10 Best Print On Demand Sites For Artists (2024 Comparison)

Looking for the best print-on-demand sites for artists? You’re in the right place.

If you’re a talented artist or designer, you can monetize your skills by starting your own print-on-demand business.

With a print-on-demand business, you’ll be selling your original designs printed on custom merch like t-shirts, mugs, and wall art. You supply the artwork, and the print-on-demand site you partner with takes care of fulfillment by printing and shipping the product to customers for you.

But some print-on-demand sites are better than others. In this post, we’ll be looking at the best print-on-demand sites out there for artists. 

The best print on demand sites for artists – summary

TL;DR:

Sellfy is the overall best print-on-demand site for artists. It’s a complete ecommerce solution that offers native print-on-demand fulfillment. You can use it to build your own store and start selling print-on-demand merch and other products through a website that you own.

Gelato is the best option for artists who already have their own ecommerce store (e.g. Shopify or WooCommerce) or Etsy shop. It’s a print-on-demand fulfillment service with production partners in over 32 countries. They offer native integrations with platforms like Shopify, Squarespace, Wix, and Etsy.

Printify is a solid alternative to Gelato that stands out for the size of its product catalog. Product quality is less consistent, however.


#1 – Sellfy

Sellfy is an ecommerce platform built specifically for creators. It has native print-on-demand functionality and comes with all the tools artists need to design, create, and sell POD merchandise from their own online store.

Sellfy Homepage

When it comes to selling print-on-demand products, artists have two options: You can sell your designs on a third-party print-on-demand marketplace (we’ve included a few of these in this list), or you can sell them through your own website. 

Sellfy helps with the latter. All you have to do is sign up and you can build a fully-functional online store that you own in minutes, under your own domain (or theirs).

From there, you can use the print-on-demand feature to upload your text and graphic print designs to products in Sellfy’s POD catalog and start selling them through your new store. 

There are lots of products to choose from, including clothing, mugs, stickers, and phone cases. Depending on what kind of merch you’re selling, you can also add your own custom labels and embroidery.

Whenever you make a sale, Sellfy prints the order and automatically ships it to your customers automatically from a nearby facility. Print quality is great and consistent. You only pay for the base cost of the item so you can control your profit margins.

The cool thing about selling through your own Sellfy store, rather than a third-party marketplace, is that you have much more control. You can customize your store to make it look exactly like you want it to look so that it represents you as an artist. This is something you can’t do if you sell through a third-party site.

Another advantage of selling through your own website is that it allows you to build your own brand and audience through marketing over time. And unlike POD marketplaces, you won’t have to compete with other sellers on the platform.

The only downside to selling through Sellfy is that you’ll have to build your own audience from scratch and drive your own traffic. Fortunately, Sellfy comes with built-in marketing tools to help with that, like email marketing, discount codes, tracking pixels, upsells, etc.

Aside from print-on-demand merch, you can also sell many other types of products on Sellfy, including physical goods and digital downloads.

Pros:

  • All-in-one ecommerce solution
  • Built specifically for artists and other creators
  • Gives you complete control and ownership of your print-on-demand business
  • Sell all types of products, including POD, physical products, and digital products
  • Built-in marketing and sales tools

Cons:

  • Doesn’t have a built-in audience like print-on-demand marketplaces, so you’ll have to invest in marketing to drive sales
  • No return/exchange option for customers

Pricing

Paid plans start from $19/month. A free 14-day trial is also available.

Sellfy offers a 30-day money back guarantee.

Read our Sellfy review.


#2 – Gelato

Gelato is a popular Print-on-Demand service that is a great option for artists that already have their own website or online store.

Gelato Homepage

Gelato offers a wide range of high-quality products that can be used to display your artwork, from t-shirts to mugs and everything in between. 

You can also connect Gelato to sites like Etsy, so you can sell POD products directly from your Etsy store. 

What’s great about Gelato, is that it’s great for beginner artists that are just starting to sell their own merchandise. You can get started for free and there is no minimum order limit, meaning it won’t cost you a penny to start selling POD merchandise in your store. 

You can also place test orders for your products before you start selling, so that you can be sure that the quality is suitable.

Also, Gelato allows you to ship your products globally with ease, so whether your fans and followers live in the UK, the US, or anywhere else, they will be able to purchase your merchandise and enjoy fast and affordable shipping. 

Gelato has over 130 shipping partners in 32 different countries, so when your customers make an order, this will be handled by a distribution center that is local to them in order to get the product to their doors as quickly as possible. 

If your business is growing, and you want to enjoy more of the profits, you can also upgrade to a premium plan and get up to 50% discounts on shipping, as well as access to other perks like premium mockups. 

All-in-all, Gelato is a great option, whether you’re looking to sell your products on Etsy, or your own ecommerce store. 

Pros

  • Wide range of high-quality products
  • Fantastic support
  • Premium plans make shipping more affordable 
  • Free forever plan is great for beginners
  • Integrates with various ecommerce platforms (Shopify, Etsy, etc.)
  • Fast shipping thanks to a worldwide network of fulfillment centers

Cons

  • Shipping discounts apply only to US, Canada, Europe, Australia and a few other countries. 
  • No shipping discounts available on the free plan 

Pricing

Gelato offers an inclusive free forever plan. Premium plans are also available from $14.99/month.


#3 – Printify

Printify is a print-on-demand fulfillment service provider. It’s a backend solution that integrates with your existing website so that you can start selling print-on-demand products through it, which makes it a great choice for artists who already have their own online store.

Printify Homepage

Here’s how it works. First, sign up for Printify and connect it to your ecommerce platform. It integrates natively with all the main ecommerce platforms: Shopify, Etsy, Wix, etc., so this part’s a breeze.

Next, browse the Printify product catalog and pick out the items you want to customize and sell. There are over 500 high-quality products to choose from, including t-shirts, mugs, socks, home decor items, and many more.

After that, you can start creating your product mockups using the free built-in design tools. The Mockup Generator makes it easy to add your designs to your chosen products and preview them in high quality.

Once you’re happy with the design, you can add order samples from your chosen print provider to make sure they look and feel like you expect. Printify works with a network of globally-distributed print providers, so if you’re not happy with the quality (or fulfillment times, etc.) of your chosen provider, you can switch to a different one.

As soon as you’re happy with your custom product, you can publish it to your online store in a few clicks and start selling! As the orders roll in, your products will be automatically sent to production and shipped directly to your customers. You can track the whole process through your Printify account.

One of the best things about selling with Printify is that fulfillment costs tend to be much lower than with many other providers, which boosts your profit margins. This is because Printify’s network of printing partners all have to compete with one another for your business by offering excellent value.

Pros:

  • Very low printing costs
  • Huge product catalog
  • A large network of printing partners spread across the world
  • Integrates with all major ecommerce platforms

Cons:

  • Printing quality varies depending on the provider you use
  • Limited branding options

Pricing

Printify offers a Free plan for up to 5 stores. Paid plans cost $24.99/month and come with product discounts and more stores.


#4 – Printful

Printful is another print-on-demand company that provides backend fulfillment services for your existing store. it’s the ideal Printify alternative for those who don’t mind paying a bit extra for higher quality merchandise.

Printful Homepage

Printful is best known for its Shopify integration, but it also integrates well with Amazon, WooCommerce, Etsy, and other ecommerce platforms.

It works just like Printify: You upload your designs and add them to a product, then start selling those products through your site, and Printify handles the printing, packaging, and shipping on-demand.

There are a couple of things that make Printful stand out as an excellent choice for artists. The first is its built-in design tools—the Design Maker is fantastic and makes it easy to create your product mockups. 

The second is its white-label branding features. You can customize inside labels and pack-ins for an additional fee, and even add a personalized gift message to your orders—something you can’t do on Printify.

But the best thing about Printful is its reliable printing quality. In my experience, it’s the company that most consistently produced the best-quality prints. They don’t cut corners on quality and use high-quality inks, materials, and printing tech.

The tradeoff is pricing. We found Printful product base costs to be higher than Printify, but the superior quality may be worth the extra costs, depending on your priorities.

Like Printify, Printful also offers a very large product catalog. You can add your designs to apparel, footwear, mugs, homeware, pet products, and tons of other interesting items. There are also special lines for different target markets, such as eco-friendly products.

Shipping is pretty fast too. They have 17 fulfillment centers spread across the globe, with facilities in the USA, Canada, South America, Europe, and beyond. Turnaround times are around 2-7 days.

Pros:

  • Consistently good printing quality
  • White-label branding options
  • Large product catalog
  • Easy integrations
  • Excellent built-in design tools

Cons:

  • A little expensive compared to other providers
  • Limited marketing tools in the free plan

Pricing

You can get started with the Printful Free plan. Discounts available depend on the size of your orders.


#5 – Redbubble

Redbubble is the biggest print-on-demand online marketplace in the world. Over 700,000 artists sell their work on Redbubble, and over 34 million shoppers go there to buy unique, artist-designed products every month.

Redbubble Homepage

Redbubble isn’t like the other print-on-demand websites we’ve looked at so far. If you use Redbubble, you won’t be selling POD merch through a site you own. Instead, you’ll be listing your products on the Redbubble marketplace.

There are pros and cons to this. The advantage is that Redbubble essentially handles your marketing for you. It gets a ton of traffic (we’re talking tens of millions of visitors per month), which puts your products in front of thousands of potential customers. As a result, it’s easier to make sales without investing your time, energy, and money into marketing campaigns.

The disadvantage is that you’ll be selling on a third-party site, so you don’t have as much control over your online store. There’s also a lot of competition on Redbubble, with hundreds of thousands of other artists on the same platform, all competing for sales.

All that said, I’d definitely recommend Redbubble for artists who are looking for a quick, easy, hands-off way to sell their designs online.

It’s a lot easier than building your own site from scratch: you just sign up for a Redbubble shop, upload your designs to products (there are over 70 products to choose from), set your prices, and wait for the sales to roll in. Redbubble takes care of production and shipping, and you enjoy the profits.

One last point worth mentioning is that if you list your designs on Redbubble, there’s always a risk that copycat artists will steal your designs. This happens pretty often, but Redbubble does offer a few anti-piracy features like watermarks to help you protect your designs.

Pros:

  • Huge existing customer base
  • No marketing necessary
  • Easy to get started
  • Flexible profit margins

Cons:

  • Lots of competition
  • Limited control
  • Risk of others copying your designs
  • Additional fees are taken from the profits of anyone on the standard plan

Pricing

It’s free to open a shop on Redbubble. They deduct the base product cost from your sales and you take the rest as earnings. If you’re on the standard plan, as most users will be, they’ll take an extra cut from your profits on top of their base product fees.


#6 – Society6

Society6 is another print-on-demand marketplace where independent artists can sell their merch. It doesn’t get quite as much traffic as Redbubble but it’s still very popular and has a well-defined aesthetic.

Society6 Homepage

Society6 is like Redbubble’s ‘trendier’ little brother—or at least, that’s how we see it. There are lots of products you can sell on Society6, but the focus seems to be more on home decor and wall art, rather than t-shirts and mugs.

There are also more floral prints, watercolor patterns, and abstract art – and much fewer novelty pop-culture prints. If this is the aesthetic you like to go for, it’s a great place to sell your merch.

Society6 also has a huge social media following and gets a decent amount of organic traffic, so it’s easy to make sales

Another thing we like about Society6 is its branding options. While you don’t have as much control as you’d have if you sold your merch through your own store, you can still customize your Society6 store pretty heavily with your own artist bio, profile image, header, etc. There’s also a follow function, so customers that like your art style can stay in the loop.

Pros:

  • Thriving artist community
  • Well-defined style
  • Good branding options
  • Built-in customer base

Cons:

  • Not as popular as Redbubble
  • Less suitable for selling pop culture designs

Pricing

It’s free to open an artist shop on Society6. You earn 10% of every sale and Society6 takes the rest. For art prints & framed and canvas prints, you can set your own markup.


#7 – Teepublic

Teepublic is another popular print-on-demand marketplace. It’s owned by Redbubble and stands out for its easy, hassle-free design upload process.

Teepublic Homepage

Teepublic doesn’t quite match Redbubble’s organic traffic, but it isn’t far off. It still has a huge customer base and is probably the best place to sell apparel. 

The best thing about Teepublic is its upload and configuration process, which is incredibly quick and easy. You can upload your designs to products in a few clicks and be ready to start selling. 

There are fewer product categories to choose from than Redbubble and Society6, but it still hits all the main categories: apparel, wall art, phone cases, mugs, stickers, totes, etc.

Another way Teepublic differs from its competitors is in its pricing model. The fixed royalty rate means you don’t have control over your own profit margins: you’ll make $4 on t-shirts, or $2 during sales.

This might seem like a bad thing, but it has its benefits. First off, it makes the platform less competitive as there aren’t a bunch of other sellers driving prices down. Secondly, it deters copycats as they can’t copy your designs and undercut you—they have to sell at the same price, which eliminates the incentive. 

Pros:

  • Easy upload process
  • Great for selling apparel
  • Less competitive than other platforms

Cons:

  • Can’t control profit margins (fixed royalty rates)

Pricing

It’s free to open a shop on Teepublic. You earn a fixed rate per sale and Teepublic takes the rest.


#8 – Zazzle

Zazzle is the second most popular POD marketplace in the world, just behind Redbubble. It has over 10 million visits per month and reaches shoppers all over the world.

Zazzle Homepage

The process of selling on Zazzle is pretty much the same as any other print-on-demand marketplace. You just sign up, open your shop, upload your designs to the products you want to sell, choose your royalty rates, and start selling. Zazzle will take care of the rest for you: printing, shipping, and customer service.

We really like Zazzle’s product catalog. It includes all the usual categories like drinkware and clothing, plus some niche offerings that you won’t find on many other sites, like cornhole sets, flip flops, and hundreds of other items.

Another cool thing about Zazzle is that if your products sell well, Zazzle will help drive you more sales by featuring you on their homepage under their “Trending Independent Creators” or “Featured Creators” lists.

Aside from selling your own designs, talented artists can also work directly with customers and help bring their ideas to life through the Zazzle LIVE program.

Pros:

  • Huge product catalog
  • A very popular site with a large existing customer base
  • Flexible royalties

Cons:

  • Fierce competition

Pricing

It’s free to sell your products on Zazzle but the platform takes a cut of your sales and then pays you royalties.


#9 – Fine Art America

Fine Art America is the best print-on-demand site for artists that want to sell prints, posters, and wall art.

Fine Art America Homepage

Unlike the other POD marketplaces we’ve looked at so far, Fine Art America focuses on one specific type of product: wall art. 

Don’t get me wrong, you can still sell other product categories on there too, but it isn’t going to sell as well as wall art—that’s where the demand is.

All you have to do is upload your designs, choose your product, and customize it. Fine Art America is the largest custom framing company in the world so you have a lot of customization options. You can choose from hundreds of different frames in all kinds of colors and materials, from metal prints to wood prints, acrylic prints, and beyond.

When a customer places an order, Fine Art America will print, frame, matt, package, and ship it for you. They’ll deal with pretty much everything—you just collect your profits each month.

There are more than 10 global fulfillment centers so you can sell your products all over the world.

Pros:

  • The best place to sell framed wall art and prints
  • Lots of product customization options
  • Large customer base

Cons:

  • Design upload limit for free users 
  • Not as good for selling other types of merch

Pricing

You can upload up to 25 designs and start selling on Fine Art America for free. Premium plans with higher limits and other benefits start from $30/year.


#10 – Merch by Amazon

Merch by Amazon is Amazon’s print-on-demand program. You can sign up to sell products featuring your designs on the world-renowned Amazon Marketplace for unparalleled reach.

Merch by Amazon Homepage

Unfortunately, Merch by Amazon is invite-only, so you can’t just sign up and start selling. You have to apply to join first but if you’re approved, the process is super simple. You just upload your artwork, set your listing price, and let Amazon take care of the fulfillment.

There are two really cool things about selling POD merch through Amazon. The first is reach. Amazon has more customers than any other ecommerce site in the world by a large margin, so as long as the product is right, sales should come to you.

The second is shipping. Merch by Amazon sellers can offer fast shipping with Amazon Prime, which enables you to get your products to customers much quicker than you’d be able to with other POD sites.

Pros:

  • Huge reach
  • Amazon is a recognized brand name (more customer trust)
  • Excellent conversion rates
  • Fast shipping with Prime

Cons:

  • Invite-only program

Pricing

You can sign up to Merch by Amazon for free. Fulfillment costs are deducted when you make a sale.


Final thoughts

That concludes our roundup of the best print on demand companies for artists.

The POD business model is fantastic, particularly for artists. Just choose a print-on-demand fulfillment company, connected it to your own store or third party platform like Etsy, and you’re good to go. In the case of Sellfy, you can use it to build your entire store as well.

Still not sure which is the best option for you? Here’s what I’d suggest:

  1. Use Sellfy if you don’t have your own ecommerce store yet and want to sell through a site you own. You have more control, and can sell other types of products. It’s our favorite ecommerce platform for simplicity – it’s far easier to get started than other platforms.
  2. Choose Gelato if you already have an ecommerce store (e.g. Shopify/WooCommerce) or want to sell merch on platforms like Etsy and Amazon. Support, quality, and product selection is excellent.
  3. Choose Printify if you want the most affordable print-on-demand fulfillment service. Like Gelato, Printify is best suited for those with an existing store.

And of course, depending on your business model you can also list your products on all the print-on-demand marketplaces in this list to maximize your sales opportunities.


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