Where to get Designs for Merch?

Great question – where does one find t-shirt designs when starting up your merch business? If you’re familiar with Amazon Merch then you’ll know how important it is to level up as fast as you can. Essentially, this means uploading (and selling) as many designs as possible in order for you to advance to a higher level. Reaching a higher levels awards you more room to upload new t-shirt designs and increase potential sales.

We have found 11 awesome websites that are a great place to get high quality designs for your print on demand business.

What are print on demand designs?

A print on demand design is a creative design that you can use to print on products, like t-shirts, mugs or other products that are common in the print on demand industry. You can create the designs yourself using programs like Adobe Illustrator, Affinity Designer, you can hire a designer, on Fiverr, but you can also purchase designs from online marketplaces.

How to start with Print on Demand?

Before we tell you where to find the best designs for print on demand, we would like to point out our recent article about How to start a Print on Demand Business. If you would like to learn step by step, then read this article: How to Design and Sell your own Apparel Online. In the article you will find everything you need for your first steps into the Print on Demand (POD) world.

If you’re curious about how much you can make with print of demand, check out our POD earnings calculator. Also make sure to read our article about How to make your POD business a Success. If you want to have a head start, make sure to check out the POD courses of Ryan Hogue which will teach you everything you need to know (oh and you get 20% off now if you use our link!). If you don’t know who Ryan Hogue is, read our exclusive interview with him. Also make sure to check out our article which highlights a few great free and premium POD courses.

Last but not least, George Manousakis has earned his tracks in the Print on Demand business. He shares his greatest Print on Demand tips and tricks in this article. Okay, let’s go!

What about the designs?

If you’re creating your own t-shirt designs, then you know that it can be a time consuming task.  Freelance designers on sites like Fiverr can take on the task for you, but complete satisfaction is not always guaranteed due to design being inherently subjective. Read our article about hiring a graphic designer for some great tips and tricks!

Websites like designbundles.net or creativefabrica.com work to aggregate great design elements, but you’ll usually need to take the time to make adjustments. Although, purchasing a design bundle there allows you to create dozens of designs using a combination of the elements. Of course this is dependent on your creativity and how much time you’re willing to devote to the process. Thankfully there are also online shops where you can buy dedicated print on demand designs.

Dedicated Print on Demand Design shops

Designs that are specifically for t-shirts (or any other product) are also available. These designs are created and sold for one purpose – for you to sell on any POD platform and product of your choice. You can either use the designs as they are or use them to create different new designs from one design.

Always double check the license details before your purchase so you know what to expect. Whatever license you have, it’s always a good idea to create new designs (variations) from the designs that you have purchased. Make sure that they are not too similiar to each other, but that they appeal different audiences (male, female, kids and so on).

Since we started this article, the list of shops that have jumped into Print on Demand designs have been growing rapidly. A short summary:

Introduction on Print on Demand Design shops

There are a few websites that focus purely on Print on Demand. These shops often designs for print on demand that can be bought by you, but also by other customers. In other words, they aren’t sold only once. That doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t buy there, but you have to keep in mind that chances are that you will run into more stores selling products with those designs. Some of the POD specific stores are: BuyTshirtDesigns.com, Designious.com, Tshirtbundles.com and POD Frenzy.

Creativefabrica.com is a great marketplace to grab POD designs, design elements, but also other design resources. The same goes for Designbundles.net. Both of these marketplaces focuses on design elements and crafters, but also offer ready to go t-shirt designs. What makes these two interesting is their special print on demand license, which allows you to use them for print on demand.

Recently we’ve ahave also added Threadbasket 2.0 (read our Threadbasket Review), founded by Christan Heidorn. He’s also the creator of the Heidorn Report (The Heidorn Report is a comprehensive guide that is full of strategies designed to help you win, make sure to read our Heidorn Report Review to get an impression of this incredible strategy guide).

Our latest addition is Shutterstock.

The Best Sites to Buy Designs for Print on Demand

We have created a list of some great places to buy designs for Print on Demand.

1. Threadbasket.com

Threadbasket 2.0 is an incredible design marketplace for merch sellers. Merch sellers can purchase affordable and high-quality t-shirt designs. You could say this is the first stock site ever build with merch sellers in mind.

It is perfect for those who are just starting out with Print on Demand, but it’s also a perfect design resource for those who have hired a designer to edit the acquired designs. The latter is because of the ability to give team members access to the platform. No more downloading and sending the designs manually!

Every week hundreds of fresh designs are added. The main difference with the other sites mentioned is that it is subscription based. There are three different plans each with it’s own advantages. Each plan gives you a certain amount of Credits that you can use to acquire new designs. It also grants you the right to sell a certain amounts of prints/month. In comparison to other subscription based websites the licenses DO NOT expire if you stop your subscription. This is a great thing, so you can keep using the designs after ending your subscription!

The cheapest plan starts at € 18 and grants you with 20 credits (so 20 designs to download). You are free to use the designs as they are or to change them into a new design for you to sell on any print on demand platform which gives you countless of possibilities to create designs with a unique look.

We are happy to announce that if you subscribe now (you can try it for free first) and sign up with this link, you will get 50 Bonus Credits with your first subscription (worth € 50). So that’s 50 free designs to start with!

Make sure to read our Threadbasket Review if you’d like to know more.

2. PixelCozy.com (also known as POD Frenzy)

PixelCozy is a company that recently have given their website a complete make-over, adding more designs and extra services. The website is owned by Print on Demand expert George Manousakis who we interviewed recently. Make sure to check out our interview and the Print on Demand tips and tricks he shares with us!

PixelCozy is a great place for POD Designs or Crafting Designs. Both come with a special license that will allow you to use them for commercial print on demand usage. The only difference between the two is that you get more file formats with the crafting designs so that they can easily be used for cutting machines.

The designs at PixelCozy are created for them to sell only, so you won’t see them on other marketplaces. The designs are really well designed and from high quality. New designs are being added almost every week, so it’s a great source to get fresh designs.

You can buy the designs separately ($ 2.90 per design) or you can take a subscription that will give you access to all the designs and give you more unique advantages like:

PixelCozy also offers different kind of Services. They can help you to set up your ETSY, Red Bubble, Teepublic or Teespring store. They can also help you to setup your Shopify or Woocommerce store (and help you finding the ideal niche for you, creating the website, and guiding you for your first advertisement), create unique and custom designs for you.

PixelCozy also offers consulting. With 10 years in dropshipping and Print on Demand they can help you to scale up with a tailored-made plan.

Also make sure to check out their design bundles.

3. BuyTshirtDesigns.com

At BuyTshirtDesigns.com you can buy high quality individual t-shirt designs and t-shirt bundles that are perfect for Print on Demand. New designs are being added regularly.

What do you think of these? Its unlikely you’ll find such high quality designs at such a low price anywhere else – with prices ranging from $2 to $25, with a commercial license!

4. Plicks.com

Plicks.com (formerly known as tshirtbundles.com) has a clean website with thousands of high quality editable designs. The designs offered can be used on t-shirts, but can also be used on other popular POD products.

Most of the bundles from Plicks.com are very reasonable priced. In most cases you get 50 or more editable designs that you can rework to new designs. With some imagination the possibilities to create new designs are endless.

There are a few options to purchase the designs. You can simply just buy the bundle you desire, but you can also take a subscription that will make you a VIP. With the VIP plan you get instant access to all the running bundles with the personal and commercial rights. Besides that, you also get full access to all upcoming bundles and on top of that you will get approximately 150-250 (3-5 bundles) new designs every week for free.

Currently they have an offer that will give you access to 1000+ editable t-shirt designs and 3 more bonuses. You would get over $15,000 worth of products for only $69. There’s a timer, so we don’t know how long this offer will last. Don’t miss it! It might be a once in a lifetime opportunity.

Read our extensive Plicks.com Review here.

5. CreativeFabrica.com

Creativefabrica.com is growing hard and is becoming a big player in the world of graphics and designs. Something that makes them worth checking out if you are active in the POD world is the ability to buy Print On Demand Assets. It’s a huge library of designs & fonts, ready to be used directly into your Print On Demand store and come with a special POD license.

If you want to save yourself a lot of money: For only $29 per month you will get unlimited access to all the 1019563 graphics they have available in their collection, without a download limit and for commercial use!

6. Designious.com

Another great resource for print on demand designs is designious.com. Their primary focus is Print on Demand. Once you sign up you get access to more than 29.231 royalty-free design assets that you can edit, brand, and sell print on demand products like t-shirts, posters or mugs or use them for other design projects, like logos, flyers and so on.

Beside the design assets you also get access to their Online Product Designer. You can use it to create designs, using the assets, and prepare them to publish on your favourite POD marketplace. Check out the video below to see how it works.

Check out some of the designs they offer in this gallery:

So make sure not to forget to check out designious.com if you are looking for great designs!

7. Designbundles.net

Designbundles is huge marketplace where you can buy graphics designs, design elements, templates and much more. It is kind of similar to Creativefabrica, but aimed more at the crafters. But… since this week with the launch of a special print on demand license also for the ones that want to purchase designs for merch.

8. Graphicloot.com

Graphicloot offers a little over hundred t-shirt design bundles. Most bundles contain at least 100 designs or more and are of a good quality.

Some of the bundles that have catched our attention:

9. Shutterstock.com

Shutterstock is one of the leading top microstock agencies where you can find millions of photos, vectors and illustrations that you can use for print on demand.

To be able to use them for print on demand you need the On-demand packs where you can select the option to get 2 images for € 199 (€ 99,50 per image) or 25 images for € 1699 (€ 67,96 per image). While this may sound expensive, it’s not that expansive, because you can buy design bundles which come with multiple designs in one download.

For example, if you would have the 25 images plan: The bundle below is offered as a single vector bundle, which counts as 1 download. In this specific case you get 12 designs for just € 6,66 per image.

Another example is this download below of super cute animals. Can you imagine how many unique designs you can make from this collection? Thousandths! You imagination is the limit. To do the math for you, this are over 100 images in one download, so this would cost about € 0,68 cents per image.

If you really have big plans you can use Shutterstock for Business where their team builds a personalized pricing-package for your business.

10. Masterbundles

Another great resource for finding t-shirt designs is MasterBundles. There are different themed options with cool and unusual designs. There are cool designs for sports, religion, holidays, seasons, and kids. The prices for the designs are very low and there are also many freebies.

All t-shirt ideas are made by professional designers and are ready to use. Just tear out the best t-shirts ideas you like and use it to style a t-shirt, bag, cup, or other items. You can use these designs for yourself as well as for your business.

11. Fiverr

If you prefer to buy designs that are custom made for you, why not hire a designer to do it for you? It might sound expensive, but really, it’s not that expensive to hire a talented designer. You should be aware of ‘lazy’ designers that rely purely on stock images. It doesn’t necessarily have to be a problem, but your design won’t be unique and secondly you have to rely on them for having the right license. Make sure to read our article ‘how to hire a freelancer for your project or business‘ for some great tips.

We can highly recommend the services of Fiverr. It’s a huge freelance marketplace where you can find hundreds of Gigs of people offering their design skills. Make sure to read the reviews and delivered work of a designer before you hire so you know what you can expect.

12. 99Designs

An alternative to Fiverr is 99Designs. In contrarie to Fiverr they are fully focused on graphic design. You can simply hire a designer that matches your criteria and taste, but you can also start a contest and let designers participate. With the last one multiple designers can sign up and create designs for you. You end up with selecting the designs that you like best. Though in most cases you’ll probably end up in hiring one or more designers and build a relationship with them. You can’t go wrong with 99Designs.

Interesting reads about print on demand

// last update December 2022 // tips? Contact us!