The print on demand business model has become incredibly popular in recent years – and for good reason.
It’s a low-risk, low-cost, and relatively “low-effort” way for anyone to sell custom products online. The biggest challenge is choosing the right POD partner to work with.
Printful has been one of my favorite platforms for a couple of years now. Sure, the base cost of some of its products can be a little expensive, but Printful has a great selection of customizable items, tons of printing options to choose from, dozens of integrations for sales channels and more.
If you’re looking for a reliable, scalable POD solution – it’s hard to get better than Printful, and in this review, I’m going to show you exactly why that is.
The Quick Verdict: Pros and Cons
Printful is one of the world’s most popular print-on-demand platforms. It does have a few issues, like limited customer support, and slightly more expensive products than some competitors.
However, it makes up for that with great design tools, lots of integrations for different sales channels, and a commitment to quality that ensures you impress your buyers.
No wonder it has a 4.7 out of 5 star rating on Trustpilot (with nearly 6,000 reviews).
Pros:
- Excellent range of products and customization options
- Dozens of great integration options
- Straightforward and useful design tools
- Handy quick-store tool for small sellers
- Consistent commitment to quality
- Fantastic premium plan for scaling brands
Cons:
- Some products can be a little expensive
- Access to customer support is limited at times
Printful Review: The Core Features, Products and More
I could spend hours walking you through all the different tools that Printful has to offer and how they work – but if you’re reading this Printful review, you’re probably only wondering one thing: is it worthwhile?
With that in mind, here’s my hands-on insight into everything Printful has to offer in terms of products, fulfillment options, design tools, and more.
Product Options and Customization
Let’s start with the products you can customize with Printful. Printful has about 400 products to choose from – that’s quite a lot of variety, although some companies (like Printify) do offer more options.
Most of the products are pretty standard for POD sellers, from men and women’s clothing, to hats, home décor, and so on.
Printful doesn’t really offer a lot of “unique” options, although there are some great eco-friendly options for sustainable sellers.
It’s also worth noting that Printful actually allows you to customize products from some well-known brands, like Adidas and Under Armour.
What I think makes Printful special is how many options you have for “customizing” different items. There are plenty of printing methods to explore, from the DTG and DTF, to all-over printing, sublimation, embroidery, and UV printing.
On top of that, you can choose additional “printing areas” for certain items, like adding a design to the back and sleeves of a t-shirt (although there is an extra fee for this).
Actually experimenting with designs is easy too, thanks to Printful’s fantastic design tools, which come with tons of free assets to work with, and even an AI upscaler to improve the quality of your prints.
Plus, you can design gorgeous mockups for your website, with great “lifestyle” images that look really professional and realistic.
Printful’s product editor even gives you the option to customize product descriptions before you add your items to your site.
Product Quality and Branding Options
I probably could have mentioned product quality in the section above, but it’s such a big part of what makes Printful stand out, I think it deserved it’s own section.
Printful is absolutely committed to ensuring every product it creates looks great. It will even remove products from sale if it finds issues with the material or print quality during production.
On a broad scale, everything I’ve ordered from Printful has looked and felt incredible – and many of Printful’s other customers feel the same way about the product quality, describing the prints as crisp, clear, and vibrant.
Since Printful handles production in house, you don’t have to worry about variability in product quality either – like you would with Printify.
Printful also offers some great branding options too, such as the ability to add your logo to inside and outside labels, sleeves, and the sides and backs of hats.
Plus, you can experiment with packaging inserts, and even custom packaging if you send it straight to Printful’s warehouse.
Oh, and speaking of Printful’s warehouse, you can also store items you haven’t made with Printful there too, which is great if you want to unify all of your logistics processes.
Global Fulfillment, Integrations and Sales Tools
Printful, like most of the print on demand companies I’ve reviewed in the past, offers global fulfillment services, working with numerous shipping companies worldwide.
The cost of your shipping, and how long delivery takes varies based on a few factors. For instance, you’ll pay different fees based on the product you’re sending (shirts cost around $4.69 for the first item, while bags cost $3.99 for the first item).
Certain products also take longer to produce. For instance, the average shipping time for a stainless steel water bottle is about 7-10 business days, while a classic snapback cap takes 5-8 days to ship.
Compared to other vendors, Printful’s shipping costs are a bit high, and deliveries can sometimes take longer than you’d like – but at least you know your customers are getting quality.
From an integrations perspective, Printful outperforms most other companies in the POD sector, with more than 23 integrations to choose from.
You can link Printful to ecommerce sites like Shopify and Wix, marketplaces like Amazon and Walmart, and more. There’s even a custom API.
Some integrations do lack certain features – such as the ability to automatically display “out of stock” labels, but they do make it relatively easy to invest in omnichannel selling.
Beyond that, Printful offers some great tools to help you keep track of your sales, organize your files for designs, and even share product templates with team members.
Printful Review: Ease of Use and Customer Support
On the whole, it’s hard to find anything about Printful’s “usability” to complain about. Everything from signing up for an account, customizing products, setting prices, and pushing items to your integrated storefronts is incredibly simple.
I even love how clean and straightforward the Printful dashboard is, with handy tooltips and onboarding messages.
The mobile app for Printful is great too – although you might find it’s a little harder to manage your designs through a smaller screen.
When it come to customer support, Printful has a decent reputation for helping customers quickly – although you are limited in contact options.
Service is available 24/7 through chat and email, but there’s no phone option. Still, Printful promises an average response time of around 2 hours – and in my experience, you usually get an answer to your questions much quicker than that.
If you’re in a rush, you can also check out Printful’s self-help resources. There are tons of guides, videos, blogs, and even an academy for beginners.
In fact, if you complete Academy courses, you get points you can exchange for goodies and perks, such as free discount coupons and sample orders.
Printful: Plans and Pricing
Similar to many other POD leaders, Printful allows beginners to get started with the platform for free. You can create an account and start selling products without paying anything.
All you need to do is pay for the base cost of the product, any design elements, and shipping fees when a customer places an order on your website.
As mentioned above, Printful’s products and shipping fees can be a little expensive – but I think it’s worth paying the extra for the quality you get.
There are other potential “extra” fees to think about too, such as packaging insert fees, custom packaging fees, and warehousing fees (if you want to store your existing products with Printful).
Notably, Printful does offer one “premium” plan to customers too.
The “Growth” plan, available for $24.99 per month, give you access to a ton of great benefits, like up to 33% off all products, an extra 20% off DTG products, 9% off branding, 25% discounts on sample orders, and free digitization for sample orders. You can also create unlimited stores, and access exclusive deals.
Printful’s premium plan is one of the best out there – offering a lot more than competing options (like Printify Premium) for a lower price.
Plus, once you earn $12k in annual sales, you can access all the benefits of this plan for free for a year.
That’s something that no other print on demand company offers.
If you ask me, Printful’s Growth plan makes it one of the best companies for scaling POD sellers out there. It also completely eliminates the main issue many sellers have with Printful, by making the base cost of its products so much more affordable.
Printful Review: The Verdict
Overall, I still think Printful is one of the best print on demand partners worldwide.
Although some of the products can be a little expensive, and there’s no phone support, it’s hard to argue with all the value you get from this company.
Whether you’re looking for a huge range of high-quality customizable items, great design tools, or dozens of integrations, Printful is a great pick.
Plus, with the Growth plan, as your business begins to scale, you can take advantage of a huge range of benefits that make Printful’s products cheaper, and increase your profit margins – for free. I’d definitely recommend Printful to just about any POD seller.
