True Costs of Print-on-Demand
Worth It In 2024?
How Much Does Print On Demand Cost
How much does it cost to start your print-on-demand business? Short answer is, it can be done with $0 upfront cost. The real question that should be asked is how much time you are willing to invest. The print-on-demand business model is very much of a “your time or your money” online business model.
Below is a quick price comparison breakdown chart of several print-on-demand companies:
Can I Do Print-On-Demand for Free?
The cost to start a print-on-demand business can be zero dollars by utilizing the services of reputable ecommerce pod platforms such as RedBubble, Merch by Amazon, and Zazzle. The profit margin isn’t as high as having your own online store, but the barrier to entry is the lowest, and the learning curve is the easiest. Zazzle is becoming one of my favorites because the platform allows you to start selling custom products.
Signing up for an account with these marketplaces that act as your print provider is free, and you can easily upload well-researched designs to sell to target audiences. Whenever your design is found in search, and a buyer buys a physical product with your design printed on it, you’ll receive a royalty payment. These print-on-demand services literally provide everything you need.
The key to making money with print-on-demand products is to make sure that the designs you’re offering have a demand, you’re able to be found in search results, and you have to stand out from the rest of the competition. All of these things can be done for free, but it requires your time. The principles can also be used for different types of POD businesses.
Print-On-Demand Companies Royalty Payout
Every POD site has its own policies and amount required for payouts. The minimum payout amount is usually around $20, and the payments are either deposited into bank accounts or sent via Paypal.
Open a Print On Demand Store on Etsy
Etsy is an online marketplace with over 80 million active buyers, many with credit cards saved on file and ready to buy. While it technically can be free to get 40 free listings, the usual price of listing a product is $0.20. With the ability to integrate print-on-demand suppliers into Etsy shops and much more granular control over the pricing of products, Etsy is a popular choice for many beginners.
Success on Etsy is predominantly tied to being found in search and using Etsy’s features. More often than not, sellers whose listings offer free shipping and/or free shipping on sales over $35 will rank higher in search results. This, of course, would cut into the profit margins. On top of the $0.20 listing fee, Etsy also charges a platform fee, payment processing fee, and other applicable taxes and advertising fees. Etsy offers optional off site advertising on behalf of their sellers, once the item sells, a 15% fee is deducted. Off-site advertising is no longer optional once the store has generated a certain amount of sales.
Etsy Profit Calculator Built for Print-on-Demand Sellers
I built an Etsy seller fee calculator that has features specifically catering to the needs of print on demand sellers. It includes suggested retail pricing based on market trends for POD products like t-shirts, hoodies, and mugs. This should help in developing pricing strategies to sell your products. It pulls in product costs and shipping costs directly from some of the best print-on-demand services, like Printful, Printify, and Gelato. I’ve done my best to remove the guesswork and headaches so that the free Etsy calculator can help you price your products and maximize profit margins and earning potential.
Click here to use the Etsy Profit Calculator for Print on Demand.
How do POD Sellers Get Paid on Etsy?
When an item sells on Etsy, the funds are collected by the platform, and applicable fees are deducted before being released to the seller. Established sellers could receive payouts in as little as 24 hours. The actual deposit depends on the bank, but the funds typically post in 3–5 business days.
It is up to the seller to pay print-on-demand suppliers for the cost of products and fulfillment.
If you don’t have any money upfront, you can set the fulfillment period in Etsy to longer than usual. The downside to this option is that the buyer may not be willing to wait. More often than not, buyers don’t actually read product descriptions or fulfillment times. Typical fulfillment time is 3–7 business days, meaning the buyer expects to receive shipping information within that time.
It’s recommended to either have some cash or a credit card to pay the print providers and get the orders into the system to start the fulfillment process.
Start a Print On Demand Store on Shopify or Wordpress (Woocommerce)
Having your own print-on-demand store on an e-commerce platform like Shopify is by far the most expensive and hardest route to take for starting a POD online store. Since you will have to generate the traffic either organically or by paying for ads, the barrier to entry is much higher than the previous methods mentioned.
The cost of a Shopify subscription is $39 per month, but it is highly recommended to go ahead and sign up for a yearly subscription. The reason is that if you have a yearly subscription, you can use the calculated shipping feature from Shopify, where the platform pulls shipping rates provided by the print-on-demand services of your choice. You can definitely set up shipping fees on your own; it’s just very time-consuming. Another option is to offer free shipping on all of your products. There are third-party apps in the Shopify app store that can help with running your store, but most free options are severely limited, and the subscription fees add up quickly.
On top of the base subscription fees and cost of apps, another major cost to consider is applicable taxes in your country. Many online sellers start selling without registered businesses, but the potential legal headaches should always be kept in mind.
Another platform like Shopify is Woocommerce, which is an e-commerce plugin that works with WordPress. It may seem like it’s a cheaper option than Shopify since you pay for hosting upfront, but the available POD supplier integrations are limited and finicky.
Between Shopify and Woocommerce, my personal recommendation is Shopify. Here are the pricing breakdowns for you to make your own decision.
Personal Recommendation of Print-on-Demand Services
There are many POD platforms that can be directly integrated with Etsy. I am only going to list the ones I’ve personally used and found that the print quality exceeded my expectations.
Printful
I’ve been with Printful since 2013, and even though their base prices are generally higher than other print-on-demand companies, I stayed with them for their selection of products.
- Premium Product Selection — They offer brands like Cotton Heritage, and the pricing is pretty competitive.
- Zero Minimum Quantity Embroidery Services — They were one of the first and only POD companies to offer this service, and I’ve used it to sell thousands of embroidered hats.
- Worldwide Print Facilities — Since the Not Zero Yet merch store caters to an international audience, I trust Printful’s network of print facilities that are located worldwide. Unlike Printify and Gelato, Printful owns most of their locations, and only recently expanded to include more print partners.
Over the years, I’ve partnered with other creators and companies to build their own successful print-on-demand businesses, and they’ve all used Printful to sell products.
Printify
You can’t talk about print-on-demand in 2024 without mentioning Printify. You just can’t. But Printify isn’t really a print provider. It’s more like a curated marketplace that’s a massive international network of print shops, each specializing in different areas of print.
- Competitive Pricing — Since you choose which vendors you’d like to fulfill your orders, they are competing against each other to earn your business.
- High Quality Standards — The vendors need to be able to deliver, or they’re out of the network.
- Transparency & Efficiency — Printify lists the businesses they work with, it encourages healthy competition within their marketplace and ensures production efficiency.
- Print Provider Locations (Con?) — Each print shop is region based, so it’s ideal for you to pick a partner that’s located in your country.
It’s my opinion that Printify is not a good fit for stores with an international audience. You can always reroute the orders yourself to a different print partner if you’re okay with that kind of headache… It sounds easy enough to do when you’re full of ambition and want to make your first dollar. Then, it becomes tedious, and you enter existential crisis mode.
Printify offers a solution where they choose the vendors for you. I can’t say that it’s a good idea because the pricing may not stay the same, even if the platform offers to cover differences in costs. We’ve seen from other platforms and history, in general, that platforms will change policies as they please. If you’re stuck in a system, you will have to suck it up and pay. It’s just part of business, eh?
Gelato
This is a POD platform that’s like a happy medium between Printful and Printify. They work with a network of print providers. Their expertise is mainly in wall art and home decor items, but they offer a wide range of products as well.
- Trust in the Process — You don’t get to take a look under the hood and see which vendors you’re working with. They’re all selected by Gelato, and you’re expected to trust in their expertise.
- Smart Pricing — The base cost of their products sits somewhere between Printful and Printify.
- Customization Options — You can offer custom products, even on Etsy, through their integration. But it does come with a monthly subscription.
- Membership Benefits — If you’re part of their month subscription programs, it comes with business licensing to major stock photo sites, and you can sell the photos as printed physical items.
I’ve used Gelato for their wall art printing services, and the reviews from the customers have all been great. I tried to add their customization software integration into the Not Zero Yet merch store and it works, but the features are limited.
If you’re looking for custom product software integration for Shopify that’s also pretty easy to link up with other print-on-demand platforms, I’d recommend Tee In Blue or Customily. TIB is cheaper, Customily seems to have more advanced features.
The best thing about Gelato is probably the ability to sell stock photos as print items. This is a pretty easy and low cost way to sell popular art prints on Etsy, and it’s completely legal.
Is Print-On-Demand Worth It in 2024?
After being in e-commerce since 2006, and specifically print-on-demand since 2013, it’s my personal opinion that print-on-demand can still be a lucrative business model if you’re willing to put in the time to do research and build a community. It doesn’t matter if you start for free utilizing reputable platforms with their own customer base or build your own store from scratch. You will not make any money if you don’t have a paying audience.
Final Thoughts
If I were to start a print-on-demand business in 2024, I’d start by doing research.
A metric crap ton of research.
Many online gurus offer advice like, “Start with a niche.”
It’s good advice, but in 2024, it’s generic and kind of a clickbait if you ask me. What is a good niche to go into? How do you make sure it’s not already saturated? More importantly, what’s the likelihood of a product actually selling in that niche?
This is why the research phase should be the foundation of your print-on-demand business planning. It’s much better to go into business with a plan than to experience heartbreak, wondering why you aren’t getting any sales even though you followed all the instructions from all the famous YouTubers.
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