Spreadshirt vs Printful

One of the best ways of making a passive income is by setting up your own eCommerce business. Not only does it allow you to set up your own business and start trading online, but it also helps rake in sales on auto-pilot so you can focus on other business growth strategies.

For most beginners in online business, several questions like inventory, experience, financial resources, and more come to mind. With the print on demand business model, you no longer have to worry about such issues as it helps you launch with little to no capital, inventory, or experience.

Print on demand works in a simple way. Once you set up an online store, customers buy from your shop, and then the print on demand service prints, packages, and ensures their orders are delivered to their doorstep. All you do is pay the printing partner from the work and materials, and you keep the profits.

The challenge lies in finding the best print on demand service provider for your online store. However, once you understand the key differences between the providers available on the market, you’re well on your way to finding the right partner to work with.

In this comparison post, we’re going to look at two leading print on demand services – Spreadshirt and Printful – to help you make a more informed decision based on your needs.

Spreadshirt vs Printful: What Are They?

Spreadshirt

Founded in 2002, Spreadshirt is a global print on demand platform for online store owners to create their own custom, personalized clothing and accessories by allowing them to realize their creative ideas on quality fabrics.

It has grown to become one of the world’s most successful print on demand service providers, with transparent manufacturing methods at all its global locations.

It’s also an ideal custom merchandise partner with esteemed customers ranging from YouTube stars, large brands, and companies. Its top-quality custom t-shirts, prints, and services are designed to ensure your business is profitable.

The service is also dedicated to providing fairly-priced and beautifully-printed accessories and apparel, created with eco-friendly and responsible production practices.

Spreadshirt offers a simple process for store owners and creatives to develop their custom apparel and accessories. To turn your designs into profit, simply create your design, upload it to Spreadshirt, and start earning your money.

The platform is free forever, has zero-risks, and you get payouts on a monthly basis.

Also Read: Redbubble vs Spreadshirt

Printful

Founded in 2013, this leading print on demand order fulfillment and warehousing service offers products they can customize with their designs and content before selling them to their customers.

It works with multiple print partners from across the world and fulfills and ships products such as accessories, clothing, and home and living items for online store owners.

The company has fulfillment centers in California, North Carolina, Mexico, Spain, and Latvia. It integrates with multiple eCommerce platforms including Shopify and Magento for automatic order import from your store for easier fulfillment but also does more than just printing and shipping as it has over 60 developers who are constantly working on new technology to help you run your store easier.

It’s free to set up and has no minimum order requirements or monthly fees. Printful also offers custom branding by fulfilling and shipping everything under your brand with custom pack-ins, labels, and more.

Once you connect your online store with Printful and add your products, a customer will order and buy an item, the order is automatically sent to Printful for fulfillment, and they’ll ship the finished product to their doorstep from any of their five fulfillment centers under your brand.

Also Read: Printful Review

Spreadshirt vs Printful: Features

Spreadshirt

Customize Tool

This is an easy to use design tool that helps you make your own t-shirts and various personalized clothing items that spread your unique designs and messages. You can customize your own design, text, or images on various custom products including hats, hoodies, aprons, and much more.

There are more than 100 unique products for all your printing and design needs, so you can create custom apparel, which makes for great personalized gift items for everyone. Not only that, but you can also get some inspiration from Spreadshirt’s t-shirt design favorites.

To use this tool, you’ll need to know the product’s print area, which is the actual spot that your design will be printed on and perfectly place the text and designs inside this area. This ensures you get the best out of your designs regardless of the product you place it on.

A big design is best on the front of a t-shirt so you can hit the center, while small designs and logos fit best on the right or left side of the chest.

Once you have the design well laid out in the print area, select a contrasting design and product colors, adjust the design to product size, and make the final touches before uploading it to your platform.

Bulk Buying

Spreadshirt offers bulk buying for an endless range of customizable products so you can pick whatever best fits your needs. This includes items from brands like Fruit of the Loom, Gildan, Russell Athletic, Champion, and much more.

It also offers infinite customization opportunities thanks to its customization tools and unbeatable prices and service for an ideal buying experience. You can cash in on its exclusive promos and savings, or rely on the Spreadshirt team to guide you through the whole process.

Spreadshop

This is a free online shop platform designed for creators to monetize their audiences by selling their merchandise to fans and followers.

You need not worry about production, payments, fulfillment, or shipping – Spreadshirt covers all that for free. Just sign up, upload your creations to customizable products, promote your brand, and start earning.

It’s powered by Spreadshirt and gives you a unique URL and professional, customizable shop system so you can start your own merchandise business.

You can modify your own Spreadshop storefront that matches your brand using easy and quick customization so you can continue making more sales. The shop integrates quickly and simply with your own website’s back end.

Spreadshop offers benefits such as award-winning customer service via personal assistance, FAQs, feature requests, and video tutorials. You also get to control your earnings and there are no minimum sale requirements. You can track your profits on the go using the easy-to-use statistics app, which helps you track sales on the go, and you can set your own prices and profit margins.

Spreadshirt also buys and stores the entire inventory so you won’t have to, and you don’t have to worry about production because they cover and deliver quality products.

Spreadshop also lets you link your social media accounts to your shop, and offers tips and tricks for best marketing practices, plus more support like free shipping and discount codes to support you as a shop owner.

It doesn’t limit your customer base though, so you can take your Spreadshop globally. Plus, Spreadshop accepts multiple payment options including PayPal and credit card, and it adapts to any device – mobile phone or tablet – with ease.

Explore: CustomCat vs Printful

Products

Spreadshirt offers a wide selection of more than 200 customizable products, and you can see your designs on anything from apparel to innovative and fun accessories. These products are available for any budget so whether you have budget-friendly customers or big spenders, there’s something for everyone.

The items are also top-notch quality from reputable and trustworthy brands, besides Spreadshirt’s own private label, each item is hand-selected and checked for quality so you’re confident of your merchandise when selling to customers.

Some of the products you can place designs on include popular t-shirts, hoodies, special occasion t-shirts, gifts, and more. You can also create your own clothing, events, t-shirts, phone cases, trending items like baby bibs, sportswear, plus-size clothing, home décor, and more.

Explore: Printful vs Printify

Print Types

Spreadshirt offers a variety of printing methods including screen, flex, flock, glow-in-the-dark, glitter, embroidery, metallic, sublimation, and full-color digital printing.

• Embroidery is durable, uses an assortment of thread colors, and can be used on multiple fabrics and products.
• Digital direct printing accommodates all file formats, produces high-quality results, and can print any color with optimal details in the designs.
• Standard, direct-to-garment printing is the most popular method in Spreadshirt, where the printer applies ink directly to the product with inkjet technology. It relies on water-based inks that the fibers of the garment absorb and the design is imprinted on the items.
• Thermo sublimation works well with accessories like phone cases and mugs and relies on thermal evaporation to print the design on transfer paper and then applies it to a product using a source of heat. This method accommodates all file formats.
• Flex and flock printing are ideal for logos and text but require a vector graphics file. They allow up to three colors per design, which are plotted on the vinyl material before being applied to the product via heat.
• Screen printing is durable, cost-effective, and usable with multiple fabrics and products, while dye sublimation is used with vibrant prints but only on 100 percent polyester garments for group orders.

Marketplace

Spreadshirt’s marketplace allows you to browse over 3 million designs uploaded every minute so you can always find something new, and shop limitless sizes, colors, and style combinations.

You can share your designs with more than 100,000 daily visitors, and enjoy endless earning potential with no risks. There are campaigns like t-shirt of the week or designer of the month that give you exposure to millions of people globally.

Sales Stats Mobile App

This free app helps you monitor your sales on the go, whether they’re on the marketplace, your own shop, or other marketplaces.

It’ll inform you of new orders and offers helpful features like access to stats and sales on the go from any location, analyzes your success with various filter options, shows you the best-selling designs and items, and lets you decide the frequency with which you want to receive sales updates. However, it doesn’t show more than 10,000 sales as that’s the maximum number.

Explore: Gooten vs Printful

Integrations

Spreadshirt integrates with WordPress so you can enjoy the full functionality of Spreadshop, Joomla to display products from Spreadshop, Drupal, and Wix.

Printful

eCommerce

Printful offers you everything you need to grow your online store. The eCommerce service is the core of Printful so you can get your items printed, packaged, fulfilled, and shipped to customers.

They don’t stop at printing only but also offer cut & sew and embroidery among other techniques. Dropshipping services are also available, plus warehousing and fulfillment, which keep your inventory in one place and stores your items in warehouses.

Other services within Printful’s eCommerce stable include branding for white label, which makes products look professional and sleek, bulk order discounts for your team or organization, custom t-shirt printing, and on-demand giclée printing services.

Creative

Printful’s creative services give you everything your store needs such as designs and visuals, thanks to its in-house team of talented professionals that make your brand shine through graphic design, photography, video production, and tech support.

They also offer store set up services if you don’t have the time to navigate the ins and outs of your store.

Check Out: Zazzle vs Printful

Mockup and Print File Generator

This is a tool that Printful offers its customers to create print files and mockup photos for their stores.

Printful mobile app

If you’re on the go, you can use the Printful app to confirm incoming orders as they roll in, manage your store, submit basic orders with Printful, talk to Printful support via email, call or chat from your phone, place and remove order holds where applicable, track your orders once shipped, and report any issues with an order by using your phone’s camera.

Profit calculator

This free Printful tool helps you check how much you earn for every product you sell. You set a retail price and deduct a Printful price to get your profit.

It also gives you a ballpark figure for how much you can earn for every product, but you have to consider fixed costs you pay for running your store like payment provider or hosting fees. Printful offers volume discounts once you reach a certain number of sales per month so you can buy products for less and get better profit margins.

Also Read: How To Sell Custom Printed Products With Printful

Google Ads Credit

This feature helps you grow your business by promoting your store with Google Ads and get extra credit from Printful.

It’s a one-time offer valid for new accounts, giving one coupon each for customers in the US, UK, Germany, France, Italy, Ireland, Spain, the Netherlands, and Sweden up to December 31, 2020.

Once you spend the amount below on ad clicks, you get the extra credit so you can reach people in your niche searching for products like yours, advertise on popular channels including Maps and YouTube, meet your marketing targets, and pay only when your audience interacts with your ads.

Integrations

Printful integrates with more than 20 other eCommerce platforms including Shopify, WooCommerce, Etsy, Wix, Squarespace, Ecwid, Weebly, Prestashop, BigCommerce, Wish, Magento, and others.

Interestingly, Printful integrates with online marketplaces like Etsy, eBay, Storenvy, Amazon, etc. It also has an API you can use for further website or app integration.

Spreadshirt vs Printful: Customer Support

Spreadshirt

Customer support is available via social media pages, the Spreadshirt forum, marketplace and creators’ blogs, a help center, and contact form. You can also call them on business days during the working hours from 9 am to 6 pm.

Printful

Printful offers customer support using their blog, FAQ section, news and updates, and webinars. You can also reach them via email or their social media pages.

Verdict

Based on the support options provided by both Spreadshirt and Printful, it is quite hard to distinguish which is better. In fact, you can pick the most convenient support outreach to resolve your issues.

Therefore, we can say that there is no winner when it comes to customer support. It is a draw.

Spreadshirt vs Printful: Shipping

Spreadshirt

Spreadshirt ships to the US, Australia, Canada, Asia, and APO addresses. If you have other locations, they’re only available on request.

Their turnaround time varies based on product availability, quantity, and print type, and the average production time is 5-10 business days. Orders shipped outside the US are subject to customs or duty fees that aren’t charged by Spreadshirt but are governmental in nature.

A fair return policy is also in place plus a 30-day return guarantee within 30 days of receiving your order.

Check Out: Teelaunch vs Printful

Printful

Printful offers average shipping times depending on the location, but they vary from 2 days to 14 days, with an average of 4 business days. Fulfillment takes 2-7 business days for apparel products and 2-5 business days for non-apparel products.

They partner with FedEx, DHL, Latvijas PASTS, USPS.com, and DPD global carriers to ship your items to the customers’ doorsteps.

Shipping rates are fixed and calculated based on each product category’s average shipping cost. If you want same-day shipping, you have to place your orders by 12 pm.

Verdict

Looking closely at the shipping options provided by both POD platforms, it is clear that customers have a key role to play in deciding how soon an order gets delivered. If a customer’s order is in bulk, it will take both platforms a while before deliveries can be made.

However, Printful seems to have an edge here. It has devised a system where same day deliveries can be made for orders made on or before 12pm. Though that will definitely increase the shipping cost on the part of the customer.

So, in this section, Printful is the winner. As a customer, you can be rest assured that in the case of an emergency, Printful will come in handy.

Spreadshirt vs Printful: Payment Methods

Spreadshirt

Spreadshirt credits your balance to your account and once it reaches the minimum balance, they settle any payable balances monthly. The minimum depends on your Partner Account currency, and on the 15^th business day of the next month, they settle the balances on your account.

This can take 15 business days to reflect in your account once cleared. The payment options are either US bank account or PayPal transfer. Direct deposit only transfers your money in US dollars, but PayPal works with any currency.

Printful

Interestingly, Printful also accepts credit cards and PayPal. However, in the case of Printful, it offers both the artists and customers access to create an online wallet. With the Printful wallet, customers can deposit money using their credit card or Paypal.

Deductions are made from the wallet anytime you make an order. For artists, their commissions are deposited in their wallets after successful customer purchase.

You can decide when you want to cash out from your wallet, and the amount you intend to withdraw from it. You have a free hand.

Verdict

Both Spreadshirt and Printful offer you the opportunity to get paid for your POD business when due.

Although Spreadshirt has its clearly spelt out payment policy, it gives you the luxury of picking between bank transfer direct payment and using PayPal. Unfortunately, the bank transfer option is only available for sellers with a US bank account.

On this ground, there is really no distinguishing edge between Spreadshirt and Printful. Once again, it is a tie.

Spreadshirt vs Printful: Pricing

Spreadshirt

Spreadshirt is free to use but its pricing varies based on the product. It’s made up of the product price, printing costs, and design price where necessary (for community designs only, not your own designs or those marked as free).

Printful

Printful is free to use and doesn’t charge any monthly or startup fees. They profit when you make orders, and the prices are within the product and printing, though some prints and printing techniques attract additional costs.

Verdict

This is yet another area where Printful and Spreadshirt come really close to each other. The pricing model for both platforms looks quite similar. The product you go for as a customer generally determines how much you get charged.

On the Spreadshirt platform, however, additional features and highly customized designs attract high charges.

So, aside from you paying for the product and printing, you might have added design costs to worry about. Thankfully, Printful seems to have found a way around that.

Based on this foregoing, it is possible that the eventual cost you incur on Spreadshirt will be much more than on Printful.

We give the winner to Printful in this Printful vs Spreadshirt category based on these criteria.

Spreadshirt vs Printful: Similarities & Differences

	Spreadshirt	Printful
Services	Print on demand, fulfillment, shipping	Print on demand, warehousing, fulfillment, shipping
Free/Paid	Free to use	Free to use, no monthly or startup fees
Features	Customize Tool Bulk Buying Spreadshop Print Types Marketplace	Ecommerce & Creative services Mockup and Print File Generator Profit calculator Google Ads Credit
Integrations	Yes; Wix, WordPress, Joomla, and Drupal	Yes, more than 20 platforms including Shopify, Magento, Wix, Weebly, Squarespace, etc.
Mobile app	Yes, for sales statistics	Yes, for support, order confirmation, tracking,
Support	Social media pages, Spreadshirt forum, marketplace and creators’ blogs, a help center, contact form, phone	Blog, FAQ section, news and updates, webinars, email, or their social media pages
Payment methods	Bank account, PayPal	Credit card, PayPal
Shipping	Yes, varies based on location Average time based on product availability, quantity, and print type Average production time is 5-10 business days	Yes, varies with location Average 4 business days
Pricing	Varies with product	Varies with prints and printing techniques

Spreadshirt vs Printful: Pros & Cons

Spreadshirt

Pros

• Offers a spreadshop for creators
• Multiple printing options
• Vast product categories
• Offers a marketplace
• Mobile app available but for sales stats
• Variety of customer support channels
• Free to use

Cons

• Few tools
• Few integrations
• No white-label or professional services
• Limits you to three colors for quality output

Explore: Printful vs Print Aura

Printful

Pros

• Free and easy to use
• Many tools including mobile app
• Superior product quality
• Global reach
• Superior profit margins
• Multiple support service channels
• Multiple integrations with seamless connections
• Easy to use and intuitive mockup generator
• Offers white label branding options

Cons

• Charges more for their services
• Product selection isn’t vast

Who Are The Best Spreadshirt Competitors?

Spreadshirt has quite a number of competitors who also operate within the print on demand market. Because they target the same market, competition tends to be stiff and these platforms offer forms of incentives that are far more than free sign-ups.

So here are some of the best Spreadshirt competitors;

• Printify
• Teespring
• TeePublic
• CafePress

Who Are The Best Printful Competitors?

Just like Spreadshirt, Printful also has fierce competitors, which includes:

• Fine Art America
• Society6
• Zazzle

Nevertheless, there can only be one winner – the customers. Stiff competition will lead to better innovation and lower costs. Customers are king.

Spreadshirt vs Printful: Which One Is Best?

Now that you know what Spreadshirt and Printful have to offer, the challenge lies in which one to pick for your business. You know your business goals and objectives, so you’ve probably already figured out which one comes close to what you’re looking for.

However, there are several areas where each of these print on demand services shines and where they fall short. However, for this comparison, we recommend using Printful for several reasons.

Printful has everything you need to get started, whether you’re a newbie or professional. It gives you extras like eCommerce and creative services for white labeling and branding your items so you can give your customer a personalized touch from your own brand.

It also has experts such as in-house designers, photographers, videographers, and fulfillment personnel well-versed in eCommerce, to handle your requests the Printful way.

Not only that, but it also helps you save time and money while you focus on business growth, carving your brand identity, and marketing. They take the load off your hands and make online trading a breeze.

There’s absolutely no reason not to go with Printful to set up, create your designs, and run your online store.