate with other platforms.

You need to make sure that you can add the designs you create on Printful to your website, so an integration with your preferred site builder is a good first start.

Printful integrates with Shopify and WooCommerce, so that’s a great bonus instantly.

There’s also a wide range of other integration options to choose from, including:

• Wix
• Squarespace
• BigCommerce
• Ecwid
• Weebly
• Prestashop
• Gumroad
• Big Cartel
• Magento

Teespring also offers a range of integration options intended to help you sell as much as you can online. However, the list of options is a little smaller than it is with Printful. Teespring’s integrations start with the YouTube merch shelf.

This is basically the option to sell merch through YouTube if you have a certain number of subscribers.

You can activate the merch shelf on YouTube to sell products directly below any YouTube videos you publish, as well as on end cards, channel stores, and so much more.

Teespring also integrates with the Twitch merch store, making it an excellent option for influencers and streamers online that want to start selling their own products to boost their brand.

You can create subscriber exclusive merch with the Twitch merch store and Teespring. Alternatively, you can simply sell your items through Google Shopping.

This is a good option if you want to keep a close eye on your conversions.

Printful vs Teespring: Fulfillment and Shipping Costs

It’s important to get your choice of POD solution right from a shipping and fulfillment perspective. Your service needs to get your items to your audience as quickly as possible, and shipping can’t be overly expensive.

The wrong service could easily lose you customers.

Printful’s shipping and fulfillment process begins immediately after someone confirms an order.

Printful estimates that it might take up to 4 business days – which isn’t too bad. However, the time it takes to deliver an item can go up if you’re sending it somewhere particularly distant.

You’ll have various shipping solutions to choose from with Printful, ranging from USPS and FedEx, to DPD. The amount you spend depends on how much you sell, and where the item is going.

For instance, for the first product you’ll pay:

• Worldwide: $5.99
• USA: $3.99
• Canada: $6.49
• Australia/ New Zealand: $6.99
• Europe: $4.39

An additional product costs:

• Worldwide: $1.25
• USA: $1.25
• Canada: $1.25
• Australia/ New Zealand: $1.25
• Europe: $1.09

Teespring takes a similar approach to shipping, with different fees depending on where you want to ship to. There’s also an additional cost depending on which items you want to sell.

The price of shipping from Teespring will also depend on what you want to ship.

If you’re shipping a standard T-shirt, for instance, it costs $3.99 to ship in the US, £7.99 in the UK, and up to $15.99 in Australia.

Additional items are pretty expensive too. You’ll pay $2 for each extra T-Shirt in the US, for instance, but this goes up to $7 for Australia.

If you want to take advantage of the Rush shipping option, which promises to get your items to your customers as quickly as possible, the price changes again. In the US, all t-shirts will cost $2.99 for the first item, and $1.99 for every extra item.

Remember, if you’re shipping in the holidays, then there may be additional expenses and speed issues to consider when ensuring your items get to your customers on time.

Printful vs Teespring: Customer Support

Great customer support is one of those things you should always search for when investing in new technology – even if you hope you’re not going to have to use it.

Printful has a selection of tools intended to help customers as quickly as possible when something goes wrong with their online store.

There’s a blog platform where you can learn about things like selling on eBay or any ecommerce platform. You also get plenty of guidance upfront on how to run a store with print on demand.

Printful also allows customers to call, send an email, or start a chat when they need support.

Teespring takes a similar approach to keeping customers happy. There’s a friendly team of support agents committed to supporting the seller community.

You can contact the Teespring seller support team at any time to request assistance or ask questions.

Teespring has a wide selection of seller support services to offer, which range all the way from answering questions associated with Teespring sales, to helping you make decisions between things like Teespring, Printify, and Printful. The company will aim to answer all your questions within 24 hours (business hours specifically).

Live chat support is available from Teespring when you’re visiting the launcher.

The response might not always be immediate, but you can usually get quick questions on things like shipping rates and shipping times.

Printful vs Teespring: Overall Features

So, what can you expect when it comes to features from Printful and Teespring? On the surface, both of these tools are quite similar.

They are both print on demand companies, after all, so it’s fair to expect that they’d each give you plenty of ways to print creative products for your customers.

Printful’s clean and organized back-end makes it easy for you to do everything from customizing your storefront, to connecting your strategy with social media.

There’s also a lot of available ecommerce photography to upgrade your branding options.

If you need a selection of high-quality images to help you enhance your appearance online, Printful has you covered completely.

For products that need to be photographed before fulfilment, there’s a 20% discount with pre-made samples that help you to build images of your products quickly.

Printful also benefits from all the advances of same-day order fulfilment.

When you’re selling custom products like coffee mugs and custom t-shirts, it’s extremely difficult to get that kind of speedy fulfilment.

You will have some limitations to what you can send here, but the automated order processing service makes it much easier to get everything moving as quickly as possible.

In comparison, Teespring offers a pretty similar experience. You can very easily build mockups of your products using the digital services provided, which means that you can quickly list and start selling too.

There’s a comprehensive FAQ to help you figure out what’s going on with your store, and Teespring offers a wide selection of different printing options to choose from.

Unlike other print on demand solutions that focus heavily on totes and t-shirts, Teespring also covers V-neck shirts, hoodies, tank tops, stickers, flags, wall tapestries, canvas bags, towels, and so much more.

There’s no limit to how far you can spread your own designs over a range of products.

One thing to keep in mind is that things like canvas prints, beach towels, and flags also come with flat pricing costs, depending on the sizes that you choose to sell to your target audience.

This can make it a little easier to predict how much you’re going to be spending to fill out your product portfolio.

The flat-rate pricing only applies to these flexible products, however, while apparel has a more dynamic pricing structure with Teespring.

Once again, it’s worth remembering that one of the most interesting things about Teespring is that you need to set a minimum order amount for your products. The more the orders, the lower the base price for apparel.

However, you need to be careful not to commit to selling more than you know you realistically can. If you don’t hit your minimum, then you won’t sell anything at all.

Printful vs Teespring: Product Designs and Quality

This can be a difficult factor to measure when you’re examining two high-quality print on demand companies.

It’s tough to see what you’re actually going to get until you receive a product in the mail – even when you’re using mockup generators.

That’s why it’s often helpful to buy one of your own designs yourself before you begin selling online.

Printful reminds its customers that the quality of your print will often depend on a number of factors, including how high the resolution is on the image that you’re uploading.

The company has invested around $40 million in printing equipment, so you know that you’re going to get a pretty decent outcome.

Printful helps you to enhance the quality of your products by providing a printable area on each product where you can place the design you want to use.

Following those guidelines should make it a little easier to avoid problems. The creation tools on Printful make sure that you place all of your images in exactly the right position by telling you when you’re done adjusting.

Another bonus with Printful from a print quality perspective, is that all of the products go through a comprehensive three-step quality check before they ship out to customers.

Automated software automatically checks the quality of your graphic before the print begins. There’s also a set of fulfilment specialists to check the outcome of each batch. Finally, the team checks your print again after curing.

Teespring is a pretty great choice for print quality too. Just as printful offers a range of features to ensure that your designs look great, Teespring will give you extra support for designing quality products. You get both screen printing and direct to garment printing options from Teespring.

With screen printing, you can create a lot of products quickly, without compromising on quality. With direct to garment, a design needs to be scanned, tested and vetted before it’s placed on a range of products.

Teespring, like Printful, guarantees excellent quality for all of your items. Retailers can buy sample products to ensure that their creations look great.

When you begin uploading images and designs to add to your Shopify or WooCommerce store, you can also use the Teespring built-in technology to determine if a creation is good, great, or poor.

If your design is showing as “poor” then Teespring will teach you how to upgrade, it to a better standard.

Printful vs Teespring: Pros and Cons

All POD tools have their ups and downs to consider. Whether you’re looking at Printful vs Printify, Teelaunch, Redbubble, or Teespring, there’s no one-size-fits-all option.

Printful’s positives include:

• A wide selection of available products to work with
• Integrations with many major marketplaces and shopping carts
• Automated order fulfilment support
• Quick turnaround times for all customers
• Centralized fulfilment locations in regions around the world
• Easy to use technology so you can get started straight away
• Great customer service options including Live Chat
• Good quality of printing
• Quick shipping options

On the other hand, Printful cons include:

• Some products can seem a little overpriced
• You won’t always get a response to your questions immediately
• Faster shipping can be quite pricey

Similarly, Teespring has many great benefits to offer, but it has its downsides too.

Some of the more positive features of Teespring include:

• Plenty of ways to promote your designs, including through social media
• Excellent range of products to choose from
• Easy back-end environment that’s great to manage
• Lots of integrations with your existing tools
• Good design creation process that ensures print quality
• Various printing options available to suit your customers
• Excellent customer support and guidance

Cons of Teespring include:

• You do need to do all of the marketing yourself
• There’s limited space for your designs on the front and back of garments
• You have to sell a minimum number of your designs, or none at all

Printful vs Teespring vs Printify

Both Printful and Teespring have a wide range of products and features to offer if you’re interested in investing in the print on demand landscape.

However, there are still plenty of other options out there.

For instance, many business leaders still prefer Printify as their go-to-choice for printing on demand. There’s a super flexible pricing model that’s available with Printify, which reduces the cost usually associated with Printful.

Additionally, you don’t have to worry about selling a minimum number of products like you would with Teespring.

Printify has access to over 200 products to choose from, which is way more than you get from Teespring, and the products are a little cheaper than Printful’s items too.

However, Printful does suffer from a lack of integration options which make it harder to link to the rest of your sales strategy.

Additionally, the branding services are somewhat limited. It’s difficult to make your business stand out with this company.

Printful vs. Teespring vs. Sellfy POD

Whereas print-on-demand dropshipping suppliers Printful and Teespring offer similar services, Sellfy is a more holistic eCommerce platform suitable for beginners.

It comes with a website builder, marketing tools, and analytics. In addition, you can choose from a catalog of POD products to sell on your website. 

As Sellfy offers lots of features, it charges a monthly payment plan to access the ability to sell unlimited products. Prices range from $19 to $99 per month.

This might make Sellfy a less affordable option if you’re not wanting to create a Sellfy website. However, Sellfy might be right for you if you're selling digital products alongside physical merchandise. 

Printful vs Teespring: Final Verdict

Both Printful and Teespring will help you to turn your startup idea into a success. You can link your system to your ecommerce store, whether you’re using WordPress or a Shopify store, and start selling products in no time.

Sample orders even make it easier to see the quality of your items before you ship them out to customers.

You can assess your sales with Google analytics and built-in reports, and make sure you know exactly what kind of products your customers like best.

While Printful is one of the best products on the market for companies that need quality support and excellent features, it’s also one of the more expensive options.

You can ship to customers very quickly and boost your brand reputation, but you may need to be willing to pay extra for the print quality and consistency that you get from Printful.

Teespring is an excellent alternative to Printful for companies that know they can sell a lot of products at once.

If you’ve already generated a pretty dedicated audience, and you feel comfortable that you know you can sell your items in bulk, Teespring will give you massive discounts on your production prices.

This makes it much easier to ship a lot of items out at once.

However, Teespring isn’t ideal for everyone. If you don’t reach your minimum, you won’t be able to sell anything.

Additionally, you do have some limitations in what you can create and print. You even need to do all the marketing for your product and brand yourself.

There’s no one-size-fits—all for print on demand companies, but hopefully this review has got you looking in the right direction.