Which print on demand service should you use in 2026?
Five services, three ways of printing, and what each one means for your customer's doorstep.
The short answer: go with Printful if you want consistent quality from a company that prints in its own facilities. Pick Printify if the lowest base price matters most and you're willing to choose your print provider product by product. Choose Gelato when your buyers are spread across several countries. Want a store with print on demand built in? Sellfy does that. No store at all yet? Spreadshop gives you one for free.
Most "best print on demand" lists rank platforms by features. We think the better question is who prints your order, and where. The same hoodie can ship from a facility near your buyer in a few days, or cross a border and land with an import bill your customer never expected. That difference shows up in your reviews long before it shows up in your margins.
The ranking is editorial: a sponsored spot is always flagged on its card, and no affiliate link ever changes a score.
The 5 services compared
The full ranking. Click a service to jump to its card, or head straight to its site. Prices are entry plans, before product and shipping costs.
| Best for | Who prints | Free plan | Team size | Visit | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Printful | Best for consistent quality | Its own facilities, no third parties | 4.1/5 | Free, Growth at $24.99/mo | ✓ | Brands that can't gamble on quality | Visit → |
| 2 | Printify | Best for base price | A network of 70+ print providers | 3.9/5 | Free, Premium at $39/mo | ✓ | Sellers who compare costs per product | Visit → |
| 3 | Gelato | Best for selling worldwide | Partners in 32 countries | 3.7/5 | Free, Gelato+ at $19.99/mo billed annually | ✓ | Buyers spread across countries | Visit → |
| 4 | Sellfy | Best all-in-one store | Store and print on demand in one | 3.6/5 | $22/mo billed annually | — | Creators who want one tool, not three | Visit → |
| 5 | Spreadshop | Best with no store | Handles everything, returns included | 3.3/5 | Free, you set your margin | ✓ | Creators testing an idea for $0 | Visit → |
Scores across five criteria. Printify, Gelato and Sellfy scores match their full Labs reviews. Entry prices checked in 2026 on each company's official pricing page, before product and shipping costs.
How we compared and scored
We started by sorting these services by who actually does the printing. There are three models. An in-house printer runs its own facilities: Printful. A print network routes your order to an independent partner: Printify and Gelato. A hosted store runs your storefront with printing built in: Sellfy and Spreadshop.
That split drives almost everything else. In-house means one company owns quality and turnaround. A network means your results depend on which partner prints the order, and whether you picked it or the platform did. We then compared each service on the same five criteria we use in our full reviews: setup, value for money (membership, product discounts, sample pricing), catalog and tooling depth, support when an order goes wrong, and the stores you can connect. We read the official pricing pages, the claims rules and the recent one- and two-star seller reviews, which is where the real problems show up.
- Ease of useTime to connect a store, create a product and place a first order.20%
- Value for moneyMembership cost, product and sample discounts, consistency of print quality.20%
- Features and depthCatalog size, print methods, branding options, production locations.20%
- Customer support and assistanceWhat happens when a package shows up damaged or misprinted.20%
- Available integrationsShopify, Etsy, WooCommerce and the other stores you can connect.20%
No affiliate link changes a score or a rank.
Printful
Printful takes the top spot because it prints in its own facilities. Your order doesn't get handed to a partner you've never heard of. That means steadier quality from one order to the next, and a single company to deal with when something goes wrong.
The trade-off is well known: its base prices sit at the high end. The Growth plan at $24.99 a month brings them down, with up to 33% off products and 9% off branding (custom labels, packaging inserts). Growth turns free once you pass $12,000 in yearly sales. The catalog has 593 products, and you can connect as many stores as you like, even on the free plan.
Recent low-star reviews flag three things: support that sometimes pushes the blame back to the seller, size tolerances that are easy to miss (one seller got an XS instead of a 2XL after a sync error), and a cross-border test order that landed with $80 in import duties. Check your product listings after every sync, and test-ship to every country you sell into.
- Prints in its own facilities, no third-party printers
- Samples at 20% off (Free) or 25% off (Growth)
- 593 products, unlimited stores
- ✓Consistent quality, one company accountable for defects
- ✓Growth plan free past $12,000 in yearly sales
- ✓Unlimited stores on every plan
- ✗Higher base prices than print networks
- ✗Size tolerances you need to read item by item
- ✗Free-plan samples capped at 1 order a month, 3 items
The safest pick for a brand that can't afford a lottery on quality. If every cent of margin matters more than consistency, go to Printify and choose your print providers carefully.
Printify
Printify doesn't print anything itself. It's a network of 70+ independent print providers and 2,000+ products. For each product you pick the provider: its price, its turnaround, its country. That's how it gets the lowest base prices on this list, and it's also its biggest trap.
If you don't pick a provider close to your buyers, an order can cross a border it didn't need to cross. Sellers report European customers whose orders were printed in the US and arrived with customs fees, and buyers being charged in dollars when the store sold in pounds. Other recent complaints: off-center prints, confusion over per-print-area costs (front and back cost more than front only), and unsold products removed from accounts.
Premium gets you up to 20% off every product, and 33% off new products and branding. It costs $39 a month, or $24.99 a month billed annually. Premium is non-refundable. Full numbers in our Printify pricing breakdown and full review.
- 70+ print providers, 2,000+ products
- You choose the provider, so you choose the country
- Premium: up to 20% off every product
- ✓Some of the lowest base prices around
- ✓5 stores on the free plan
- ✓Annual Premium at $24.99/mo pays off at volume
- ✗Quality varies by provider
- ✗Cross-border shipping if you pick the wrong provider
- ✗Premium is non-refundable
The best base price, on one condition: you pick a well-rated provider near your buyers for each product, then order a sample. Skip that step and Printful or Gelato will give you fewer surprises.
Gelato
Gelato is also a network, but it works differently from Printify: Gelato routes each order to the partner nearest the buyer. It has 140+ production hubs in 32 countries and produces 87% of orders in the buyer's own country. If you sell to the US, the UK and Germany from one store, that's the simplest setup on this list. You never have to choose a provider.
Sellers often praise its wall art (posters, canvas prints). Gelato+ unlocks up to 25% in discounts and fuller mockup tools for $19.99 a month on annual billing.
Support is the weak spot, scored 2.9 out of 5 in our review. Recent complaints mention a chatbot before any human, stuck parcels, stained items, and colors shown as available and then canceled after checkout. One more trap: after uninstalling, some sellers had to delete dozens of shipping profiles by hand. More in our Gelato review.
- 140+ production hubs in 32 countries
- 87% of orders produced in the buyer's country
- No provider to choose: Gelato routes the order
- ✓Local production in most markets
- ✓Shorter delivery times abroad
- ✓Strong reputation for wall art
- ✗Slow support, usually a bot first
- ✗Colors sometimes canceled after the order
- ✗Shipping profiles to clean up by hand if you leave
The best pick as soon as your buyers aren't all in one country. For a single-market apparel brand, Printful gives you more predictable quality.
Sellfy
Sellfy isn't a printer you plug into a store. It's the store, with print on demand built in next to digital downloads and subscriptions. For a YouTuber or illustrator selling a few designs, that removes a whole layer of setup: no Shopify plan, no app to connect.
It's also the easiest tool on this page to get started with, scored 4.5 out of 5 for ease of use in our review. The catch is the pricing structure. Starter costs $22 a month on annual billing but caps you at $10,000 in yearly sales, with a 2% surcharge once you go over. Check where you'll land before you commit.
Its catalog and production choices are narrower than the three services above it. If merch becomes your main business, you'll want a dedicated store and a dedicated printer. See our full Sellfy review.
- Store, digital products and print on demand in one
- No separate store subscription needed
- Fast setup for creators
- ✓One tool instead of three
- ✓Easiest setup on this list
- ✓Good fit for creators with an audience
- ✗No free plan
- ✗Sales cap on Starter, 2% surcharge above it
- ✗Fewer product and production choices
Right for a creator who sells merch on the side of digital products. For a merch-first brand, Printful or Printify with your own store scales further.
Spreadshop
Spreadshop is the store. You open a storefront for free, upload your designs and set your margin. Spreadshop handles stock, printing, shipping, returns and customer service, so you never touch a package.
The math is simple: base price plus your margin equals the retail price, and the margin is yours. The catalog has 350+ products, enough for a first merch drop.
The trade-off is control. You don't choose the printer, you can't do much with the storefront design beyond the options provided, and the customer relationship lives on Spreadshop. If the idea takes off, you'll want your own store and one of the services higher on this list.
- Free store, no monthly fee
- Returns handled by Spreadshop
- 350+ products
- ✓Nothing to install or manage
- ✓You set the margin and see it clearly
- ✓Test an idea for $0
- ✗Your store lives on Spreadshop
- ✗Little control over storefront and printer
- ✗Production location not disclosed
The easiest way to sell your first designs with no store at all. When you want to own your brand and your customer list, move to Printful or Printify with your own store.
What a delivered order really costs
Comparing memberships isn't enough. The real cost of an order is the base price, plus shipping, plus any import fees your buyer gets hit with, minus your plan's discounts. The break-even points below are our own math from the official price lists.
When a paid plan pays for itself
Where it's printed: hidden cost #1
Samples: budget for them
- Check the production country of every product before you publish it.
- Add up base price, front and back print, and shipping to your main market.
- Work out your break-even before you pay for a plan.
- Order one sample per product and per background color.
- Compare the quoted turnaround with what your samples actually took.
Six mistakes sellers find out about too late
They come up again and again in recent low-star reviews and seller threads, and almost no roundup mentions them. Each one has a fix.
Letting the platform pick the print country
ShippingOn a network like Printify, every product is tied to a provider. Take the first or cheapest one and it may be on the wrong side of a border from your buyers. Filter providers by location, keep the ones in your buyers' region, and look at their rating and turnaround before the price.
- The fix
- Filter providers by country
Listing a product you've never held
QualityA color on screen never quite matches ink on cotton. Reviews mention off-center and faded prints. A sample costs a few dollars and saves you a wave of returns. On Printful's free plan you get one discounted sample order a month.
- Printful discount
- 20% (Free), 25% (Growth)
Copying a generic size chart
ReturnsEvery blank has its own spec sheet, with tolerances of a few centimeters. Sellers report items arriving in a different size from the one ordered. Paste each product's own size chart into your listing, and check after every sync that each size maps to the right variant.
- Read
- Each product's spec sheet
Picking the wrong print method
FinishThree methods dominate. Direct-to-garment (DTG) suits cotton and rich artwork like photos. Direct-to-film (DTF) holds up better on polyester and gives crisp logos. Embroidery is for simple logos with few colors. A fine gradient in embroidery, or a crisp logo in DTG on polyester, rarely looks good.
- Cotton, photos
- DTG
- Polyester, crisp logos
- DTF
Forgetting the renewal date
BillingPrintify Premium is non-refundable. If you want out, cancel before it renews and screenshot the confirmation. Same habit for the Gelato+ trial: note the end date on day one.
- Printify Premium
- Non-refundable
Uninstalling without cleaning up
StoreWhen you switch services, the old one can leave a mess behind. Some sellers had to delete dozens of Gelato shipping profiles one by one after uninstalling. Before you leave, list the shipping profiles, products and collections the app created, then remove them from your store admin.
- Clean up
- Shipping profiles, linked products
You've picked a service. Now what?
These three pages pick up where this one stops.
Printify, Gelato and Sellfy scored across the board.
You're torn between a network you control and one that routes for youPrintify vs GelatoThe two print networks head to head.
It's your first store and you want the simplest pathFor beginnersThe easiest services for a first launch.
Print on demand services · FAQ
What is the best print on demand service?
Printful, for consistent quality from its own facilities. Printify wins on base price if you choose your print providers carefully. Gelato is the simplest when your buyers are in several countries. Sellfy and Spreadshop fit creators who want a store and printing in one place.What's the difference between an in-house printer and a print network?
An in-house printer like Printful runs its own facilities: one company accountable, steadier quality, usually higher prices. A network like Printify or Gelato sends your order to independent partners: more choice and lower prices, but quality that varies by partner. On a network, the provider's rating matters as much as the platform's.Do I need a paid plan to start?
No. Printful, Printify, Gelato and Spreadshop all start at $0. A paid plan makes sense when its discounts beat its price: around $195 of products a month for Printify Premium on monthly billing, by our math. Until then, put that money into samples.What should I do if an item arrives damaged or misprinted?
Report it fast, with clear photos of the item, the label and the package. Write down the delivery date: services set a window for claims, and sellers describe reprints refused because they reported too late. Refund or replace for your customer without waiting for the service to answer, because your store is what they'll review.Can I use two print on demand services on one Shopify store?
Yes, and plenty of sellers do. Stick to two. An order mixing items from two services ships in two packages, on different days, and your customer may pay shipping twice. Say so on the product page.Do I have to disclose my print partner on Etsy?
Yes. Etsy asks you to declare your production partner in your shop settings and on each listing it applies to. Shops that skip it risk suspension. It takes a few minutes, so do it before your first sale, not after a report.Will my international customers pay customs fees?
They can, if the item is printed outside their country or trade zone. One Printful seller paid $80 in duties on a single test order to Canada. Choose a provider in your buyer's region, or a service like Gelato that prints locally, and run a test order to every major market before launch.Printful or Printify?
Printful if you want the same quality on every order with little setup. Printify if you're willing to compare providers to save on base price. The real test: order the same shirt from both, printed in your main market, and compare finish, turnaround and delivered cost.