The eCommerce industry has witnessed unparalleled growth over the past few years. According to Statista, global e-retail revenues will reach $7.4 trillion in 2025.
This industry has reshaped consumer buying behavior and birthed new business models, including the print on demand (POD) businesses.
The print-on-demand business model has empowered merchants to design, sell, and make profits on custom products without holding inventory.
Teespring and SunFrog are leading print-on-demand platforms for retailers. They have a broad catalog of products and offer order fulfillment and shipping services for merchants.
In this article, we will compare both platforms to help you make an informed choice.
Also Read: Best Print On Demand Sites Like Printful
What Is Teespring?
Teespring is a print-on-demand software that allows merchants to create and sell custom products. This platform offers value for sellers, artists, and creators all over the world.
Teespring has a wide assortment of over 50 print-on-demand products including
- Clothing
- Backpacks
- Mugs
- Pillows
- Phone accessories, etc.
More so, these products can be shipped to more than 180 countries globally. Merchants can customize products using the design launcher and sell them on the online market.
Teespring offers integrations with third-party tools that help sellers unlock more sales. Plus, Teespring will handle order fulfillment and shipping. So merchants will customize, sell, and enjoy massive profits.
Teespring has a proven track record for helping sellers generate profits. The platform has over five million sellers and has shipped over 35 million orders. Also, the average profit per sale for merchants on this platform is $10.
Walker William Evans and Evan Stites-Clayton founded Teespring in 2011, and the company currently has its headquarters in San Francisco, California.
As of January 2021, Teespring rebranded into Spring so as to offer its users more product offerings and social integrations.
What Is SunFrog?
SunFrog is a leading online marketplace and platform for print-on-demand products. Customers can find designs and order unique prints on a broad range of products including
- Clothing and apparel
- Sweatshirts
- Hoodies
- Gift items
- Mugs and Tumblers, etc.
Josh Kent founded SunFrog in 2012, and the company has its headquarters in Gaylord, Michigan.
The platform has a robust community of shoppers, designers, and artists. SunFrog offers bulk and wholesale order services. Moreover, they help merchants handle order fulfillment, returns, refunds, and shipping.
Explore: Redbubble vs Teespring
Mockup Design Creator
Teespring
Teespring has a design tool that lets merchants create beautiful designs on a wide range of products. With the design tool, you can design and buy them or sell them in your store.
First, you will select product style, design, size, and color. Next, you can add text, select font type, font color, and text outline color.
This tool allows creatives to upload their artwork or select from existing artwork categories including
- Emojis
- Shapes
- Sports
- Music
- Jobs
- Animals and more
If you are designing shirts, you can easily place designs on the front and back. After the design, you can add more apparel options before checkout and payment.
SunFrog
SunFrog has a mockup design tool that allows you to create custom designs. With the design creator, you can choose a product, design style, and color. Also, users can customize their products by inputting design text, selecting font type, color, and text outline.
Artists can upload design art and place it on the product. This software supports multiple image file types, including SVG, PNG, and JPG. After creating a design, you can select the shirt size and proceed to checkout.
SunFrog allows users to select a wide array of custom art design templates from creatives. They can place these designs on their preferred product and further customize them to suit their needs.
You can access creative designs for
- Family reunions
- Job shirts
- Birthday,
- Names, etc.
Verdict
Both Teespring and SunFrog have mockup design tools with similar capabilities. You can upload your designs or select from existing art designs.
Teespring has more artwork design templates and categories than SunFrog. So, Teespring is the winner.
Check Out: CustomCat vs Teespring
Online Marketplace
Teespring
Teespring offers an online marketplace where merchants, creatives, and artists can create and sell custom products. People around the world are using this tool to generate income and achieve profits.
Sellers
With Teespring, sellers can start and grow their online business. This tool allows merchants to create their customized storefronts. You can use Teespring Launcher to create customized products and sell them on the Teespring online marketplace.
Teespring supports integration with third-party platforms. Sellers can generate more sales by showcasing their merchandise on these platforms.
Creators
Teespring allows content creators and influencers to create quality merchandise and sell to their followers. More than 250,000 creators use Teespring to produce quality merchandise for their fans. You can integrate with third-party platforms like YouTube merch self, Instagram checkout, and Twitch extension to
- Offer merchandise to your fan community
- Monetize your content
With Teespring, you can customize and brand your storefront from the product page to checkout. Also, you can source a wide range of products to sell and earn profits.
Artists
This tool presents an opportunity for artists and designers to ignite their creative spark. They can upload beautiful designs, showcase their work, and get paid. Artists can apply their designs to more than products and set their profit margin.
Explore: Printful vs Teespring
SunFrog
SunFrog allows creatives to upload and sell their online designs. Artists will earn commissions anytime a product with their design is on it.
With this software, sellers can create a collection of products and share them on social media. When customers buy the product, sellers earn commissions for traffic that results in a sale.
Verdict
Teespring is the winner. They have a robust online marketplace for artists, sellers, and creators. More so, sellers can create a storefront and integrate with third-party platforms to boost sales.
Product & Design Catalog
Teespring
Teespring has a comprehensive product catalog. Some of the product categories include:
- Men and women T-shirts
- Hoodies and sweatshirts
- Tank tops
- Kids and babies
- Socks
- Accessories
- Home decor
- Specialty Products
- Specialty Prints
Teespring has a rich catalog of designs from creatives, artists, and designers.
SunFrog
SunFrog offers a wide assortment of high-quality products. The product categories include
- T-shirts
- Hoodies
- Youth Tees
- Tank Tops
- Hats
- Mugs
- Wall Arts
Also, SunFrog has a database of over 100 million designs that merchants and customers can choose from.
Verdict
Both Teespring and SunFrog are winners. Teespring has a more comprehensive product catalog than SunFrog. However, SunFrog has a more extensive design catalog than Teespring.
Also Read: Teespring vs Printify
Order Processing & Fulfillment
Teespring
Teespring offers sourcing and order fulfillment services. Also, merchants can source their orders and send their inventory to Teespring’s facility, and they will handle
- Inventory storage
- Product mockup
- Order fulfillment
- Delivery
- Customer service
Teespring allows users to track or update their order status by entering their lookup number. Also, users can edit their shipping address or cancel orders.
SunFrog
SunFrog helps apparel retailers process, print, and fulfill customer orders. They also handle orders, cancellations, returns, and exchanges.
Also, SunFrog offers an order tracking service. Users can track their product by inputting their email.
Verdict
Teespring and SunFrog provide order processing and fulfillment services. Also, customers can track their order status, edit shipping address, and cancel their order.
Both tools help users handle product returns and exchanges. So Teespring and SunFrog are winners.
Printing
Teespring
Teespring offers two printing and production methods including
- Direct-to-Garment (DTG) printing (also known as digital printing)
- Screen printing
Both production processes provide high-quality prints. Teespring determines the printing method that will be used based on your
- Order details
- Product type
- Number of colors
- Order quantity
Teespring uses screen printing for high quantity orders. The printing facility gives a screen to each layer or color of the design, and then they press the inks into the fabric through the screens.
For digital printing, the computer system scans, analyzes, and prepares your uploaded designs. Teespring vectorizes the design to ensure there are no imperfections and then, their experts will print your design on the selected product using the DTG printer.
SunFrog
SunFrog delivers high-quality prints to customers and uses three printing methods including
- Embroidery
- Screen printing
- Direct-to-Garment printing
The embroidery method is suitable for hats, jackets, bags, and polos. They have a 6-head Tajima embroidery machine and their team can print about 1400 units per day.
Direct-to-Garment, or DTG, is suitable for orders that are less than 50 items. Also, it is best for apparel that has a multi-colored and highly detailed design.
DTG uses the inkjet printing technique to print designs directly on clothing. And it delivers high-quality prints and high-resolution of about 600 DPI.
Screen printing is an old printing technique but is suitable for bulk printing of more than 50 orders. This printing technique uses a mesh stencil to transfer ink onto the clothing.
Verdict
SunFrog is the winner. They offer three printing options and customers can choose their preferred print method.
Also Read: Teespring vs Spreadshirt
Shipping
Teespring
Teespring ships products to 180 countries all over the world. Shipping costs depend on the delivery location. However, Teespring charges an additional shipping fee for other items.
When you add items from separate listings to your shopping carts, the shipping fee for each listing will be calculated separately.
Teespring has different delivery timelines, which include production plus shipping. They include:
- Orders within the US will arrive within ten to 12 business days
- For Canada-bound and international orders -12 to 15 business days
- UK- bound orders – seven to 12 business days
- Germany, France, Sweden, Netherland – seven to 12 business days once production starts
- Other countries within Europe – ten to 16 business days once production begins
SunFrog
SunFrog has multiple shipping options. However, delivery timelines depend on order volume and selected shipping options. You can check the estimated delivery timeline for each shipping method at checkout.
Delivery for international orders may take two to six weeks.
Verdict
Teespring and SunFrog offer local and international deliveries via third-party shipping providers. So, they are both winners.
Integration
Teespring
Teespring helps merchants drive sales by integrating with third-party tools and marketplaces including
- TikTok
- Twitch
- YouTube Merch Shelf
- Linktree
- Discord
- Streamlabs, and more
SunFrog
SunFrog has a native Shopify app. Also, they offer custom integration with third-party applications via the SunFrog API tool.
Verdict
Teespring is the winner. With their third-party integration, you can get your products in front of millions of buyers around the world.
Online Shop API
Teespring
Teespring has an API that allows partners, sellers, and approved licensees to interface with their website and access and integrate API data.
SunFrog
SunFrog has an API that offers full access to its product catalog. With the API, users can add and edit apparels not sold by SunFrog. Albeit, SunFrog will fulfill orders and ship them to your customers.
The API is available in five libraries, including PHP, Ruby, React Native, and Cold fusion CPC and it comes at no additional cost to users.
Verdict
Both SunFrog and Teespring offer users an API tool for custom integration.
Customer Service & Support
Teespring
Teespring has a functional contact page thereby facilitating email support. You can reach out to their support team to resolve any issues that you may encounter on their platform.
Also, they have an extensive training resource and knowledge base, including blog articles and FAQs.
SunFrog
SunFrog has a free training academy for merchants and sellers. They have a rich course catalog on marketing and sales delivered by expert instructors.
However, SunFrog does not have a blog page but they offer email support.
Verdict
Teespring and SunFrog offer training resources. However, Teespring has a slight edge over SunFrog because it provides live chat support. So Teespring wins.
Also Read: Best Print On Demand Sites Like Zazzle That Are Cheaper Too
Pricing
Teespring
Teespring is 100 percent free. Merchants can simply set their selling price, sell products, and keep the profit.
The profit is the difference between the base price and the selling price. For instance, if the base price for Hoodie is $15 and the merchant sells it for $30, he pockets $15 profit.
The base price is comprised of
- Cost of the apparel
- Printing and order fulfillment
- Product hosting
- Customer services, returns, exchanges, and refunds
Two main factors affect the base price of products on Teespring. They include:
- Single or double-sided design: Front and back printing increases the product base price
- Pricing discount: Your base price for the coming month may reduce based on the number of items you sold in the previous month.
SunFrog
Product pricing may vary depending on the artist that sells the design. However, prices for t-shirts may range from $19 to $35.
Artists and designers earn up to ten percent commission each time their design is sold on any shirt.
You may need to contact the SunFrog sales team to get pricing for bulk order, wholesale, and fulfillment services.
Verdict
Again Teespring wins. Teespring has a clear pricing strategy. The tool allows sellers to control their selling price and profit margin. Also, merchants can increase and reduce their selling price at will.
Similarities
Let’s take a look at some of the features that both tools share in common.
- Teespring and SunFrog are both print-on-demand platforms.
- Both platforms have an online marketplace where customers can customize and buy an extensive range of products, including apparel, gift items, and accessories.
- Teespring and SunFrog have a robust community of artists, sellers, merchants, creatives, and designers.
- Both platforms allow artists to transform their creative abilities into quality products. Creatives can apply their designs to products and sell them in other marketplaces.
- Teespring and SunFrog offer services, including printing, order processing and fulfillment, and shipping. Also, they help merchants handle product returns and exchanges and support wholesale orders.
- Both software solutions have seller dashboards that help monitor account activities including designs, sales, payouts, and analytics.
Differences
Here are some of the features that set Teespring and SunFrog apart.
| Features | Teespring | SunFrog |
| Student Discount | They do not offer student discounts. | SunFrog offers a 20 percent student discount. |
| Product Assortment | Teespring has a broader product assortment. Users can access more than 50 print-on-demand products. | SunFrog has a lesser product assortment than Teespring. They sell more clothing and apparel. |
| Integrations | Merchants can drive sales by integrating with third-party platforms such as Etsy, Amazon, Walmart, Google Shopping, YouTube, Facebook, Wish, and more. | They do not offer third-party integrations. |
| Languages | The platform is available in seven languages including English, Spanish, French, Italian, Dutch, and Portuguese. | The platform is available in English only. |
| Printing Methods | They use Direct-to-Garment and screen printing techniques to print products. | SunFrog uses embroidery, screen printing, and digital (Direct-to-Garment) printing technology. |
Advantages
Teespring
Here’s why users love this software
- The platform has an extensive catalog of products and designs
- They offer email and live chat support
- Merchants can set and control their selling price
- They provide product refunds and exchanges
- Teespring has a robust product catalog
- Comprehensive training resource and articles
- They provide third-party integrations with multiple tools and platforms to help merchants boost sales
SunFrog
Some of the advantages of this tool include:
- Excellent shirt quality
- They have a training academy with tons of resources and courses from qualified instructors
- Their mockup design tool is easy to use
- They have a rich catalog of designs from different artists
- SunFrog allows merchants to choose from three printing methods
Disadvantages
Teespring
Here are some of the issues you may experience with this tool
- You may experience delayed delivery
- Customer service and support does not respond on time
- Some products may have poor quality or printing defects
SunFrog
Some of the limitations of this tool include
- You need to contact sales to get pricing for fulfillment and bulk orders
- Users may experience shipping delays
- Limited resource and knowledgebase
Frequently Asked Questions
How Do I Sell On SunFrog?
SunFrog is an online POD platform that allows users to sell customized products with designs. Users can create an account for free and start selling their designs. SunFrog takes the base price for each product, and the user receives the rest.
To sell on SunFrog, you first need to create an account and then upload your design. Once your design is approved, it will be available for purchase on the SunFrog website. You will receive a commission for each sale that is made.
Is Teespring Good For Print On Demand Business?
Yes, Teespring is a good option for those looking to start a print on demand business. It is a robust platform with a wide range of products available for customization.
Teespring also has no setup fees or monthly charges, so you can start your business with little upfront investment.
The only downside is that it can be a bit expensive to use, but if you are serious about starting a print on demand business, then it is definitely worth the investment.
How Do I Get Better Quality On Teespring?
There are a few things you can do to ensure better product quality with Teespring:
- Use high-quality images – the resolution should be at least 300 dpi, and the image should be at least 12.4 inches by 16.5 inches. You can use their product design templates to get recommended sizes.
- Use high-quality PNG files whenever possible. PNG files are easier for their design launcher tool to work with, and they result in higher quality prints.
- Make sure your design is within the safe zone. The safe zone is the area on the shirt that is guaranteed to not get cut off when the shirt is printed.
- Avoid using small text. Small text can be difficult to print, and it may not come out well on the final product.
- If you’re using multiple colors in your design, try to use similar colors next to each other. This will help prevent colors from bleeding into each other during the printing process.
Is Teespring Profitable For Newbies?
Yes, Teespring is profitable for newbies. If you create and sell your own unique designs, you can make a good profit on each sale. The key to success is to create designs that people want to buy.
Therefore, you’ll need to do some market research to figure out what kind of designs are popular and in demand. Once you have your design, you’ll need to promote your campaign and get people to buy your customized products. The more products you sell, the more money you will make.
Is SunFrog Free To Sell On?
Yes, SunFrog is a free print on demand service. Therefore, you can create an account and start selling your products without any signup fees.
However, you only pay for the items you sell, and never from your pocket – you’re only charged when a customer purchases one of your designed products.
Final Verdict: Teespring vs SunFrog
We have made a feature-by-feature comparison of Teespring and SunFrog. Both tools are great print-on-demand tools for merchants, retailers, and artists. Albeit, Teespring has a slight edge over SunFrog and is our overall winner.
Teespring has a user-friendly platform that caters to buyers, artists, influencers, and sellers. With Teespring, merchants can customize products using the mockup design tool. Also, they can create and sell custom products on their storefront. Artists and influencers can monetize their content by selling to their huge fan base.
Whether you are a new or existing merchant, Teespring allows you to control your selling price and profit margins. Furthermore, they provide seamless integration with third-party tools and marketplaces to help you increase sales.
If you are looking for a print-on-demand tool that allows you to increase your residual income, Teespring is the right tool for you.
