Printful is a print on demand and fulfilment company that essentially handles printing, packaging and shipment for your print-on-demand venture. Launched in 2013, it currently operates seven fulfillment centres and partner facilities across the globe. With over 375+ K active customers and a net revenue of 208 million in 2020, the American company has earned its place as a household name in the industry with a reputation for reliability and quality.
But is Printful the right partner for you?
In this Printful review we share everything you need to know.
What Printful can do for you
Partnering with Printful allows you to outsource the labour of printing, packaging and shipping your products. As with all POD-providers, your products only get printed if an order is placed, thereby eliminating the cost and hassle of creating and storing inventory. You can sign up for free and there are no hidden fees, which means that you only pay Printful for fulfilment and shipping if a customer has bought the product.
They do not have an order minimum, allowing you to start small, but they also offer discounts on bulk orders. Printful’s fulfilment centres across Asia, America and Europe allow you to sell your products across the entire globe while reducing shipment times.
In short: If you would like to focus on the designing and marketing aspect of your POD business, outsourcing fulfilment and shipping to a well-established and experienced company like Printful may be a good way to get your Print-on-Demand-journey started.
TIP: Printful also offers you the option for storing inventory in one or more of their warehouses and other additional services, such as branded packaging, customized labels and graphic design at an additional fee.
There is also a possibility to upgrade to the Printful Pro Plan. For 49 EUR / month you get extra perks like a background removal tool and Keyword Scout.
Printful integrations
Printful is an online printing service that makes it easy for businesses to integrate their ecommerce stores with Printful and start selling custom t-shirts and other print products. It supports integration with popular ecommerce platforms such as Square, Weebly, WooCommerce, Shopify, Etsy and many others. With Printful, you can create high-quality designs for your store and have them fulfilled, packed and shipped with products with your own designs and branding. The advantage with the integration is that the products are ‘pushed’ to the store and that ‘out of stock’ notices can be displayed. On some platforms it even allows integration of product personalization and selling on social media.
This makes it a great tool for entrepreneurs looking to start their own business or expand existing ones. Additionally, Printful also offers print marketing tools for small businesses that make it easier to customize products. With all these features, Printful is the perfect choice for those looking to get started in the ecommerce world.
The most popular platforms you can integrate Printful with:
- Shopify
- Woocommerce
- Etsy
- BigCommerce
- Square
- TikTok Shop
- eBay
- Gumroad
You can find the list with all integrations here.
Services
Printful offers quote some different services. We have created a short overview of these services and the the prices at the moment of writing.
Here is a quick overview and pricelist of their services:
PRINT ON DEMAND | Printful will charge you a fixed rate for printing your design onto a product. Their cheapest T-Shirt cost 7, 75 USD + VAT. Currently, their cheapest item is a postcard (1,30 USD + VAT per piece) while their most expensive item is a 24×6 Enhanced Matte Framed Poster, which will cost you a whopping 65,50 USD + VAT. TIP: They offer discounts on bulk orders. |
WHITE LABELS (CUSTOM LABELS) | If you want to add your own logo to the label of your item, Printful will charge you $2.49 per label. |
CUSTOM PACKAGING | You can also design your own packaging at $0,50 per item and add branded pack-ins. |
INVENTORY STORAGE | The price depends on how much inventory you store, but the minimum price for storage is $25 per month |
GRAPHIC DESIGN SERVICES | Printful’s Graphic Design services include Merchandise Design, Print File Editing, Illustration Design, Branding Design and Social Media Design. Their prices start at $5 for reformatting files and go up to more than $600 for a brand design guide |
PHOTOGRAPHY SERVICES | Printful also offers the option of letting their team of professional photographers take pictures of your product. Price: unknown |
VIDEO SERVICES | Need a Promo video? Printful can also shoot and/or edit your promo video material. Price: unknown |
STORE SETUP SERVICES | If you don’t want to set-up your own store, Printful can do it for you. Price: unknown |
PRINTFUL PLUS | For 9 USD/ month Printful offers you extra services such as a custom mockup maker, a promo planner and a background removal tool. |
PRINTFUL PRO | For 49 USD/ month Printful offers you extra services such as embroidery design digitization, a custom mockup-maker and the possibility to choose your own shipping carrier. |
Product range
Their extensive product range includes custom printed apparel, accessories, home decor, and lifestyle products. They offer a range of designs and styles to suit all tastes, and they can customize each item with your own logo, artwork, or text. The quality of their products is second to none, and their prices are highly competitive.
If you want to sell only t-shirts, you can. If you want to add sweaters or track pants to it, you can. If you wish to expand, why not add AirPod cases, iPhone Cases and a Tote Bag to it? Anything is possible to grow your brand and expand your business.
Pricing
Printful offers a variety of pricing plans to fit the needs of any business. The Free plan allows you to use all the basic functionality of the platform.
Printful Plus is $9 per month plan is slightly more expensive, but gives you access to the custom mockup maker, a promo planner and a background removal tool.
Printful Pro is their most comprehensive plan and costs $49 per month, giving you free digitization of all embroidery designs, a keyword scout tool for Etsy, access carrier-based shipping and more. Their prices are competitive and their order process is straightforward, making them an excellent choice for creating customized print-on-demand products for your business.
✔ Integrate with 28 ecommerce platforms
✔ Create product templates
✔ Create designs in the Design Maker
✔ Download mockups and print files
✔ Use 16500+ clipart images
✔ Integrate with 20+ ecommerce platforms
✔ Create product templates
✔ Create designs in the Design Maker
✔ Download mockups and print files
✔ Use 2400+ clipart images
✔ Create custom product mockups
✔ Remove image backgrounds
✔ Create marketing promos
✔ Integrate with 28 ecommerce platforms
✔ Create product templates
✔ Create designs in the Design Maker
✔ Download mockups and print files
✔ Use 16500+ clipart images
✔ 480+ exclusive clipart images
✔ Promo Maker
✔ Keyword Scout for Etsy
✔ Custom Mockup Maker
✔ Background Removal Tool
✔ Premium Images at no extra cost
✔ Embroidery files digitized for free
✔ Carrier-Based Shipping option
Processing and shipment times
It takes Printful between 2 and 7 business days to print and package your product, but most of their orders are fulfilled within 3-5 days.
In addition to the fulfilment time, it takes Printful a minimum of 2 business days to ship your product to its customer. Their shipment times depend on the country you are sending the shipment to.
For example: It takes only 2-5 days for them to ship your product to Estonia, France or Spain, while it takes up to 25 days to ship to Vatican city. This means that it will take a minimum of 4 days and a maximum of 32 days for your customer to get your product.
You can learn more about the processing and shipping times here.
What do we think of Printful
EASE OF USE:
5 / 5 STARS
The process of setting up and syncing Printful with our online store was very straightforward and easy. You can customize your product, set your prices and publish it with only a few clicks and an easy drag and drop-interface. Their customer-support is well-reviewed, and our experience has confirmed this: When signing up we had to answer a few questions about what we wanted to use Prinful for. Only a few hours after signing up, we received an e-mail with personalized advice and links.
PRODUCT RANGE:
4 / 5 STARS
Printful offers over 2000 different POD-products includingT-shirts, mugs, dresses, jackets, bean bags, postcards, necklaces and backpacks.
To view their full product catalogue, click here.
You can download a spreadsheet with all their products (sorted by continent) here.
PRICING:
3 / 5 STARS
Printful will charge you for the printing and packaging of your POD product, starting at around 7.95 EUROS + VAT for a T-shirt. In addition, it will charge you for the shipment of your product, starting at 3,69 EUR for the shipment of a single T-Shirt.
So, for example, if you were to let Printful handle the printing, packaging and shipping of a simple T-shirt (one of their cheapest products) within the EU, you would be charged a total of 11,64 EUR + approximately 1,60 EUR in VAT.
There are no hidden fees and you don’t have to pay to sign up for their platform, meaning that you only have to pay if you actually get an order.
For their shipping pricelist click here.
For their product pricelist, check the catalogue.
FULFILLMENT TIME AND SHIPPING TIME:
3 / 5 STARS:
It takes Printful between 2 and 7 business days to print your product and an additional 2 to 25 (!) business days to ship your product to its customer. On average it will take a week for your product to get to your customer. In the age of Amazon next day delivery long shipment times may make you less competitive. On the other hand: While the fulfilment and shipment times may be on the longer side, Printful always meets their deadlines: The internet is full of reviews stating that Printful is very reliable and doesn’t deliver late.
To see all shipment times, click here.
TIP: If long fulfilment and shipment times are a problem, you also have the option of storing a stock of best-selling products in one or more of their warehouses.
PRODUCT QUALITY:
4,5 / 5 STARS
Over the years Printful has built a reputation for offering high quality printing and materials and the internet is full of positive reviews.
Overall verdict
- If you are looking for a trusted, reliable partner that guarantees high quality printing and allows you to sell internationally, Printful may be the right choice for you: It allows you to build your POD or dropshipping business without any upfront costs and only charges you if you if you actually sell a product, thereby saving you from making expenses you can’t recoup.
As Printful does not have an order minimum, it allows you to start small but is also able to print large orders, making it a viable long-term partner for your growing business. While it is slightly more expensive than its main competitor Printify, they offer higher printing quality and are known to reliably fulfil all orders within the given timeline.
- The main disadvantage of working with Printful is that their fulfilment and shipment costs drive up your price a lot, making your pricing less competitive.
While Printful’s automated order process saves you the hassle of having to approve and track individual orders and the POD model saves you money and space by eliminating the need for inventory, outsourcing the printing and shipment drives up the order processing and delivery time.
Our final verdict:
In the end of the day, only YOU know what your business needs. But it is safe to say that partnering with an experienced POD-company like Printful is a low-risk way of entering into the POD sector and finding out what works for you.
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