Print on Demand (POD) services have become big business in the dropshipping industry.
It makes sense. People can create their own unique designs, have them printed onto t-shirts, coffee mugs, or any other assortment of merchandise, and shipped off to people all over the world for a small profit.
There are a number of companies who are getting in on the business, streamlining the process, and making it easier for dropshippers to sell their wares. Determining which one is the best fit for your business can be difficult.
We’re going to take a look at a couple different options, but first let’s explore what exactly a Print on Demand company does.
What Is Print On Demand?
These services allow you to sell custom printed merchandise – everything from t-shirts and mugs to yoga mats and laptop bags. The company fulfills and ships the orders for you while all you need to do is upload your custom designs and make the sale from your site.
Because of the way the POD business is designed, merchandise isn’t printed until the company receives an order. This allows for prints of singular or small quantity runs.
The industry developed as a result of digital printing, whereas before it was too costly to print small-run or individual products using traditional printing technology.
As a result, many traditional small press companies have replaced their traditional equipment – like letterpress and offset printing machines – with POD equipment, or they will contract their printing to POD service providers.
In fact, many organizations that traditionally do small runs of things like books – think academic publishers like universities – will use POD services to keep their back catalogues available. All of that means that there is plenty of opportunity for small upstart dropshippers to get in on the action.
For the purposes of this article, we’re going to concentrate on the t-shirt printing business and two companies who are making a name for themselves in that segment of the market: Printful and Teelaunch.
So, let’s get started with the Teelaunch vs Printful comparison.
Designing With Teelaunch
First up is Teelaunch.
If you peruse the various reviews online, Teelaunch has built itself a decent reputation. On the Shopify online store, for example, the service has a 4.6 star rating, which is nothing to shake a stick at.
Most users appear happy with the quality and speed of turnaround from the service. The company’s Shopify app also makes it easy to customize your shirts, with different colors, sizes, and logo placement. A sample image of your t-shirt will be available to see how it might look in different colors.
Once you have finished customizing your merchandise, you can hit publish and the shirt is available for people to buy. You can repeat this process for different shirts, designs, and even different types of merchandise.
Teelaunch Products
Teelaunch has an exciting products catalogue that spans across several categories.
Here’s their product categories:
- Apparel – This includes T-shirts, V-neck, Sweatshirts, tank tops, bodysuits, hoodies, etc. For men, women, youth, and kids.
- Accessories – This include wireless car chargers, balloons, air fresheners, power banks, jewelry boxes, etc.
- Drinkware – This includes insulated water bottles, pint glasses, tumblers, coffee mugs, beer steins, etc.
- Home Goods – This includes yard signs, garden flags, bath mats, rugs, shower curtains, pillows, blankets, door mats, etc.
- Kitchenware – This includes cutting boards, bowls, plates, platters, etc.
- Wall Art – This includes framed art prints, framed canvas, canvas wall art, posters, wall flags, etc.
- Pets – This includes pet pillows, pet bandana, dog bowls, etc.
- Office – This includes mousepads, folded cards, flat cards, spiral bound notebooks, journals, etc.
- Lifestyle – This includes backpacks, Bluetooth speakers, headphones, etc.
Conversely, each of their products have varying processing time. For instance, their youth hoodie clothing has a processing time of 3 to 6 days, while their rugs have a processing time of 5 to 9 days.
Teelaunch Pricing
Fortunately, Teelaunch makes its pricing model easy to understand. An American Apparel t-shirt with a custom design costs $14 plus $4 for American shipping and $10 for international shipping.
If you charge $20 for your shirt, that means you can make a profit of $2 for each shirt you sell. Prices and profits vary for different products. The lack of subscription fees and other hidden costs makes Teelaunch an attractive option for dropshippers.
All you have to do is make the sale and Teelaunch will print and package the order, shipping it directly to the customer.
Orders can be tracked and updated from your Shopify store, while shipment tracking numbers are available on the Orders dashboard. Shipping status is updated automatically, and Shopify’s automated notification system sends all of the shipping details directly to your customers.
For a nice personal touch, you can also provide your own logo to be used on the packing slip.
The Shopify dashboard also allows you to set up free shipping rates and Teelaunch offers a discounted rate of 50 percent for store owners. This allows drop sellers to check the merchandise first to make sure it meets their quality standards.
The Printful Process
After deciding what type of product you want to sell – a t-shirt, or a coffee mug, or any of the myriad of other products they have on offer – you can move on to designing.
Printful design tools allow you to upload images, designs, logos, and more. Essentially, you drag and drop the design onto the product then adjust the size and location. The company’s guide is quite effective at explaining the process and anything you might need to change after your upload.
Printful helps you design and sell products online with ease. Try it today!
One of the nice things about Printful is that it makes printing relatively painless. You don’t need to worry about choosing the best printing method, rather every product the company offers is printed in the way best suited to the product.
Printful also has a strong quality assurance philosophy. This is good for dropshippers as it ensures that if you make a mistake with your order, the merchandise won’t be sent out to a disappointed customer. This helps maintain the reputation of your business as well as that of Printful.
Printful Products
Printful has a large catalogue of customized products that you can sell. In fact, there are over 280 products in their arsenal.
Here are the Printful products:
- Men’s clothing: T-shirts, Polo shirts, hoodies, sweatshirts, tank tops, long sleeve shirts, Joggers, underwear, leggings, shorts, etc.
- Women’s clothing: Crop tops, T-shirts, tank tops, sports bras, swimwear, dresses, skirts, shorts, leggit, hoodies, embroidered shirts, etc.
- Kids and youth clothing: T-shirts, long sleeve shirts, hats, baby bibs, leggings, baby bodysuits, swimwear, etc.
- Hats: Beanies, bucket hats, snapbacks, baseball caps, trucker hats, 5-panel hats, mesh hats, etc.
- Home: Coffee mugs, water bottles, pillow cases, throw pillows, blankets, framed posters, canvas prints, towels, notebooks, stickers, pet products, bean bags, flags, etc.
- Accessories: Laptop cases, tote bags, duffle bags, drawstring bags, backpacks, necklaces, earrings, bracelets, iPhone cases, Samsung cases, face masks, keychains, flip flops, etc.
Interestingly, their products have variants for different seasons and use cases. For instance, they clothings for loungewear, sportswear, workwear, beachwear, streetwear, as well as eco-friendly products.
Printful’s Pricing Policies
Another great benefit to choosing Printful is that there are no upfront costs. Essentially, you’re signing up for a free account, designing the merchandise, and listing it all on your website at no charge. Printful makes its share of the money when you make a sale on your website.
To that end, the company offers a handy profit calculator. So, for example, a Gildan 64000 Unisex Softstyle T-Shirt with Tear Away Label is $8.95. If you sell the shirt for $18, say, then your profit is $9.05. The company offers this service for all of its other products as well.
Printful helps you design and sell products online with ease. Try it today!
Printful is often celebrated for the quality of its products. It’s easy to buy low-end t-shirts and turn them in for a big profit, but by all accounts, Printful takes care in choosing the best quality products.
It’s important to take into account your sample order as well. As we talked about above, it’s important to determine the quality of the products you’re selling for yourself.
The Printful sample orders aren’t quite as good a deal as Teelaunch, with just a 20 percent discount for store owners, but the company throws in free shipping to Canada and all US states and territories.
Similarly, if you order a product from the company’s European facility, the shopping is free across Europe. For all sample orders you receive two products.
Perhaps one of Printful’s greatest strengths is its ability to interact with various ecommerce platforms. Printful works great in tandem with Shopify, Etsy, WooCommerce, Bigcartel, SquareSpace, and BigCommerce, to name a few.
The company is also highly praised on Shopify, with a 4.7 star rating.
Printful vs Teelaunch – What Do They Have In Common?
It has already been stated clearly that both Printful and Teelaunch are some of the finest print on demand fulfillment companies in the world. Their mode of operation is clearly spelt out and their customer satisfaction is quite the envy of many of their competitors.
See a handpicked list of some of the similarities that both Printful and Teelaunch have in common:
- High rate of customer satisfaction: Just go and check out the ratings of both POD platforms on Trustpilot to see how highly buyers and designers speak of their features and quality products.
- Superb turnaround and delivery time: This is another area where both Teelaunch and Printful are quite similar. In fact, they both have a fast production turnaround time.
- Fast customer support: If you have ever encountered any issues with a print on demand platform, you will know how important it is to get prompt support. Fortunately, Printful and Teelaunch respond to customer issues on the spot. They also provide customers with different ways to get the answers that they need. Ticketing, social media, live chat, resources, are just some of their support mediums.
Teelaunch vs Printful – What Are The Major Differences?
As much as Printful and Teelaunch have similarities, they also have their differences. Surprisingly, the major difference they have is in terms of third-party integrations.
Take, for instance, Printful integrates with top eCommerce platforms and online marketplaces. Some of its integrated platforms include Etsy, eBay, Shopify, WooCommerce, Square, Webflow, Squarespace, Ecwid, etc.
Source: Printful
Additionally, Printful supports custom integration via its API functionality. So, you can integrate your Printful storefront with your custom web app or online store.
The same cannot be said for Teelaunch. Teelaunch has limited third-party integrations. The platform only integrates with Shopify and Etsy.
So, if you run a Shopify online store, then you can integrate it with your Teelaunch dashboard.
Conversely, you can also sell customized Teelaunch products on Etsy.
Teelaunch vs Printful – Frequently Asked Questions
What Are The Best Printful Alternatives?
Printful is not the only print on demand company in the industry. There are other POD platforms that offer similar services.
To cut the long story short, below are some of the Printful alternatives in the print on demand industry.
Printful helps you design and sell products online with ease. Try it today!
- Printify
- Teespring
- CafePress
- Bonfire
- Zazzle
- Spreadshirt
What Are The Best Teelaunch Alternatives?
Just as it goes for Printful, Teelaunch has a long list of established competitors within the industry. Big, small, and medium-sized – the competition comes in different shades.
Here is a list of some of the major alternatives to Teelaunch in the print on demand industry.
- Fine Art America
- Society6
- Redbubble
- CustomCat
- Print Aura
Printful vs Teelaunch – Final Verdict
In general, Printful ekes out a slight edge over Teelaunch. Printful’s fast shipping, alongside its quality products, make it ideal for dropshippers. It’s easy to set up, offers affordable samples, and has high quality control.
Still, Teelaunch has its own benefits with competitive profit margins and a significantly more affordable sample cost. Depending on how much you decide to sell your merchandise for, Teelaunch does tend to offer slightly greater profit margins. You could potentially use the extra income to pay for advertising or promotion.
In the end though, Printful takes a very slight advantage over the competition. It will be interesting to see how the two companies stack up a few months from now.
Tom loves to write on technology, e-commerce & internet marketing.
Tom has been a full-time internet marketer for two decades now, earning millions of dollars while living life on his own terms. Along the way, he’s also coached thousands of other people to success.