These days, making money can be as cool as the breeze. The custom merchs is the thing that is going on today. You can see that several people with high popularity like celeb grams or Youtubers have their own unique brands that sell nicely to their type of market. You may as well do the same thing by building your own personal custom merch empire.
Surely it’ll not be an easy process, since you have more things to learn on the way. But, one thing that is important is to find the correct parner. In order to be able to deliver a demandable good product to the customers, you need the trustable one. There’s many choices out there, but some that shine are Printful and Teespring.
On the paper, they are the same merchandise printing partner. They are able to create the demanded designs, with the way of how you like it. But, surely there must be some differences between them, and today we’re gonna look into that. There are some minus and plus points that are important for you to consider.
Let’s see which can be the best one between Printful and Teespring.
Printful
If talking about which is the best partner for custom merch business, all eyes will look into the Printful. It’s totally free to use, and it’s really dependable when it comes to printing and promotion. The sales range it has is totally better than any others. You can start uploading interesting designs, and they will make it as soon as you make a sale. Read also: TeePublic vs Teespring.
When it comes to promotion, Printful nailed it with the integration with a lot of marketplaces. The most popular ones like Amazon and Ebay are also integrated, which is really nice. You may have the fully automated live shipping rates on the other marketplaces as well like Shopify, WooCommerce, Etsy, Squarespace, Weebly, and many others. It’s highly possible that you can get a wider range of potential customers when using Printful.
As said above, you’ll not be pouring your money every month. It’s totally free to use, and gives you a wide access to several marketplaces as well. It has the in house fulfillment, but sadly no built-in storefront. The USA fulfillment is limited to Charlotte, New York, and LA only, while the EU fulfillment is limited only to Riga, Latvia, Spain, and Barcelona.
About the products that are able to be printed with your unique designs, Printful has 34 customizable items. From the general ones like socks, pillows, and t-shirts, to the more specific like sport bras and baby bodysuits. All is here, and Printful can deliver the customization very well.
Printful able to ship everywhere around the globe, but there’s an exclusion in some countries like Cuba, Iran, Crimea, North Korea, and Syria. Whether the exclusion will be removed or not is still unknown.
However, aside from bringing a lot of products to customized, Printful is also able to give a small touch to your product via the custom branding options. Little things that can be added to enhance your personal branding. There’s two options usable here, the neck labels, pack-ins, and also the logo that will be put right in the package.
Teespring
Teespring does show you how the business works basically. Create, Sell, and Profit, those three main points are always displayed right on the home screen. Being a partner that you can trust, Teespring is able to create the items based on the designs you’ve uploaded. It’s actually a simple process of clicks and drags.
They do take care of everything, allowing you to gain little control as much as possible. For some people this is great, since they don’t have to do additional things to maintain their business. But, it’s not suitable for anyone who wants to make any arrangement regarding their products.
Teespring holds the whole process from printing, shipping, and even customer service, leaving you with a choice of promoting your products via your sources. Basically all you need to do in Teespring is just uploading designs, and then promoting them on your social media or ads. Its hands-off process could be such an ease, while leaving the users with very little control over everything.
And about the promotion, Teespring’s integration is very limited. It only has an integration with a specific type of market, like Youtube. It does have something called “Youtube Merch Shelf”, which should work very well for Youtuberts. What this feature does is putting your products right under your videos. But again, this feature is really specific for Youtubers only, unless you have plenty of subscribers, it’s not relevant. There’s also the Boosted Network, which may deliver organic sales.
The set up cost and monthly cost are totally free on this one. It also has built in storefront and in house fulfillment as well. Sadly, beside the Youtube Merch Shelf and Boosted Network, Teespring doesn’t have a good integration with the well-known digital markets. Popular markets like WooCommerce, Shopify, Etsy, Amazon, or Ebay are not integrated. So the promotion is actually very limited.
About the products, Tesspring can deliver abundant types of stuff. From the backpacks, shoes, pullover hoodie, to stickers and fleece blanket. In total, there’s 25 items that can be created. The customization for branding however, which can be a useful factor for your branding, can’t be found. Teespring doesn’ have it. So all the products will come only with their design, and no other stuff.
Teespring ships their products in the USA, Canada, Europe, and other regions. It takes 9 to 12 days in the USA, 7 – 16 days in the EU, and 12-22 business days for Canada and others. The range is not as wide as Printful though, but it’s still wide. It works the best for the business that takes place in the United States, since it has shorter shipping time.
Printful vs Teespring
| Printful | Teespring |
|---|---|
| - POD fulfillment website | - A campaign site, there is a limit to the duration |
| - Only handles the printing and shipping | - Many product varieties but without optional styles |
| - You can take orders from anywhere | - Lower organic traffic |
| - Greater flexibility with pricing | - Good for short-term exclusive sales or fundraising |
Verdict
With the wider range of promotion, and a lot of things that can be enjoyed in customization, we would pick Printful as the best, trustable custom merch printing partner. For a free app, you can have a range of wide potential markets. It’s simple to use, and may be able to give higher potential customers without asking for any money. So if you have a firm plan in the merch-making business, Printful is the one to trust.