Other Sites Like Printify: Which Is Best for POD Sellers?

How to read this list

Most "other sites like Printify" roundups list 10 options in a flat ranking. That format hides the real question. None of these sites is universally better than Printify — each one wins on a specific axis and loses on others.

This list groups by what the site is actually optimized for. Three sites compete head-on as supplier networks (Printful, Gelato, Gooten). Two cut on cost or speed (CustomCat, SPOD). Two specialize in branding or all-in-one bundles (Apliiq, Sellfy). Three change the business model entirely — they're marketplaces or creator platforms rather than suppliers (Zazzle, Redbubble, Spring).

For a different cut on the same field, our websites like Printify guide groups by production model, and the complete Printify alternatives comparison covers the deeper feature matrix. Blogging Wizard's roundup takes a similar but more vendor-neutral angle and is worth skimming as a cross-reference.

Skip ahead to the at-a-glance table if you want the speed-read.

1. Printful

Printful is the closest functional rival to Printify and the site most sellers compare first. Both companies sit under the same parent after their 2021 merger, but they operate as separate brands with deliberately different positioning.

The structural difference is ownership. Printful runs its own facilities in Charlotte NC, Los Angeles, Toronto, Riga, Birmingham UK, Tijuana, and elsewhere. That control means tighter quality consistency than Printify's aggregator-network model, where two orders of the same SKU can ship from two different print partners with different results.

The trade-off is base cost. Printful typically runs $4–$8 higher per unit on common SKUs (Bella+Canvas 3001 tees, Gildan hoodies, standard mugs). On a $25 retail tee, that's the difference between a $5 and an $11 margin.

Branding options are the strongest in the category — inside neck labels, custom packing slips, branded packaging inserts, custom hang tags. Integrations cover Shopify, Etsy, WooCommerce, Wix, Squarespace, Amazon, eBay, and a robust API.

Best for: sellers prioritizing print consistency and brand presentation over the lowest possible base cost.

2. Gelato

Gelato rewrote international POD economics. The Oslo-based company runs a distributed print network of 130+ partners in 32 countries, so a German order prints in Germany and a Japanese order prints in Japan.

For a US-only seller, Gelato's pricing sits between Printful and Printify with no special advantage. For anyone selling more than 20–30% internationally, the math flips. Shipping a tee from a US Printify provider to Berlin costs $12–$18 and takes 10–14 days. The same shirt printed at Gelato's Berlin partner ships for €4 and arrives in 3–5 days.

The catalog is narrower than Printify's — strongest on posters, framed prints, photo books, and apparel basics. If you sell oddball SKUs like custom socks or all-over-print hoodies, check availability before switching.

Integrations cover Shopify, Etsy, WooCommerce, Wix, Squarespace, and a strong API used by enterprise customers like Canva. Paid tiers (Gelato+ at $24/month, Gelato+ Gold at $119/month) unlock product discounts and premium support.

Best for: sellers with 20%+ international orders, especially in the EU.

3. Gooten

Gooten is the breadth play. The New York-based company aggregates a print partner network similar to Printify's but leans into categories Printify is weak in — bedding, bath products, pet goods, custom home decor, and oversized wall art.

If your store sells beyond apparel (duvet covers, dog bandanas, shower curtains, large canvas prints), Gooten often carries SKUs Printify doesn't offer at all. Quality varies by partner, same as Printify, so sample orders are not optional.

Base costs are competitive with Printify on overlapping apparel SKUs. Home goods and lifestyle pricing is typically where Gooten beats the field.

Integrations cover Shopify, Etsy, WooCommerce, BigCommerce, and the Gooten API. The dashboard is functional but less polished than Printify's.

Best for: sellers expanding beyond apparel into home, lifestyle, and pet categories.

4. CustomCat

CustomCat is the budget specialist. The Detroit-based company runs a single Michigan facility and pushes base prices that often beat Printify by $2–$4 on the most common tees and hoodies.

The model is straightforward: own one factory, run it lean, pass savings through. For a US seller pushing volume on standard apparel, CustomCat can add 10–15% to margin per sale compared to the same SKU through Printify's aggregated network.

The trade-offs are real. The catalog is narrower (mostly apparel, mugs, and hats). Design tooling and product mockups feel dated next to Printify or Printful. International shipping is non-competitive — everything ships from Michigan.

Integrations include Shopify, Etsy, WooCommerce, BigCommerce, and the CustomCat API. A $30/month "CustomCat Premium" tier unlocks additional volume discounts.

Best for: US-only sellers running volume on standard apparel SKUs, where every dollar of margin compounds.

5. SPOD

SPOD (Spreadshirt's print-on-demand sub-brand) is the speed specialist. The pitch is a 48-hour production guarantee on standard apparel, which is faster than Printify's 3–5 business day average and dramatically faster than Printful's 4–7 day window on busy weeks.

For a US-based seller running paid ads on Q4 holiday gifts, that turnaround difference is decisive. A buyer who orders December 19 expects delivery before Christmas. The faster the production clock starts ticking, the higher your conversion-to-shipment rate before the cutoff date.

Base costs are competitive with Printify on overlapping SKUs. The catalog is narrower — apparel, drinkware, accessories, no home goods or oversized prints. Production runs from Spreadshirt's Las Vegas and Henderson NV facilities.

Integrations are Shopify-first with Etsy and WooCommerce support. The Shopify app is simple to set up.

Best for: sellers running holiday or event-driven campaigns where ship-by deadlines are a real constraint.

6. Apliiq

Apliiq is the apparel-quality leader. The Los Angeles-based company built its reputation on premium tees, hoodies, hats, and beanies — the kinds of pieces a streetwear or boutique apparel brand would actually put on Instagram.

The differentiation is finish work, not just base print. Apliiq offers cut-and-sew customization, woven labels, custom hang tags, custom drawcords, and embroidered patches as standard order options. Most POD suppliers treat these as enterprise-only add-ons; Apliiq treats them as the product.

Base costs are higher than Printify — sometimes 50–100% higher on equivalent SKUs. The math only works if you're charging premium retail prices ($40–$80 for a tee, $80–$140 for a hoodie) and the buyer cares about brand finish.

Integrations cover Shopify, WooCommerce, and a manual order entry option. No Etsy native integration.

Best for: streetwear, boutique, or premium-tier apparel brands that compete on finish quality, not catalog breadth.

7. Sellfy

Sellfy bundles the storefront with the POD service. Instead of integrating Printify into a Shopify store, you build a Sellfy store directly and the POD product is one of several things you can sell (alongside digital downloads, subscriptions, and physical goods).

For a seller without an existing Shopify or Etsy presence, the bundle saves the setup cost of a storefront subscription plus a POD subscription. Sellfy starts at $29/month for the storefront, and the POD catalog adds no separate fee.

The POD catalog itself is mid-tier — apparel, mugs, phone cases, posters, the standard fare. Production is handled by partner facilities in the US and EU. Print quality and fulfillment times are comparable to Printify.

The trade-off is platform lock-in. Migrating off Sellfy to a standalone Shopify store later is non-trivial because your store URL, customer data, and email subscribers live inside Sellfy's walled garden.

Best for: first-time sellers without an existing storefront who want one platform for store and POD fulfillment.

8. Zazzle

Zazzle is a marketplace, not a supplier network — a category distinction that matters for how you operate. Founded in 2005 and based in Redwood City, Zazzle hosts your designs on its own marketplace and handles customer acquisition, checkout, fulfillment, and customer service. You earn a royalty per sale.

The differentiation against other marketplaces is personalization. Zazzle buyers can edit names, dates, colors, and text on your designs before purchase. That makes Zazzle structurally strong in invitations, business cards, gifts, and event products where personalization is the point.

The catalog is enormous — 1,300+ product types including categories no supplier network touches (postage stamps, custom puzzles, pet bowls, full wedding stationery suites). Royalty rates start at 5–10% and scale up depending on your Designer tier.

The structural trade-off is the same as any marketplace: you don't own the customer, you can't build a brand, and you compete with millions of other Zazzle designers. The upside is Zazzle's organic search traffic for niche keywords (wedding, baby shower, corporate gifts) is hard to replicate elsewhere. For more on this trade-off versus a direct rival, see Zazzle vs Printify.

Best for: designers targeting personalization-heavy niches like weddings, events, and corporate gifting.

9. Redbubble

Redbubble is the other major marketplace. You upload designs, Redbubble handles everything else — listing, traffic, checkout, printing, shipping, returns, and customer service. You earn a royalty (typically 10–30%) on each sale.

For sellers with strong design skills but no marketing budget, Redbubble is a real distribution channel. The marketplace ranks well in Google for "[character] [product]" searches, which means Redbubble drives buyers to your designs you'd never reach yourself.

The trade-offs are everything you give up. Royalty caps your upside. You don't own the customer relationship — Redbubble does, and they remarket to those customers with other artists' designs. Brand building is impossible because the URL says redbubble.com, not yours.

Best for: designers and illustrators who want passive royalty income on a design portfolio, not entrepreneurs building a brand.

10. Spring (formerly Teespring)

Spring is the creator-monetization play that rebranded from Teespring in 2021. The pitch is built around YouTubers, TikTok creators, and Twitch streamers — Spring integrates directly with YouTube's merch shelf, TikTok Shop, and Twitch's merch features, so a creator can sell to their audience without leaving the platform.

The POD product itself is solid — apparel, drinkware, accessories, with Spring handling production, fulfillment, and customer service. You set a retail price, Spring takes a base cost, you keep the rest as profit.

The model differs from Printify in one key way: Spring is the merchant of record. They handle taxes, returns, and customer service. That's a feature if you don't want to run a store, and a constraint if you want full customer data and brand control.

Best for: creators with existing audiences on YouTube, TikTok, or Twitch who want merch tied directly to their content platform.

Side-by-side at a glance

The high-level view across all 10 sites. Base-cost columns are rough and SKU-dependent — always verify on the specific product you sell.

Site	Model	Headquarters	Base cost vs Printify	Best axis	Best for
Printful	Supplier (owned)	Charlotte NC / Riga	+$4–$8	Brand consistency	Brand-led sellers
Gelato	Supplier (distributed)	Oslo	Comparable	International shipping	EU + global sellers
Gooten	Supplier (network)	New York	Comparable	Catalog breadth	Home + lifestyle sellers
CustomCat	Supplier (owned)	Detroit	−$2–$4	Lowest base cost	US volume sellers
SPOD	Supplier (owned)	Las Vegas	Comparable	48-hour production	Holiday + event-driven
Apliiq	Supplier (owned)	Los Angeles	+50–100%	Premium finish work	Streetwear, boutique brands
Sellfy	Store + POD bundle	Riga	Comparable	One platform setup	First-time sellers
Zazzle	Marketplace	Redwood City	N/A (royalty)	Personalization niches	Wedding + event designers
Redbubble	Marketplace	Melbourne	N/A (royalty)	Built-in search traffic	Designers, passive income
Spring	Creator platform	San Francisco	N/A (royalty)	Native creator integrations	YouTubers, TikTokers

Three ways "different" can mean "better"

The lazy version of this question — "which site is better than Printify?" — has no answer. The useful version starts by defining what "better" means for your store.

Better on cost

If you sell standard apparel SKUs to a US customer base and margin per sale is the bottleneck, CustomCat is the most likely winner. The $2–$4 base-cost gap compounds across hundreds of orders, and the buyer doesn't know which supplier you used.

The catch is that "cost" isn't just base price. A supplier with 3% lower base cost and 8% higher return rate is a worse supplier. Track real margin per order — list price minus base minus shipping minus fees minus refunds — not the price tag in the dashboard.

Better on geography

If more than 20% of your orders ship internationally, Gelato's distributed network is decisive. Local production drops international shipping costs by 60–80% and cuts delivery from 10–14 days to 3–5. That delivery-time gap also lowers refund rates from "where is my package?" complaints.

For the EU specifically, see how Gelato's pricing model compares with whether Printify Premium is worth it for the same use case — Premium narrows the cost gap on US orders but doesn't fix the international shipping math.

Better on brand

If you're building a brand (not just selling designs), the trade-off is base cost for finish quality. Printful and Apliiq both win here in different ways — Printful on standardized branding options across a broad catalog, Apliiq on cut-and-sew premium finish on narrower apparel.

Some sellers split the difference: Printful for the everyday catalog, Apliiq for hero SKUs that anchor the brand image on social. The flip side — moving up-market on subscription costs to unlock better margins on the supplier side — is covered in the complete guide to Printify Premium.

How to test before switching

The mechanics of switching are simple. The mistake most sellers make is doing it all at once based on a vendor comparison table.

Start with one SKU. Pick your top seller, since the margin gain compounds fastest. Order a sample to your own address first — print quality, color accuracy, garment fit, and packaging vary between suppliers, and a 5% jump in return rate erases any base-cost savings.

Run both suppliers in parallel for 30 days. Compare actual gross margin per order: real bank-deposit dollars after fees, shipping, and refunds — not the list price in the dashboard. If the new supplier wins by 8%+ on real margin, migrate the rest of the catalog. If it's a wash, the switching cost wasn't worth it.

The data lives in five different dashboards, which is why most sellers never finish the comparison. The supplier shows base cost. Shopify shows revenue and refunds. Etsy shows fees separately. Your ad platform shows acquisition cost. Your bookkeeping spreadsheet — when you remember to update it — pretends to tie it all together.

FAQs

What is the closest site to Printify?

Printful is the closest functional rival. It has the same store-owner model, the same major integrations, and a similar catalog. The structural difference is that Printful owns its production facilities while Printify aggregates a partner network — that trade-off shows up as higher base costs but tighter quality control at Printful.

Is there a free site like Printify?

Yes — Printful, CustomCat, Gooten, SPOD, Apliiq, and Gelato are all free to use. You don't pay a subscription fee; you only pay base costs when an order comes in. Paid tiers (Printify Premium, Gelato+, CustomCat Premium) unlock additional volume discounts but aren't required to start selling.

Which site is cheaper than Printify?

CustomCat is typically the cheapest on US apparel SKUs, running $2–$4 below Printify on common tees and hoodies. For international orders, Gelato is usually cheaper once shipping costs are factored in because local production avoids cross-border shipping fees.

Can I use Printify and other sites together?

Yes — most Shopify and Etsy sellers run two or three suppliers in parallel. A common pattern is Printify for catalog breadth, Printful or CustomCat for high-volume SKUs where margin matters, and Gelato for international orders. The constraint is operational complexity, not technical — each supplier needs its own dashboard, sample order, and reconciliation in your bookkeeping.

Are Redbubble and Zazzle better than Printify?

They're different products, not direct competitors. Redbubble and Zazzle are marketplaces where you upload designs and earn royalties; they handle the store, the traffic, and the customer. Printify is a supplier you connect to your own store. Marketplaces fit passive royalty income; Printify fits building a brand with full customer ownership.

What is the best site like Printify for beginners?

For a beginner with no existing storefront, Sellfy is the lowest-friction option because it bundles the store and the POD service into a single $29/month subscription. For a beginner who already has a Shopify or Etsy store, Printful's deeper tutorials and integrations make it the gentler learning curve compared to Printify's broader feature set.

Which site is best for international POD sellers?

Gelato is the default answer because its 32-country production network avoids the cross-border shipping costs that crush margins on international orders. For sellers focused on Europe specifically, Spreadshirt (SPOD's parent) and Gelato both run EU facilities; for sellers with mostly US plus some EU split, Gelato handles both without forcing two supplier accounts.

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