Print on Demand, or POD as many people know it, is a different way of selling products where printing is done in smaller quantities on a per order basis. Unlike other ways to sell where you usually have to buy in bulk, prepay and hope for the best (if you don’t sell anything suddenly you have a massive stock in your house), print on demand sites are totally based on customer needs.
Some of the most popular print on demand products are mugs, books, mobile cases, home decoration and clothes like pants, t-shirts, hoodies, caps, canvas, bags, etc.
The main difference between the regular way of printing and selling stuff and the best print on demand sites is that the latter is becoming a revolution because it makes it easier to sell while minimizing the risks.
With a good Print on demand website, you’ll be able to sell on a per order basis without having stock because productions are made after an order is requested, and they will take care of everything related to customer service, including but not limited to: shipping, refunds or returns, customer service chat, inventory, storage, etc.
The main idea is that you as a seller or as an artist will focus mostly on uploading your designs and promoting them to make money and you’ll just receive your profits every certain period of days.
As for your customers, the idea is that they can get products with very unique impressions that are custom made and you normally can’t buy in physical stores. Many people just want to be different or just don’t want to support big brands and would rather have a custom design in their favorite hoodie.
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Now that you’re familiarized with the POD (print on demand) market, let’s have a look at the best print on demand websites available in the market so you can start uploading your designs and make money!
Best Print on Demand Websites/Companies
We have considered the following factors when curating our list to help you choose the best print on demand companies based on your needs:
- Is it possible to sell in their marketplace? It helps when you don’t have an audience when a site of this allows you to sell publicly in their marketplace to leverage their traffic. Think of Amazon where millions of visits happen every day and just by uploading a product you can get a ton of exposure without having to market anything or have a following
- Is it possible to sell on your own site? In case you already have a website and you want complete integration to make sales seamlessly without users abandoning your site. Shopify/WooCommerce integration can be very useful as well.
- Huge traffic available: this helps with point number 1. the more traffic the platform has, the better chances you have at making money. We include monthly estimated stats for each print on demand company listed below
- Wide range of products: Some POD sites are good at selling shirts, while others do a ton of things.
- Low base cost: lower costs = higher profit. Need to explain more?
- Design software and UI: If the website is difficult to navigate you’re less likely to launch good designs
- Payment methods: how fast and easy is it to receive your profits?
- Shipping methods: do they support fast local and international shipping?
- Quality: this one is pretty self-explanatory
Alright, here we go! Please keep in mind that at any time you can visit the following POD sites by clicking at the image or name of the company.
1. Printful
Average Monthly traffic according to SimilarWeb: 3,000,000 visitors
Printful is one of the oldest print on demand companies in the game. They’ve been in this market since 2000 (almost 20 years!) and have a unique model that can work well for entrepreneurs.
Printful allows you to promote your products in your own stores and then it communicates with Printful to fulfill and deliver the product.
Printful has the following products available: different types of clothes, accessories, wall art, phone cases, and other stuff like towels, bed accessories, etc.
Printful has a good quality of products and allows drop shipping as well, but their main business is to connect website owners with their platform to makes sales and be fulfilled without your customers visiting Printful at all.
This is also great when you’re doing paid ads to market your products as you keep all of the data in your own site to re-market, gather emails, or simply measure stats locally.
Printful works on different eCommerce platforms like WooCommerce (WordPress), Shopify, BigCommerce, Squarespace, and more.
2. Zazzle
Average Monthly traffic according to SimilarWeb: 8,500,000 visitors
Zazzle is an interesting contender in this list with their super unique customization capabilities. Zazzle offers more than 1,300 items to customize and you can choose art from other designers/artists or simply upload your own design. This is one of the biggest print on demand websites with close to 30 million visits per month.
Some of the products you can print at Zazzle are: t-shirts, bags, invitations, mugs, stickers, clothes for kids, and more.
With Zazzle, you set up your own royalty rates and you can earn also on referrals. You can join as a designer, maker, or associate and everything is free to use!
Their minimum payout is $50 and you can get 15% per referral sale and up to 17% if you do volume.
3. Redbubble
Average Monthly traffic according to SimilarWeb: 21,800,000 visitors
Redbubble is perhaps the largest and biggest print on demand company listed in this article along with Teespring. Their domain receives a lot of traffic with a ton of artwork by a diverse community of designers and artists.
At Redbubble you can sell products like: t-shirts, hoodies, scarves, postcards, notebooks, skirts, phone cases, stickers, etc.
Redbubble is fast and most of their orders are fulfilled in 24-48 hours, which is quite nice if you’re looking for great customer service.
Payments are made each 15th of the month no matter if you sold 5 or 1,000 items via PayPal or wire bank transfers (USA, UK, AU only)
Redbubble has a simple user interface where you can set up your margins and it’s free to join. With a diverse community, it’s a top-notch site and has a huge customer base.
This one has my personal recommendation. There are many sites like Redbubble in this article but this is by far the best and most popular print on demand site based on traffic and feedback.
4. Teespring
Average Monthly traffic according to SimilarWeb: 29,400,000 visitors
Teespring is one of my old favorites on this list. In fact, my first Print on Demand experiences selling t-shirts online happened on Teespring (you can see my Facebook Teespring case study here).
Initially, you could only sell t-shirts but they’ve added a number of products in their market place and overall their design and UI are top-notch.
With Teespring, you need to launch campaigns and wait 3-21 days to finish them before the orders are fulfilled. As long as you sell enough shirts Teespring will produce them and pay you after that.
Their marketplace makes it a very competitive print on demand company as they have categories that can be browsed by interests, hobbies, animals, age, locations, favorite sports, music, and more. This is one of their unique selling points as users can browse hundreds of designs and they even remarket to your users if you enable that option.
Teespring ships worldwide but the USA is their top country where shipping times are 2-5 business days. International shipping takes 10-16 days if you’re in CA/UK or more if you’re in other countries.
With Teespring you can set your own prices, margins and the more you sell, the less you can pay per product.
Teespring allows you to sell products like: t-shirts, hoodies, canvas, mugs, home decoration, gifts, pants, tank tops, etc.
You can also contact your customers via email and their analytics dashboard allows you to check every step of the process and create a store if you want to sell more than just a few designs.
5. Society6
Average Monthly traffic according to SimilarWeb: 4,750,000 visitors
Society6 is a print on demand site for creative people who love design and aesthetics. Or at least that’s their motto.
Society6 has products focused on interior decoration like murals, canvas and similar and this is what makes them unique in this market. They do have more products for a total of 30+ items available to customize.
If you’re an art lover Society6 is a great company to promote your products and as always, you can set your margins although each item might have different sizes and specs, making it difficult to calculate without their own user interface.
Products are shipped 4-14 days in the USA and Australia and 2-4 weeks for anywhere else.
6. Sunfrog
Average Monthly traffic according to Ahrefs: 42,000
Sunfrog was one of the first options I tested back in 2012 and is a great option for starters in the print on demand industry. It’s possibly also the smallest contender in this list of print on demand companies.
They have a ton of tutorials and a decent audience. Also, you can sell some of the other people’s products from the market place and still make a commission.
Sunfrog shirts are popular due to their lower prices and while I wasn’t 100% satisfied with the quality of their shirts, they might be OK for most people.
Their marketplace is filled with tons of shirts for geeks and you can search by categories so if you’re into that Sunfrog might be your best choice to get started.
Some of the products you can sell at Sunfrog are: t-shirts, hoodies, shirts, mugs, hats, leggings, etc.
T-shirts are printed in the USA and shipped internationally and you get paid a 15% commission for each item sold (fixed margin) + 10% if it’s one of your own designs.
How to create awesome designs and sell a ton of POD products
If you’re looking to get started in the Print on Demand business you know having great designs in your products is what generates sales and revenue. However, creating beautiful products can be a difficult process especially if you’re not a designer.
Placeit helps you with more than 34,000 templates ready to edit for every product including shirts, mugs, pillows, etc.
With Placeit you can focus on generating sales while having awesome designs in your eComm store for only $14.95. You can try Placeit mockups here.
7. Design by humans
Average Monthly traffic according to SimilarWeb: 2,150,000 visitors
This print on demand website has a good marketplace for creators with a decent sized customer base.
Some of the products you can design at Design by Humans are: t-shirts, mugs, hats, notebooks, buttons, hats, etc.
They offer international shipping but mostly it’s a community of artists supporting each other so you can start making money with your creatives.
You get a good profit margin and they also host design competitions almost every day. Payments are done via PayPal mostly.
8. CafePress
Average Monthly traffic according to SimilarWeb: 4,000,000 visitors
CafePress is a leader in this print on demand industry. You’ve probably heard about it and they have a good audience so you don’t need to make a ton of effort to start selling.
CafePress has a ton of items to sell and offer good margins and lower base costs thanks to being one of the oldest in the list.
Some of the products you can sell at CafePress are: baby clothes, apparel, stickers, buttons, magnets, dog hoodies (LOL yeah, this is a big market!), house items, posters, bags, books and more.
They offer international currencies for the USA, Canada, Australia, UK, and the European Union.
Artists can also become affiliates and get a percentage of each sale without being your own products. Commissions go up to 15% for affiliates.
9. Custom Ink
Average Monthly traffic according to SimilarWeb: 3,900,000 visitors
One of the print on demand websites for beginners, Custom Ink has a friendly user interface and a good reputation, but it also allows you to create your own fundraiser which is one of their unique points.
Your contributors become like your VC (venture capital) backers so you can start your own company and they can get some shirts with your brand.
Not the most appealing business model but they’re quite unique in that aspect.
10. GearBubble
Average Monthly traffic according to SimilarWeb: 570,000 visitors
GearBubble is new in the industry. With new I mean they’ve been available for 4-5 years and so far, they’ve sold more than 2.8 million products.
Their main focus is paid traffic from social media. GearBubble allows you to set up integration with Shopify, Etsy, eBay, and even Amazon, harnessing the power and consumer base of the giants in the industry while fulfilling everything for you.
Some of the products you can sell on GearBubble are: t-shirts, hoodies, necklaces, pendants, hats, mugs, pants, etc.
GearBubble also allows you to create your own store and they have a pro membership with great converting templates and checkout methods.
Payments are done via PayPal at the end of the month and their market place allows people to look for items based on top sellers, categories, professions, animals, and more.
11. TeePublic
Average Monthly traffic according to SimilarWeb: 6,100,000 visitors
TeePublic is another option to get started in the print on demand business. TeePublic has a community like Design by Humans which is all about supporting artists and helping you with creativity.
It seems like they have good customer service and offer unique items to customize like laptop cases.
Consider TeePublic as an indie community where you can sign up and create a digital store without having your own site.
Other products you can sell here are notebooks, mugs, tapestries, wall art, etc.
12. Spreadshirt
Average Monthly traffic according to SimilarWeb: 5,450,000 visitors
Spreadshirt is another POD company that makes it easy to create and sell custom products. They have an interesting collection of items and they’re based in Germany (most companies in this list are US-based).
They have an easy to use interface and a ton of options you can play with as an artist. With over 100 items you’ll have a lot to work with.
Some of the products you can sell at Spreadshirt are: kid’s clothing, water bottles, phone cases, tablet cases, etc.
They usually go for trending items so whatever is new in the market that’s making waves might be available fast at Spreadshirt.
13. Threadless
Average Monthly traffic according to SimilarWeb: 2,400,000 visitors
Threadless is an interesting print on demand site where people submit designs and they’re only approved for sale if it’s voted up by the community. This process takes 1-2 days so plan accordingly.
This might be a challenging way to do business but at the same time, it could give you feedback before launching failed products.
Some of the products you can sell at Threadless are: clothes for all ages, home decoration and accessories, notebooks, towels, phone cases, and more.
Threadless ships worldwide and artists receive their payments via PayPal after the end of the month.
14. Fine Art America
Average Monthly traffic according to SimilarWeb: 4,800,000 visitors
Fine Art America is a place where artists mostly publish their designs in the form of frames and canvas. While they have a ton of items including t-shirts, phone cases, covers, cushions, curtains, and bags, the community focuses on the former products.
Similar to Society6, this is a good thing as you can find higher quality products if you’re into home decoration and art.
You can license your designs and even sell your rights.
As always, selling here is free but calculating the margin can be difficult.
Conclusions
As you can see, there are a ton of options based on your needs and interests to start selling print on demand items. Whether you’re an artist, an affiliate or you dabble in eCommerce there’s going to be an option for you.
This is great because once you find a winner design you can scale up fast and start selling worldwide in a number of markets while not having to care about customer support, inventory, shipping, etc.
Overall the print on demand business looks like a better alternative to drop-shipping because you’re selling customized products and you can offer value to your clients rather than just flipping things at a higher price.
If you’re just starting, focus on print on demand sites that have a friendly user interface or take an aggressive approach and focus on the biggest websites with more traffic as you’ll have more opportunities to sell without investing in ads or having followers.
If you want to take your business to the next level make sure you learn how to promote your designs in social media like Facebook Ads, Instagram, Pinterest, or Snapchat. Some people make thousands per day by promoting the right products to the right audience.
What are you waiting for? Sign up, submit your designs and start selling NOW!
Using CafePress now as a fundraiser for our neighborhood cat trap-neuter-return program. THEIR WEBSITE IS SOOOOOOO FUNKY!! very much in need of an upgrade! round in circles we go, and to dead ends. Need to quit browser and start over lots of times.
Which browser are you using, Linda?
Their UI is definitely not our favorite. There are at least 2-4 better options in this list with much better flows 🙂
Good list except you haven’t listed probably one of the best out there – Printify.com
Cheers!
Thanks for the suggestion!
That looks like a rather new (2 years give or take) site and it hasn’t as much traffic as the others but it looks like a good solution.
Are you working with them?
Hey Servando
The thing that is disappointing from most of these companies is the low commission of a mere 2-3 bucks after they get 15-20 a shirt in profit. I do understand of production/ shipping. However these companies seem to be getting more higher in shirt prices wholesale. It’s really hard these days to drop ship considering the market is now saturated. Companies that charge you 29-39 monthly fees is ridiculous. Even if you do not sell much product, you really have to invest in good SEO to be able to sell anything. Which gets costly if you decide to go with your own domain/ site. I tried nearly all of the P.O.D t shirt companies and I was disappointed in the low commission, after months of work put into it, making amazing designs, my computer got hacked and all my folders of designs stolen. I gave up, because I knew then that these companies couldn’t be trusted. I got down to working with interestprint which a company that gives you a chance, though I haven’t sold anything from them, after trying, I got one of their products. I bought a mug and the thing was printed sideways and terrible quality. After this I just figured that selling my designs wasn’t my calling. There ya have it.
Great curation. I’m sure it would equally be helpful for 2020 as well.
I am so happy to find your article. Thank you.
Of these sites that you recommend, which would be able to print dishware/dinner plates as POD? I see DecoPlate fulfilled by Order Desk; what do you think of them?
I’d like to focus on one site to do some dishware, art prints, some scarves/other clothing, cards/notebooks/journals. I have a shop at Spoonflower and have sold a tiny amount of fabric there.
Please advise.
Thank you so much,
Terry
Hi Terry.
We have never have sold dishware on POD so I’m not sure and from the list of things the ones I mentioned I didn’t see any having deco plates or anything similar.
Sorry, I can’t help you on this one 🙁
Hi!
I’m looking for a POD site for my digital prints and photography. I recently signed up with ArtPal (https://www.artpal.com), but I’m not too happy with them, for a few reasons. Have you dealt with them at all?
Thanks.
We haven’t tested artpal but the 10 we have listed here are very well known and we have worked with most of them without problems so far.
You might want to re-check your figures on this article, because I’ve just had a look at Sunfrog and, their website states a 15% commission for direct sales (as opposed to the 45% you mentioned):
https://manager.sunfrogshirts.com/pages/sellers.cfm
(scroll down to ‘commission rates’)
Pity, I almost signed up immediately with them but, lucky I double-checked first…
Hi Blitz.
It looks like they recently adjusted their commissions again.
I just was about to update the article to show how they decreased the margin from 45% to 35% and now that I’ve checked their site they pay only 15%+ 10% for affiliates who promote their own products.
So from 45% to 25%, which is a massive cut in profit, unfortunately.
Thanks for the heads up!
No worries!
I don’t suppose you happen to know the % offered by all of the others, particularly Red Bubble?
Probably a daft question since those details haven’t been included but, thought I’d check anyway – I’ve tried contacting Red Bubble directly about this and they’re being veeeery shifty, refusing to give a direct answer and basically saying ‘you need to just sign up and find out for yourself’ (in not so many words).
Very helpful article..Thank You. I’m a rank beginner at this, but I do think I have
some designs that would be very good on many products. ( Intricate Zodiac Designs) My question is this: Do I keep the rights to my designs? It sounds like
I could use several different companies to increase exposure…. They don’t demand exclusivity…..correct?
How much do these companies promote the products? Do I need to do ALL of the promotion? Or is there enough traffic at these sites to sell well, anyway?
The rights of your designs are kept according to each platform, but generally yes, nobody else can copy your designs or you can report them to take them down.
You can use several companies at the same time without problems. Most of the companies don’t promote the products besides some remarketing, so people tend to drive traffic themselves to create sales.
Some of the platforms might have enough traffic to get organic sales though, like sunfrogshirts (mostly because of the way it works) and Redbubble which is the biggest of them all.
Which of these let me sell on my site and let me do mockups ?
Hello Jules.
I mentioned which ones have integration with some sort of eCommerce platform like Shopify or WooCommerce, is your site in one of those?
As for mockups, do you mean real life mocks or just digital? If it’s real physical mockups I have no idea honestly.
Hi, I recently listed some designs on teespring and ran targeted ads on facebook and instagram. I got a few clicks from the thousands of people reached, but haven’t been able to make a single sale. I initially thought I could use teespring’s boosted network to list on major e-commerce sites, but I discovered I have to sell at least 1 item to be “considered” for it, which is very far from what they lead you to believe when you join. What am I doing wrong? I’m tired of spending money and not seeing results. My store link is https://teespring.com/stores/belles-store-2 . Please help.
Hello Belle.
How much have you spent trying to sell on FB/Insta? and how many designs have you tested so far?
If the designs didn’t sell it means they probably weren’t as good or the price wasn’t right.
Dear Sir/ Madam,t
I want to print the T-shirt. I have some questions which I want to ask you:
1. I want to know the fee for the product with the sample
2. After the company print it, will the company be shipping for the third-part? The address in USA.
3. How long the company will fininh the T-shirt after we send the product?
4. How can I pay the fee for the company?
Please reply for me in email
My email is: ngoctrucnguyen0908@gmail.com
I am looking forward to hearing from the company
Thanks,
Hello!
1. The fee and price is shown when you create a design in any of the services below.
2. Yes, they will take care of shipping and customer support.
3. It depends on the company but usually it can take 3-7 days.
5. Paypal and credit card are the most common payment methods.
I’m not a POD company, this is just a curated list so I won’t email you.
How do these rate with integrations to other sites like Amazon and Etsy?
Some of them have integrations with WooCommerce and Shopify but for Amazon you’d need to check individually as every website has different integration options.
The problem is slow upload onto these sites. puppetuploader.com is a cool tool that can help with this. Has anyone else tried it?
I haven’t’ tried it.
Uploading many designs in bulk is difficult definitely.
Great article. If interested in exploring specific Print on demand websites that are popular in 2019, you can check out this article by E-commerce academia – ecommerceacademia.com/dropshipping/10-best-print-on-demand-sites-2019
NIce Information on best print on demand platform. I think you missed Merch By Amazon which is also well known POD platform to make money.
This article is info-packed and incredible.
But wait, how do i get my products to the site i have choosen?
I mean if a buyer makes order and i go ahead to finish his work, how will the finished work get to the POD company?
Since POD companies do the shipping, but how would my finished products get there?
Thank you
Hi Ibraheem.
The companies not only do the shipping and customer service. They also do the production of the items you sell and the printing.
You only need to upload your designs and the products will be completely fulfilled by them without you having to do any shipping or having inventory 🙂
Hope this clears it out.
Thank you for this great article, very helpful to newbie like. Can any of this POD website create a design for shirts for my shopify store? Thank you, Robie
Creating designs would be your work, but some of them integrate with Shopify as explained above 🙂