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Printful Reviews: Pricing, Features, Pros & Cons

Last updated: September 27 2024

Written and researched by experts at Avada Learn more about our methodology

If you’ve heard of drop shipping and now wanted to create your clothing line using the dropshipping business model, you must have heard of Printful. In this Printful review, I’m going to take a thorough look at what it can do for you, the various products it’s offering, and the services they provide for shop owners. Now let’s jump right into the details!

What Printful Does

What Prinful does?
What Prinful does?

Printful is a dropshipping supplier of clothes, shoes, and household products such as t-shirts, caps, posters, pillows, mugs, tote bags, phone cases, and more. Their service is suitable for people who want to start a dropshipping business for several reasons:

  • They don’t require any minimum orders, which means you can buy as few as one item.
  • You don’t have to own or maintain any inventory (no printing machines, no goods, etc.) they handle it all.
  • No monthly fees.
  • Items arrive, on average, within three days.
  • They ship replacements in case orders are missing or damaged in transit.
  • They offer personalized branding options, such as applying logo stickers to packaging or custom packing slips.

Printful supplies the products, does the packaging, and shipping to the customer; all you have to do is send orders and order information to them, and they will help you handle the rest. To learn more about how their process works, you can check out their Printful Print Order Lifecycle.

They help you build products for your business, and they provide all the tools and services you need to help you easily incorporate the dropshipping process into your eCommerce website so that you can provide your customers with a seamless buying experience.

They provide a number of eCommerce integrations for different platforms so that you can use their service no matter which platform you want to sell on; they are straightforward about their product and shipping prices so that you can easily understand their costs and add them to your product margins, they provide design, photography and branding services so that your goods can have the best look. Printful is based in the US and Europe, so you can easily reach customers in these two large markets.

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Who Printful is For

Who should use Printful?
Who should use Printful?

Printful is designed for eCommerce entrepreneurs who want to sell dropshipping goods quickly without compromising price or branding in the process. If you’re looking for a way to sell your own designs clients, whether it’s personalized t-shirts, canvases, phone cases, pillows or more, or whether you’re interested in starting some kind of product-based company without the need to own inventory or manufacturing materials, then Printful is for you.

Printful continues to expand their services and product ranges, and because they are so receptive to the needs of their customers and want their number of sellers to continue to increase. Their productivity, reliability, high-quality product delivery, and diverse variety are part of the reason why they are so effective, and their willingness to partner with companies to help them provide the best value to their customers is what keeps them rising.

Working with Printful, you don’t have to have any previous business experience. The services they provide are open to both experienced entrepreneurs and new business owners, so if you’ve never started your own company or didn’t get goods from a manufacturer before, try Printful! There is no minimum order limit, no monthly payments, you just pay for orders when your customers make them, so it’s a low-risk way to start your own company.

How Much Does Printful Cost?

Printful Pricing
Printful Pricing

Printful pricing is very straightforward. Using this app, you don’t have to pay any subscription fees, membership fees, worry about meeting the minimum order threshold, or anything similar.

You just pay for the orders placed by your customers. Printful pricing is very clearly defined, from processing, printing to delivery, everything is clearly priced. You can review Printful Products and Pricing here along with their Shipping page to find out what Printful Services actually cost.

Printful’s Features & Services

Features and services provided by Printful
Features and services provided by Printful

What they provide to sellers goes well beyond just their product offering and regular drop-shipping services. They are also a big part of what makes their service so comprehensive, and they also provide other tools and services that make it easier for sellers to set up their shops, create more beautiful items, and make full use of Printful ‘s service as a whole.

Printful Products Reviews:

Printful’s product range is mainly in the clothing, homeware, and accessories categories, and can be printed on all of the items they sell. Their product range includes:

  • T-Shirts/Tops
  • Leggings
  • Hoodies
  • Posters
  • Skirts/Dresses
  • Framed Posters
  • Coffee Mugs
  • Canvases
  • Hats
  • Tote Bags
  • Throw Pillows
  • Socks
  • Phone Cases
  • Beach Blankets

For more detail on their goods and pricing, see Printful’s Custom Product page. If you’re interested in dropping a product that you haven’t seen on Printful yet, check out their Upcoming Product & Features page to see if it is coming. They listen to their customers and add new features on a regular basis, so if there is a product you want to see, just let them know through their New Feature Requests page.

Printful Printing methods Reviews:

Prinful’s printing methods
Prinful’s printing methods

There are several different printing methods, but the one that Printful chooses is Direct-to-Garment (DTG) printing because it’s a cost-effective and labor-efficient way to print single order items (and why they don’t need minimum orders), but they also provide all-over sublimation printing for certain clothing products, screen printing in some cases (available for large orders only) and embroidery for hats.

Printful makes it convenient for you when it comes to printing. You don’t have to think about finding the right printing method for the item you ‘re printing on, every product sold on their website is printed in the way that best fits the product, so you don’t have to study various printing methods and their pros and cons, Printful got it covered. See Printful’s Printing FAQ page for more details and answers to frequently asked questions.

Printful Shipping and fulfillment Reviews:

Printful’s shipping and fulfillment
Printful’s shipping and fulfillment

As Printful offers dropshipping service, there is no need for you to handle or maintain any of the items or inventories, nor do you handle any of the packaging, delivery, or distribution aspects. Printful stores, prints, selects, packs, ships, and delivers everything, so you don’t have to.

That is why dropshipping is such an appealing business model for entrepreneurs who are starting their first store or who do not have a big budget to invest in product inventories or manufacturing equipment. It offers a low-risk way for sellers to deliver quality goods to their customers and enables sellers to concentrate on other aspects of their stores, such as design, branding, customer service or marketing, without having to think about the technical side of running a business like printing and shipping.

It will, of course, mean that you pay for Printful’s service and for the provision of warehousing, storage, and distribution to make it a low-risk business model for you. Since you will not pay subscription rates or minimum orders for their operation, the gross margins will be reduced and would be lower than if you were making your own product line. This drawback is not exclusive to Printful; it extends to the drop-shipping business model as a whole. Nonetheless, it is an important aspect of dropshipping to bear in mind so that you can manage your margins accordingly.

Printful Reviews: Warehousing services

Printful’s warehousing services
Printful’s warehousing services

Printful also provides a warehousing and distribution service where they can stock, select, prepare, and ship items on behalf of merchants — they don’t even have to be Printful products! Printful has developed a comprehensive network of shipping, fulfillment and logistics solutions that are now being employed by merchants who need access to these services.

Through this company, you can store goods sold either in your eCommerce store or in their warehouse, and they will comply through your orders and distribute your goods directly to your customers under your own brand name.

It is an excellent solution for eCommerce entrepreneurs who do not want to manage shipping and efficiency themselves or who do not have the resources to run a shipping warehouse, or who do not have the experience to build an efficient and cost-effective global shipping strategy. If this sounds like a service you are looking for, read more about Printful’s Ecommerce Stores Warehousing and Fulfillment Services here.

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Printful Reviews: Branding services

Printful’s branding services
Printful’s branding services

Just one of the many services that Printful offers beyond only selling quality goods and performance services, they also provide design and branding services to help you take your company to the next level.

Some of the main issues with dropshipping are that branding can be affected. Without branded packaging or minor touches such as package inserts or branded receipts, you are missing out on one important part of creating your brand. Printful has acknowledged this difficulty and provides a few branding choices to help make things more user-friendly between you and your customers. Their branding options shall include:

  • Inner shirt labels
  • Brand stickers to use on shipping boxes
  • Customizable return address
  • Outer shirt labels
  • Packing inserts

To learn more about branding services Printful provides, check out this page.

Printful Reviews: Design services

Printful’s design services
Printful’s design services

Printful’s expert team will also support you with the design specifications you may need to get your eCommerce store off the ground. Not only can they help you create print files for Printful items, but they can also support you with your other design needs, such as redesigning logos, creating sublimation print files, color matching print files, making small improvements to print files, developing new designs, creating custom artwork, and more. Also, if you’re running on other sites like TeeSpring, Society6, or Kickstarter, the Printful Design Team will help you create any projects, artworks, or graphics you need.

It is a perfect service for an eCommerce business owner who has an idea of what designs they want to print on their items, but who’s not sure how to bring it to life, or the shop owner who wants to outsource the artwork production process so that they can free up some time to deal with other aspects of building their business. With Printful’s dedicated design team, you’ll be in good hands, so if this is a service you are looking for, check out the Printful’s Design Services page for more details.

Printful Reviews: Integration with eCommerce platforms

Printful integration
Printful integration

Printful integrates with the most popular eCommerce platforms, and deployment on most of these platforms is fast and simple. Integrating Printful with your eCommerce store means that you don’t have to handle every customer’s order manually and submit it to Printful yourself. Once you integrate Printful with your eCommerce platform any time your customers place an order, it will immediately be sent to Printful so that you don’t have to manage it at all. It means that orders are submitted to Printful directly, and there is no risk of losing the order or making a mistake on the specifics of the order in the process.

Printful integrations are available with these eCommerce platforms:

Alternatively, you can link your store to Printful via API integration. For more details about the platforms Printful integrates with, you can check out Printful’s eCommerce Drop Shipping Integrations page.

Printful Reviews: Tools and resources

Printful’s tools and resources
Printful’s tools and resources

As I mentioned earlier, what makes Printful such a good service to use is that they are committed not only to delivering great service through their product offering and fulfillment but also to helping sellers use Printful to its fullest extent.

The resources and tools that Printful provide to assist their customers include:

  • Printing Tips: They provide a range of articles that are conveniently accessible via their homepage to help sellers understand various printing advantages and disadvantages such as DTG print file transparency, sublimation printing facts, fabric facts, garment printing facts, and details on how to create embroidery files.
  • Mockup Generator: You can use their mockup generator to try your designs on their products, either to get a sense of what the final product would look like or generate product photos for the eCommerce site.
  • Profit Calculator: As I have mentioned, the dropshipping business model necessarily means that you’re operating with low-profit margins, so use their profit calculator to calculate what your margins will be on each product so that you can budget your markup accordingly.
  • Checklist: Check out their checklist that helps you set up your Printful store in the most efficient way.
  • Blog: Printful’s blog is a great tool to have a look at if you’re interested in learning more about their products, programs, integrations, or how to actually create your store the way you want it. They’re experts on their goods and services, so if you need more detail on what they’re doing, check out their blog posts.
  • YouTube Channel: For video footage and demos, check out their active YouTube channel to learn more about their product lines, how their products are made, new product or service offerings, and more.

Pros & Cons of Printful

Printful’s pros and cons
Printful’s pros and cons

Although Printful provides many different services, resources, and tools that are beneficial to their customers, there are still some areas of their services that they are still improving. Let’s have a look at the benefits and drawbacks of using Printful as a dropshipping supplier.

Pros of Printful

  • Printful warehouses are US and European based, so you can easily access these big consumer markets
  • Low-risk business model
  • High-quality printing capabilities
  • High-quality products
  • No minimum orders
  • Transparent shipping prices
  • No monthly fees to use their service
  • Customizable branding options
  • Deliver products to customers within three days (on average)
  • Ship replacements for lost or damaged products
  • Plenty of online resources for help on their products and services
  • Automate your business operations with their eCommerce platform integrations

Cons of Printful

  • Their product line is narrowed down to the apparel, accessories, and homeware products only
  • Low margins
  • Although there are some branding options, they are limited (you are not allowed to use your own boxes, poly-mailers, tissue paper or anything outside of the customizations they offer)
  • Some products, such as framed posters or canvases, are not shipped everywhere.

Printful provides the best drop-shipping service when it comes to clothing, accessories, and homeware printing. They may not have a huge product range, but what they do offer is high quality, and they aim to get it right every time. Printful also collaborates with their customers to continually improve the goods and services that they provide, whether they put in different types of products or provide more variety to what they already provide. Their desire to deliver high-quality goods and services and to constantly develop their products, equipment, and resources is why so many sellers chose to dropship with them.

Printful FAQs

FAQs about Printful
FAQs about Printful

Q: Can you earn money with Printful?

Yes, you certainly can make money with Printful, and tons of people are. You need to develop the right concept that meets the needs of your target market, and Printful will handle the backend of your operation for you (manufacturing and order fulfillment).

Q: Does Printful Integrate with Shopify?

Sure, Printful does integrate with Shopify. You can go to the Shopify App store search for ‘Printful’, then click ‘Get’ and complete the registration.

Q: Is Printful Free?

Printful is free to integrate and requires no monthly fees. However, there are selling fees that vary for every product which you can check here.

Q: How do you get paid on Printful?

Printful charges its customers using its wallet under two billing methods called Primary and Manual. You need to add your PayPal or credit card to your Printful account if you use the Primary method. If a customer purchases from your store, your credit card or PayPal account will accept payment from your customer, and money in your account will be deposited by the Printful wallet for payment. The rest of the balance will be your income. With the manual method, you need to manually deposit the amount from your PayPal or credit card into your Printful wallet in order to complete the payment process.

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Conclusion

Printful has the best clothes, homeware, and dropshipping accessories service in North America, and now that they’ve started building on a base in Europe, they’re sure to get to the top there as well. Their high-quality goods, combined with their reliable printing, shipping, and distribution services, make them a convenient choice for sellers who want to start their own company without the risk of purchasing large quantities of items or costly equipment in advance.

They go beyond just providing a drop-shipping service in order to enhance the experience of the seller with their product by offering valuable tools and resources to help them have better support for their own customers. If you’re interested in starting your own e-commerce shop with a drop-in business model, I highly recommend checking out Printful.

I hope that this article has provided you with valuable insights into how Printful works and the services that it’s providing. Please feel free to leave comments below for further discussion. :-)

Further Reading:

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Sam Nguyen is the CEO and founder of Avada Commerce, an e-commerce solution provider headquartered in Singapore. He is an expert on the Shopify e-commerce platform for online stores and retail point-of-sale systems. Sam loves talking about e-commerce and he aims to help over a million online businesses grow and thrive.