Prodigi vs Printful: Which print on demand platform should you use? Both have exceptional reputations for producing high-quality products, managing worldwide fulfillment, and helping creators to launch their companies with minimal effort.
However, after testing both platforms myself, I believe Printful is the better option overall, for a few reasons. It has stronger design tools, and offers more integration options with different sales channels.
Not convinced? Read on for my comprehensive hands-on comparison of the two platforms, designed to help you make the right decision for your business.
Prodigi vs Printful: The Quick Verdict, Pros and Cons
Ultimately, my recommendation is:
Use Prodigi: If you want a wider range of customizable products, and you’re highly invested in eco-friendly production and fulfillment processes.
Use Printful: If you want more scalability, through additional integration options, more advanced design tools, and an unbeatable focus on quality.
Prodigi Pros and Cons
Pros:
- More than 500,000 customizable products
- Local printing and eco-friendly production options
- Easy-to-use and convenient interface
- Speedy production times (24-48 hours)
- Lots of free resources, such as a mockup generator
Cons:
- Fewer printing options than Printful
- Limited integrations with sales channels
- Variable printing quality
Printful Pros and Cons
Pros:
- Great range of products and customization options
- Excellent design tools and mockup generator
- Huge range of integrations with different sales channels
- Fantastic add-on services, such as design support
- Consistent commitment to product quality
Cons:
- Base product and delivery prices can be high
- Slow customer support at times
Prodigi vs Printful: The Core Features
Prodigi and Printful are quite similar on the surface. They’re both print on demand and dropshipping companies that allow you to integrate their services with existing sales channels, and leverage worldwide production and fulfillment options.
Still, I noticed some major differences between the tools when I tested them myself.
Product Options and Customization
At a glance, Prodigi seems to have a lot more product options than Printful. It even boasts about having more than 500,000 product options on its home page. But a lot of the items are variations of the same thing (like different styles of t-shirts). Still, you can find some products on Prodigi you won’t get from Printful, like various “tech” accessories.
Prodigi also specializes in eco-friendly and sustainable products, which is great if you want to position yourself as a “green” brand. They partner with suppliers in 10 countries to reduce carbon emissions caused by lengthy shipments.
However, it’s worth noting that Printful is pretty eco-friendly too. It has its own global fulfillment network, and offers access to products designed with sustainable materials and inks. Printful also gives you more ways to customize your products, with all-over-print, embroidery, and DTG printing.
Speaking of customization, I prefer Printful’s design tools to Prodigi’s too. Although Prodigi has a great design maker and mockup generator that’s easy to use for beginners, Printful is more robust.
It gives you access to tons of free resources, such as fonts and clipart, allows you to create unique lifestyle mockups, and even gives you AI tools for upscaling images.
Product Quality and Profitability
One of the issues many creators have with Printful, is that the base cost of their products, and their shipping services can be pretty expensive. A standard shirt will cost you around $11.25, and then there are extra fees to pay for embroidery, digitization, and branding too.
Prodigi is a little cheaper, from what I can tell, and the company regularly offers access to great discounts, particularly for companies buying in bulk. However, the base costs of goods isn’t the only thing that will affect your profits as a POD vendor.
Product quality matters too. Printful has an excellent reputation for delivering consistently high-quality products. They use the latest printing technologies, and high quality materials.
Plus, they follow strict quality assurance measures, which has helped them achieve a 99% customer satisfaction rate. While Prodigi also does its best to ensure excellent quality, I have noticed plenty of negative reviews suggesting their print quality isn’t always perfect.
I’d definitely recommend ordering samples from both companies before you go all-in with one vendor on your print on demand strategy.
Fulfillment and Sales Channels
The good news for growing vendors is both Prodigi and Printful support global fulfillment. They both have distribution centers located around the globe, which means they can get products to your customers quickly, and reduce your carbon footprint.
Plus, they both promise relatively fast production times. But Printful offers access to more sales channels.
While Prodigi integrates seamlessly with a few top platforms, like Squarespace, Etsy, Shopify, WooCommerce, Wix, and BigCommerce, Printify supports dozens of platforms.
As well as integrating with all of those channels, Printful works with social media channels like TikTok Shop. It can also work with Square Online, Ecwid, Webflow, Storenvy, and more.
If you’re looking for endless scalability, definitely choose Printful.
Ease of Use and Customer Support
Using both Printful and Prodigi was a very simple experience for me. It takes seconds to create an account, and start designing products. Printful’s design tools are a bit more intuitive in my opinion – particularly the AI image upscaling service.
Plus, the dashboard is a lot simpler to navigate and master. I also love the fact that you get access to free resources, like a Promo maker.
Prodigi is easy to use, but it has fewer features as a POD platform. It does give you a mockup generator, but there are fewer tools for branding, creating ads, and tracking analytics.
Both companies take a comprehensive approach to customer support, at least on a self-service basis. They offer access to countless guides, tutorials, videos, and FAQs. Although I did find Printful’s resources to be more comprehensive.
For direct customer service, Printful offers 24/7 email and live chat. Prodigi really just offers email, and their response times can be slow at times.
Prodigi vs Printful: Plans and Pricing
Finally, let’s look at pricing. I’ve already noted that Printful’s product prices are a little more expensive than Prodigi’s. However, both platforms allow you to create an account for free. The biggest difference between the two options is that Printful also offers “memberships”.
The Growth plan is free if you earn over $12k in revenue per year, but you can also sign up for $24.99 per month. This gives you access to tons of discounts, such as 30% off certain products, and 7% off branding. The “Business” plan is only an option for companies that earn more than $60k per year.
This comes with extra discounts, such as up to 33% off some product categories, as well as free digitization for your embroidered products. Notably, extra services from Printful can incur an additional fee, such as advanced branding options, or design support.
Prodigi vs Printful: The Verdict
So, which is the best platform?
In my opinion, Prodigi is great if you’re looking for a simple, cost-effective solution for print on demand, with plenty of customizable products to choose from.
However, Printful is the better platform overall.
It gives you more customization options, more advanced design tools, and the ability to scale your business with integrations for multiple sales channels.