Hats are the one category where Printful stays competitive
On t-shirts, Printify's marketplace of independent providers usually undercuts Printful by three or four dollars a unit. Hats are different. Because embroidered caps involve a stitched decoration rather than a cheap DTG print, the base costs bunch up tightly across both platforms.
That means the "which is cheaper" question can't be answered with a single number. You have to compare the exact cap you plan to sell, then add the fees that quietly eat your margin. Let's do that.
Base cost, cap by cap
Printify lists its embroidered hats starting at $14.09, and the specific styles on that page span a wide range: a Richardson Snapback Trucker Cap from $12.89, a Low Profile Baseball Cap from $14.36, a Classic Cuffed Beanie from $14.96, a Flat Bill Cap from $15.55, a Yupoong Snapback Trucker from $18.38, and a Classic Dad Cap from $20.66 (Printify).
Printful's flagship dad hat, the Yupoong 6245CM, starts at $13.75 with embroidery included. Its bucket hats run roughly $15.95 to $29.95 depending on style and decoration, and that figure excludes embroidery digitization and shipping (Printful pricing analysis, ecommerceceo.com).
Notice the flip: Printful's dad hat ($13.75) actually comes in under Printify's cheapest published starting point ($14.09), and well below Printify's own Classic Dad Cap ($20.66). On hats specifically, Printful is not the expensive option people assume it is from t-shirt comparisons.
The fee everyone forgets: embroidery digitization
Embroidered products carry a cost that printed products don't. Before your logo can be stitched, it has to be converted into a machine-readable embroidery file — a step called digitization.
On Printful, this is a one-time fee of $2.95 to $6.50 per new design, waived for Growth members on sample orders (ecommerceceo.com). It is per design, not per hat, so it amortizes fast: sell two hundred hats of one logo and the fee is a rounding error. Sell three hats each of forty logos and it stings.
If you plan a wide catalog of one-off designs, factor digitization into your first-sale break-even. If you plan a few hero designs at volume, ignore it.
What the product editor doesn't show: shipping
The base cost in the editor is not what the supplier bills you. The full supplier invoice is base cost plus supplier shipping plus any supplier tax. Miss the shipping line and your margin math is fiction.
Both platforms use a first-item / additional-item model: the first hat in an order pays the full shipping rate, and each additional item from the same provider pays a reduced rate. Representative US apparel-and-accessory shipping runs about $3.99 for the first item (ecommerceceo.com), with each additional item commonly a dollar or two. Printify has no flat rate — each independent provider sets its own shipping, so the same cap can ship at different costs depending on who fills it (Printify pricing).
This is the same shipping-on-both-sides mechanic covered in our print-on-demand cost economics guide: the customer pays you for shipping, the supplier bills you for shipping, and the gap is a real margin lever.
A worked per-order example
Say you sell an embroidered dad hat at $28.99 and charge $5.99 shipping. Use the Printful dad hat at a $13.75 base, one first-item shipping charge, and standard payment processing of roughly 2.9% plus $0.30. Assume you already have a resale certificate on file, so no supplier tax.
Customer pays: $28.99 + $5.99 = $34.98.
Your costs: $13.75 base + $3.99 supplier shipping + about $1.31 in processing (2.9% of $34.98 is ~$1.01, plus $0.30) = $19.05.
Per-hat profit: $34.98 − $19.05 = $15.93.
Now the bundling effect. A buyer adds a second identical hat. Retail is 2 × $28.99 = $57.98, you still charge one flat $5.99 shipping, so the customer pays $63.97. Base cost is 2 × $13.75 = $27.50. Supplier shipping is $3.99 first item plus roughly $2.00 for the second = $5.99. Processing is about $2.15. Total cost: $35.64. Profit: $63.97 − $35.64 = $28.33.
The second hat added about $12.40 of profit on $28.99 of retail because the additional-item shipping rate is far below the first. This is why average order value moves POD margin more than shaving a few cents off base cost.
When a paid plan changes the answer
Both platforms sell a subscription that lowers your per-unit cost. Neither is worth it below a volume threshold.
Printify Premium runs from $39 per month, or $24.99 per month billed yearly, advertising up to a 33% headline discount though most sellers cite closer to a 20% effective discount on common items (Printify pricing). Printful Growth is $24.99 per month after a free trial, offers up to 33% off product pricing, and becomes free once your store reaches $12,000 per year in sales (Printful pricing analysis, ecommerceceo.com).
Run the break-even yourself. If Growth saves you, say, 25% on a $13.75 hat, that's about $3.44 per hat. $24.99 ÷ $3.44 ≈ 7.3 hats a month to cover the fee. Below that, stay on the free plan; above it, the discount is pure margin — and past $12,000 in annual sales, Growth costs nothing at all.
The same logic drives the Printful poster cost vs Printify comparison and the Printify poster cost and profit breakdown: the plan is a volume decision, never a default.
So which should you pick for hats?
Pick on the specific cap and your fulfillment needs, not on brand reputation:
- Choose Printful if you want owned-facility consistency, a competitive dad-hat base cost around $13.75 (Printful), and a plan that goes free at scale.
- Choose Printify if you want to shop across providers for a cheaper trucker cap (its Richardson snapback starts at $12.89, per Printify) and route orders to a provider near your customer.
Either way, the base cost is only the first of three supplier costs. Model shipping and fees before you set a price, the same way our Printify canvas cost and profit breakdown does for wall art.
Knowing your real per-hat profit after every fee
The hard part isn't the base cost — it's stitching together base cost, embroidery digitization, first-item versus additional-item shipping, payment fees, and ad spend into a true per-order number. Most sellers never see it, so they price on gut and discover thin margins at tax time.
That's the gap PodVector fills. It connects Shopify, Meta Ads, Google Ads, Printify, and Printful, then computes your true per-order profit — supplier costs and fees included, not just revenue. Victor, its AI employee, reads that live data and proposes moves, taking Shopify-side actions with your approval. Victor is not a dashboard and does not touch your ad account; he tells you which hats actually make money after every cost.
FAQs
Is Printful or Printify cheaper for embroidered hats?
They're close. Printful's Classic Dad Hat starts around $13.75, and Printify's embroidered hats start at about $14.09, with some Printify trucker caps as low as $12.89. Unlike t-shirts, there's no consistent winner on hat base cost — compare the exact style you plan to sell.
What is the embroidery digitization fee?
It's a one-time cost to convert your logo into a stitch file before it can be embroidered. On Printful it runs $2.95 to $6.50 per new design and is waived for Growth members on sample orders (ecommerceceo.com). Because it's charged per design rather than per hat, it matters most for wide catalogs of one-off designs.
Do I have to pay for a subscription to sell hats?
No. Both Printify and Printful have free plans with no per-order fee. The paid tiers — Printify Premium and Printful Growth — only lower your per-unit cost and pay off above a certain order volume (Printful pricing analysis). Start free and upgrade once the discount savings clear the subscription price.
How much profit is left after all the fees?
It depends on your retail price and order size, but the supplier invoice always has three parts — base cost, shipping, and any tax — plus payment processing on top. In the worked example above, a single $28.99 hat nets about $15.93, and a two-hat order nets about $28.33 because the second unit's shipping is far cheaper. Bundling is the biggest lever.
Does Printful or Printify ship hats faster?
Speed depends on where the fulfilling facility sits relative to your customer, not the brand name. Printful runs its own facilities in several regions; Printify lets you pick from independent providers on multiple continents, so you can route each order to a nearby one. For US customers, a US-based provider keeps shipping cheapest and fastest for both.