Printify vs Gelato (2024): Which Is Best?

Print on Demand (POD) is a popular and potentially profitable choice for wannabe entrepreneurs looking for a minimal/no investment business venture. 

Traditionally, you would have to invest in inventory and warehousing to kickstart your online store. However, POD is an interesting alternative.

Here you collaborate with a white-label product supplier to customize and sell items such as hats, totes, t-shirts, etc., under your brand. Crucially, you don’t pay for the inventory until you’ve sold it, and the POD supplier also takes care of the printing, order fulfillment, and shipping on your behalf. 

Printify and Gelato are two such POD platforms.

Here we’ll pit them head to head to see which comes out on top. However, if you don’t have time to read this review in full, here are the headlines of this Printify vs Gelato review:

With all that said, let’s jump into the crux of this Printify vs Gelato comparison:

What is Printify?

Founded in 2015, Printify offers over 800 POD products, including apparel, home and living items, phone cases, bags, car accessories, and much more. It’s free to use, and its website tells us that around four million sellers utilize it worldwide.

It operates across 110+ printing locations and, to date, has delivered $500m+ of products. Its USP is that it makes its customers four promises: quality, profitability, selection, and speed. 

Printify also offers a range of products from reputable brands, including Bella + Canvas, Cotton Heritage, and Independent Trading Company.

What is Gelato?

Founded by the former telecoms company Tele2 Norway’s CEO, Henrik Muller-Hansen, Gelato claims to be the world’s largest production-on-demand network.

Gelato works with 100+ print partners across 32 countries and offers a choice of 47 POD products to sell. Aside from clothes, wall art, cards, tote bags, phone cases, and more are available. 

Like Printify, it’s free to sign up, and Gelato’s website states it’s fulfilled 10m+ orders to date. 

How Does Printify Work?

As I’ve just said, Printify offers 800+ products to choose from. It’s also simple to use. Just sign up for free with an email address and password.

Next, select the product you want to customize. When doing this, if you're choosing a product from a specific brand, you can use the product filter on the left-hand side of the screen and select the brand you want. 

Next, you can custom-design your product by uploading designs from Google Drive, your device, or Dropbox. You can also use Printify’s easy-to-use Mockup Design Generator to customize your product's colors, text, graphics, and backgrounds. 

Once you’ve finished your design, you can preview it. When you’re happy with what you see, you also pick a print partner from a drop-down menu of companies selected by Printify.

You can see the estimated shipping cost and time in each instance. You can also filter the print partners to display them in order of lowest price, highest price, lowest shipping, highest shipping, and Printify ranking. This ranking is determined by customer ratings, the number of product reprints, and production time. 

Printify integrates with a wide range of eCommerce platforms and marketplaces. These include eBay, Squarespace, Wix, WooCommerce, Walmart, and many more. Once integrated, you can monitor your Printify sales, orders, and inventory from your eCommerce platform’s dashboard. 

It’s also worth noting that you can access help and advice via Printify’s online support center. Here you’ll find featured articles and FAQs. A blog also covers topics like designing, getting started, managing orders, fulfillment, shipping, and more. 

How Does Gelato Work?

As I’ve already said, Gelato’s product catalog offers 47 items. It’s free to sign up. Simply sign in with your Google, Facebook, Apple ID, or email address. You can then pick the item you want to customize. 

Each product has information about its quality, and, in the case of apparel, you can see details of an item’s fit. When you choose the product you want to customize, you can also select the country you’re delivering to from a drop-down menu to see estimated prices for standard and express shipping. 

Then, use Gelato’s design tool to customize your item. You can add text, shapes, or graphics from Gelato’s graphics library, where you’ll find Getty and Shutterstock images. Some images are free, and some come with a price tag.

However, you’ll benefit from a discounted rate if you sign up for a paid Gelato account. Once the design is complete, you can preview it before proceeding and, should you wish, save it for future reuse. 

Subscribers to Gelato’s paid plans can create premium mockups. These are accessible via the Mockup Studio on your Gelato dashboard. The Mockup Studio is a standalone tool that lets you personalize your mockups in various ways. For example, you can add background scenes, choose the format or size of the mockup, add files (e.g., brand logo), and more. 

Lastly, Gelato integrates with various eCommerce platforms and marketplaces, including Etsy, Wix, BigCommerce, and Shopify, via an integration called Order Desk. This allows you to connect to 275+ services, including the aforementioned, as well as Amazon, Magento, eBay, and Squarespace. 

Gelato also has an online resource center with blogs, the Gelato Academy (lots of how-to videos), customer stories, and a Help Center with information across various categories, including Create an Account, Connect your Store, Integrations, and much more.

Printify Pricing

It’s free to sign up for Printify. There are three plans: one free, the latter paid-for, with the option of monthly or annual billing, with the latter offering a saving of 14%.

Packages are as follows:

Free

The freemium package is best for anyone starting out and testing how it works. With the Free plan, you get the following:

• Integration with up to five stores per account
• Unlimited product designs
• Access to the mockup generator
• Integration with Etsy, eBay, Shopify, and more
• Manual order creation
• 24/7 support
• Access to the self-serve help center
• Custom order import from your connected stores

The Premium Plan

The Premium plan will set you back $24.99/mo (paid annually) and is best for merchants with growing sales. You get all of the above and:

• Integration with up to ten stores per account
• Up to 20% discount on all products
• Order management with Printify Connect, where Printify handles your refunds and reprints, but not if you sell on marketplaces; it’s only compatible with standalone eCommerce stores such as Shopify.

The Enterprise Plan

The Enterprise plan is based on custom pricing and is best for merchants selling 10,000+ orders. You’ll have to contact the sales team for a quote. 

With the Enterprise plan, you get all of the above and:

• Unlimited stores
• Early access to new features
• Custom API integration
• A dedicated account manager
• Branded customer support

Products

To give you a sense of how much some of Printify’s base products cost, we’ve taken three items as an example:

• Men’s hoodie – prices from $19.04 to $53.85
• Women’s t-shirts – prices from $6.78 to $22.76
• Bags – prices from $6.45 to $43.28

Gelato Pricing

It’s free to sign up. There are four subscription plans, including a freemium package. 

Plans are as follows:

Free Forever 

This includes:

• Production in 32 countries
• Integration with two eCommerce stores
• Access to an intuitive design editor
• Free product mockups

Gelato+

This costs $14.99/mo or $139/year and includes all the above and:

• 30% off all standard shipping to USA, Canada, Europe, Australia, New Zealand, Brazil, Singapore, and Japan – not available during the free trial
• Premium mockups via the Gelato Mockup Studio
• Integration with ten eCommerce stores
• Five account users
• Access to millions of stock images, graphics, and fonts
• Access to a product personalization tool
• Access to premium fonts
• Access to graphic and image filters

Gold

 This costs $99/mo or $999/year and includes all the above and:

• 30 days free shipping with an annual plan*
• Up to 50% discounted shipping
• Integration with up to 25 eCommerce stores
• 20 account users
• Product migration assistance
• You can set shipping profit margins. 
• A dedicated Customer Success Manager 
• 30% off branded labels and packaging inserts for any posters you design and sell

* Free shipping and shipping discounts are limited to the USA, Canada, Europe, Australia, New Zealand, Brazil, Singapore, and Japan

Platinum 

This is a bespoke plan, so you'll have to speak to Gelato's sales team for a quote. It includes all of the above and:

• Fixed-rate shipping on all orders where Gelato produces locally
• Dedicated technical implementation support
• Expert personalized support from Gelato's Platinum team

Products

Like Printify, Gelato’s base product prices vary, but here are some examples:

• Men’s hoodies: from $18.96 to $40.61
• Women’s t-shirts: from $9 to $17.63
• Bags: from $11.36 to $15.90

MORE: Printify vs Printful: The Ultimate Print-on-Demand Services Comparison

Printify Print Quality

Aside from choosing the brand that creates your base product, you can also see what the product's made from. For example, the Champion Hoodie is 50% cotton and 50% polyester.

We can also see that it's a medium-heavy fabric with a ‘C’ logo on the left sleeve and no side seams. 

Printify also provides care instructions and a size guide.

Printify also has a Print Quality Promise. It commits to complete transparency, the highest print standards, delightful service, and continuous improvements. In addition, Printify promises consistent quality control where each product goes through three stages of checks:

1. When a blank product arrives at a printing location 
2. Before a customized product is printed
3. After the product is printed (to compare against the original design). 

Printify also monitors its print providers to ensure they’re up to scratch. 

Gelato Print Quality

Each time you choose a product to customize, you’ll see information about its quality. For example, the Classic Unisex Zip Hoodie has a slim, flattering fit with a side-seam construction.

You can also see that the fabric has a light to mid-thickness and softness, and its special features include a front pocket pouch and high stitch density. 

Once you’ve customized your chosen product, you can review the design before buying it. But, unlike Printify, it doesn’t offer a range of brands to choose from. 

However, Gelato is keen to stress that it supports sustainability by endowing the UN Global Compact Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Gelato also encourages less waste in its production process and complies with international standards such as the EU GDPR regulations.  

Lastly, Gelato stresses that it chooses its print partners based on price, production excellence, and professionalism. 

Printify Best Selling Products

Printify has a blog post that suggests its 15 best-selling products to start out with, but this is from 2022. 

It’s also worth noting that when you pick a product subcategory, e.g., a men’s t-shirt, you can filter the results using the drop-down menu by popularity, lowest, and highest price. 

Gelato Best Selling Products

Gelato also has a blog post that suggests its top products, and this one is in date. Products include ceramics and drinkware, ready-to-hang posters and wall art, personalized apparel, and tote bags. 

Unlike Printify, when you pick a Gelato product, you can’t filter it according to popularity. However, you can see if it's a bestseller, as Gelato marks them as such.

So, for example, the heavyweight unisex crew-neck t-shirt is, at the time of writing, a bestseller. Other bestsellers include the premium matte print poster and the white 11oz ceramic mug. 

Printify vs Gelato: My Final Thoughts 

That brings us to the end of my Printify vs Gelato review. Both offer a lot in terms of quality and choice, plus a commitment to high standards.

Prices are also broadly similar. But Printify provides more selection in each category as well as branded products, so if that’s what you’re looking for, we’d suggest heading in Printify’s direction.

If, however, your business is sustainable, you would be better off aligning yourself with a POD platform whose commitment to sustainability is the same as yours. If this is the case, Gelato might be a better option.

That's enough from me, over to you. What are your thoughts on Prinitify vs Gelato? Let me know in the comments box below!

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