Teelaunch Review (2024): Is it A Good Print on Demand Service?

In this review I'll examine what Teelaunch is all about, including its product range, how it works, its prices, and its pros and cons to help you decide if you want to dive in and start using it for your print on demand business venture or side hustle. 

That's enough preamble; let’s make a start on this Teelaunch review!

Teelaunch Pros and Cons

What is Teelaunch? 

Launched in 2012, Teelaunch is a South Dakota-based print on demand and order fulfillment service. When someone orders your customized products, Teelaunch will print, package, and ship your wares without you having to do a thing.

Best of all, you only pay for Teelaunch products after a customer purchases. So, there’s no need to stock inventory, shell out for warehousing, or put down a significant financial investment. 

Teelaunch's website offers what it calls its ‘philosophical explanation' for what it does; it: ‘enable[s] you to achieve your dreams/financial independence by allowing you to create your own shop quickly and with no overhead.'

Teelaunch can be used on your tablet, mobile (via its app), or laptop. 

It's also worth noting that via Teelaunch's eCommerce platform integrations, you can automatically sync products and orders between your BigCommerce, WooCommerce, Etsy, and Shopify stores.

But, in the case of Etsy, you need a Shopify store first, and you'll need to integrate it with your Shopify dashboard. 

Teelaunch Pricing

Teelaunch is free to use with no subscription costs. 

Teelaunch doesn’t pretend its prices are that different from its competitors, but let’s look at a few sample products to give you a flavor of the base costs of their items:

• Hardwood Oval Cutting Board: $9.25 (small), $15.50 (large)
• Bella Ladies Jersey Long Sleeve T-shirt: $15.00
• 11 x 7” Matte Poster: $9.25
• Name Necklace: $12.50
• American Apparel Men’s T-Shirt: $15.50

At the time of writing, I couldn’t find information on whether Teelaunch offers discounts on bulk orders. 

However, one option is available for added features, such as unlimited fonts and graphics when customizing print on demand products to sell in your store. This is called Creative Fabrica and costs $29 a month. 

How Teelaunch Works

First, you need your own ecommerce store. But, assuming you have that up and running, you can view Teelaunch’s print on demand product information without creating an account.

For example, product prices, where products are printed, and the cost of shipping them to different destinations. 

For instance, when I viewed the Bella Women’s Crop Fleece Hoodie, we could see it costs between $27 and $29, ships from Wisconsin and South Dakota, and shipping fees fluctuate depending on where you’re shipping to. 

However, to start customizing POD items, you’ll need to sign up for Teelaunch (don’t worry, it’s free to do so!).

To sign up, click the ‘Login’ button on Teelaunch’s home page. This redirects you to a registration page, where you’ll need to type in the following details:

• Name
• Email
• Password
• Your store name

Teelaunch will then send you an email to verify your account.

Once you’ve done that, you’ll have to add your PayPal or card details so Teelaunch can bill you when you start selling products. 

Next, you’ll be taken to your Teelaunch dashboard, where you can manage your account, including creating and overseeing orders, viewing your store, and accessing support (including details of average production times).

From here, you can also browse Teelaunch’s product catalog.

At this point, you’re now ready to start creating a product (yay!). 

Teelaunch has more than 300+ products to choose from, organized into the following categories:

• Accessories: including Apple Watch bands
• Apparel: including sweatshirts, t-shirts, and vests for men, women, and young people (Apparel products are branded, for example, American Apparel, Bella, Canvas, and Gildan). 
• Drinkware: including mugs, water bottles, and tumblers
• Home Goods: including blankets, coasters, and doormats
• Jewelry: including necklaces customized with any name you like, cuff bracelets, and dog mom necklaces
• Kitchenware: including plates and cutting boards
• Lifestyle: including jigsaws, backpacks, and headphones
• Office: including greetings cards and notebooks
• Pets: including pet pillows and bandanas
• Wall Art: including posters and canvases 
• Sports: including soccer balls, footballs, softballs, and water polo balls

Some categories, such as accessories, only offer a limited choice of products. In contrast, you’ll find a much larger selection of apparel, sports, and wall art products. 

Once you’ve chosen a product you want to design, click on the item to load the product page. 

For example, when I opted for a ‘Canvas Men’s V-Neck T-Shirt,’ I could instantly see the following:

• T-shirt colors I could choose from
• Fabric details
• Available sizes
• Price
• T-shirt weight
• Shipping details (prices vary according to where you’re shipping to).

Once you’re ready to customize your product, click the ‘Add Artwork’ button and load your image. 

Unlike other popular POD platforms like Printify, there isn’t a design editor, so you can’t add text or graphics directly onto the item. Instead, if you want to add artwork to the product, it has to be a PNG file and meet the exact dimensions specified by Teelaunch. 

Each apparel product page has a handy link to Teelaunch’s Product Design Guide. There are also guides on customizing designs for other product types.

For example, if you were to customize a tumbler, Teelaunch has a guide that walks you through design tips and the laser etching process. 

It’s worth investing some research time into whichever guides are available for your chosen products before you set out; that way, you won’t find yourself uploading incorrect or incompatible artwork. 

Once you’re happy with your design, choose what size and color you want (if you’re designing apparel). Then, click the “next” button to take you to a page where you’re asked to add the product title and description that will appear on your own storefront. 

You can customize the font size and type for your product title and description to suit your store’s look and feel. 

Teelaunch also suggests a product price for your item and shows how much profit you stand to make once the cost of the item is deducted. However, if you prefer to ignore the product price suggested by Teelaunch and sell it for more or less, you can edit that suggestion.

Printing 

Once you’ve placed your order, the Teelaunch system batches orders every four hours. Once your order is in Teelaunch’s system, the order is checked and assigned to a print facility closest to your customers. 

It’s then printed on paper and sent out to the production floor. At this stage, Teelaunch can’t promise that you can change or cancel this order.

Teelaunch print facilities are located in the following US states: 

• Arizona
• California
• Florida
• Illinois
• Kentucky
• Maryland
• Massachusetts
• Minnesota
• Nebraska
• New York
• Pennsylvania
• South Dakota
• Texas
• Utah
• Wisconsin

And:

• Australia
• Canada
• Spain
• UK

Teelaunch uses a variety of printing methods:

• Digital printing on paper products
• Direct-to-garment (DTG) printing for apparel and other garment types. 
• Laser engraving: for example, on cutting boards and metal tumblers.
• Dye-sublimation: This is full coverage, full cover all-over printing. For example, a t-shirt is basically used as a canvas for an image that covers the entire product. This printing method is also used to customize mugs. 

Teelaunch applies standard quality control checks to ensure that each printed item is of good enough quality to ship out to its customers. However, I couldn’t find extra information on these quality control checks. 

Shipping

As previously mentioned, once you’ve selected your item to customize, you’ll see how much shipping costs. 

While Teelaunch ships to the US, UK, Canada, EU, and countries around the world, it doesn’t ship to the following places:

• UAE/AE
• Peru
• Kuwait
• Bahrain
• Chile
• Israel
• Reunion Island
• Bahrain
• Qatar
• Brazil
• Russia
• Indonesia
• Saudi Arabia
• India
• Bolivia
• Egypt
• Isle of Man
• Sri Lanka
• Latvia
• Colombia

In addition, it doesn’t ship canvas wall art to Asia or yard signs, metal signs, sports balls, pet pillows, or outdoor mats internationally or in Hawaii, Alaska, Guam, or Puerto Rico.

A shipping label is attached to the package once it’s ready to be shipped. This triggers a tracking number to be sent to you that you can then forward to your customer.

Typically, you can start tracking your order 12-24 hours after you have received your tracking number. 

During holidays and peak times such as Christmas, Valentine’s Day, and St Patrick’s Day, orders are processed between 9-12 business days. Outside of peak times, they typically take between 4-7 business days. 

Shipping costs depend on where you’re shipping to and from. For example, returning to our Canvas Men’s V-Neck T-shirt, this would cost $6 to ship to the US, $11.50 to Canada, $10.50 to the UK, and $12.50 to EU member states. 

The Teelaunch Shopify App

Currently, as mentioned above, Teelaunch offers integrations with Etsy, WooCommerce, and Shopify. This ensures companies can extend their sales potential across a multitude of different platforms, without compromising on the automation benefits of print on demand. 

To access the integration for Shopify, all users need to do is install the Teelaunch Print on Demand app after logging into their Shopify account. The integration is free to access, and provides direct access to Teelaunch within your Shopify ecosystem. 

This means you can fill your Shopify store with Teelaunch products, taking advantage of worldwide production, state-of-the-art products with consistent quality, and a streamlined shipping experience.  

The Teelaunch Etsy Integration 

To link your Teelaunch products to Etsy, the process is a little different. You’ll actually need the Teelaunch app and Shopify website to get started.

Once you log into your Shopify account, you can click into the “Teelaunch” dashboard within Shopify, and click on the “Integration” dropdown menu. 

Select “Etsy”, and you’ll be transported to a new page, where you’ll be asked to log into your Etsy account. You should receive a code you can enter into the Teelaunch dashboard. 

Next head to your Etsy shop manager and select “add listing”. Scroll to the “shipping” section, and select the option for custom shipping options.

Next, fill out all of your shipping prices and information. Save the shipping profile, and go back to your Shopify store.

Choose the Teelaunch product you want to add to Etsy, then under the “More Options” menu, select the “Create Etsy Teelaunch listing” option.

Wait for the page to refresh, then select the shipping template you just created on the Etsy platform. Select “publish listing” to complete the push. There’s a tutorial available on the Teelaunch website to help you if you get stuck. 

Customer Support

There’s limited support available. An online Knowledge Base is accessible once you’re logged on. You can type queries into the search box, but I found it extremely limited. For example, there aren’t any articles on integrating with Etsy or WooCommerce.

In addition, the only information we could find about Creative Fabrica was via the resource button on Teelaunch’s home page. 

I couldn’t find a contact email address to reach Teelaunch. However, you can click a Contact button on the homepage, fill out an online form, and ask questions that way. However, there’s no information on response times or office hours. 

That said, from your Teelaunch dashboard, there’s a chat widget where you can ping over questions, and I received a response within minutes. 

Lastly, there’s a blog where you’ll find posts, news, tips and tricks, and fun suggestions on how to make your products stand out.

Although the blog is more extensive, content isn’t organized into categories, so you have to wade through the posts to hopefully find what you’re looking for. 

When I looked at online reviews, they were mixed. For example, Teelaunch only has a 1.8 out of five-star rating on Trustpilot.

Users complain about ‘non-existent customer service,’ long production times, and below-average product quality. 

However, when I headed to Shopify, it was a different story. Here Teelaunch boasts a 4.3 out of five-star rating, with users raving about the print-on-demand app’s high-quality products. 

Teelaunch Review: My Final Verdict

So, that brings us to the end of my Teelaunch review. Hopefully, you now have a better flavor of what it’s all about.  

Here are a few of my final thoughts on Teelaunch:

I like that there’s a nice choice of products and that apparel is branded. Also, each product page provides lots of details about the item in question, allowing you to write decent product descriptions. 

However, what Teelaunch really lacks is design features. For example, it doesn’t offer the same capabilities as its competitors.

For instance, with Printify, you can customize apparel with text and insert graphics from its Shutterstock image library; Teelaunch doesn’t provide anything similar.  

That’s all from me and my Teelaunch review! If you’re unsure about Teelaunch, I recommend signing up (free!) and testing it for yourself.

Perhaps you could compare it with some of its abovementioned competitors before deciding? Whatever you decide, let us know how you get on in the comments box below!