Full Disclosure – the information contained within this page is from personal experience over fifteen years of using merch and print-on-demand services under my art and illustration hat Asplenia Studios. Affiliate/referral links are provided when available, from which Asplenia Studios might receive additional compensation.
Merch… amiright?!?
With the advent of low-paying streaming services, the importance of merch and touring has become more prevalent in providing financial support to hard-working artists like yourselves. However, merch costs money, right? Well, not always. The growth of Print-On-Demand (POD) services and Direct-To-Garment (DTG) printing has made it easier for artists to offer an almost perpetual stock of merch at zero, or very little, out-of-pocket costs to themselves. First let’s discuss the two terms above:
Print-On-Demand: Just like it sounds. Customer visits a shop, buys something, and the supplier prints it up and sends it off. Think of sites like CafePress, Redbubble, and the like. POD can be a bit costlier per unit to have fulfilled, rather than ordering up merch in bulk. But, on the flip side, it negates the need for storing stock on-hand, and reduces waste as items are only printed and shipped when they are wanted.
Direct-To-Garment: This is a printing technique which, at its most basic description, is an inkjet printer for clothes. DTG printing uses special fabric-friendly inks, and allows for virtually full color printing directly on shirts, hoodies, tote bags and more. The full-color component is probably the wildest difference between DTG and traditional screen-printing, which gets more expensive the more screens you use to create the illusion of full color… not that there aren’t some excellent stylistic features of screen-printing, and there is definitely a place for that in your merch arsenal.
There are some potential downsides to DTG printing, and these most stem from the fact that many POD companies will contract printers from around the world, so QUALITY CONTROL may vary. I have DTG shirts that are over a decade old and the print is still great, and DTG shirts that arrived and the print was blurry or with other problems. Thankfully the former is more the common experience and, at least with the services I’ll talk about below, the few times there has been a problem their customer service was great in getting it fixed.
So why POD and DTG services?
As mentioned above, they allow you to maintain a shop with dozens of merch options, with little-to-no expense. In some ways, after set-up most if not all of them are essentially passive income. They’ll do the work for you, and you just need to sit back and rack in the dough.
The one downside to this is that, in some of these instances, the website maintaining your shop also takes a cut first, so your profit may not be as high as if you had X amount shirts printed and then sold them yourself. The upside? Sometimes that cut is worth it when they’re found almost all of the work, and you don’t need to drop hundreds on shirts that you’re not sure you’ll actually sell.
That’s great! So where do I set this up?
While there are a lot of options online, I am going to provide info on the three(ish) that I personally use for Asplenia Studios, as well as TGEFM merch.
The first two are full-service POD providers. You don’t pay a dime to these companies and, in turn, they provide a nearly full-service experience: manage your storefront, print, ship (worldwide), process payments, etc. Your only requirements are to upload your images, set the products up, and advertise the store.
TeePublic (referral link)
TeePublic is, hands down, one of the easiest services I’ve used for uploading art, managing layout on the products, and letting the store do its thing. TeePublic has limited merch options, including shirts, sweatshirts, buttons, stickers, phone cases, and few others. Their offerings may not be as robust as others but, in some ways, that can be a good thing. Sample link of the Asplenia Studios TeePublic shop.
TeePublic pros:
- No out-of-pocket expenses- you never pay anything, and only profit when someone buys something.
- Full-service store front and check-out process.
- Excellent customer service (this is from personal experience).
- Easy and intuitive upload and merch set-up process.
- Limited merch options streamline the offerings.
- No hassle pricing: TeePublic sets the price, and your payout, for all merch options. Everyone on TP plays on a level field, and you don’t ever have to worry about adjusting prices or competing with another seller whose prices are lower.
- All newly-uploaded designs start with a 72-hour sale, along regular sales on just about everything at least twice per month.
- Global fulfillment (typically fulfilled in or near the customer’s country, keeping shipping costs down).
- Payouts via PayPal.
TeePublic cons:
- No hassle pricing: At an average of around $4 paid to YOU per regular t-shirt, may not be the highest revenue amongst all of the options.
- During sales, payout for each item sold is typically halved. If an item nets you $4 during regular times, you’ll only get $2 for each of that item sold during a sale.
- You have no control over sales or coupons. These are dictated by TeePublic.
- Limited merch options may not be enough for what you are looking for.
- Shipping prices, especially for single items, seems a bit high.
- Payouts via PayPal. If you want your money another way, you’re SOL.
Redbubble (direct link, no referral program)
Redbubble technically owns TeePublic now, but do things differently in a few important respects. The two main differences are that there are A LOT more options for merch than TeePublic- along with the usual clothing and coffee mug options, there are socks, clocks, artboards, pet mats… the works. Sometimes a bit overwhelming. Also, you have the ability to set the payout for your products. Now, to be fair, the default price for items at Redbubble is typically a bit less than TeePublic, but the default payout is also considerably less. So if you increase your payout, the price of the items themselves can start getting pretty high. Sample link of the Asplenia Studios Redbubble shop.
Redbubble pros:
- No out-of-pocket expenses- you never pay anything, and only profit when someone buys something.
- Full-service store front and check-out process.
- Semi-regular sales.
- Ability to individually set your payout for each item type (eg- 20% payout for shirts, 15% payout for stickers, etc.)
- An amazingly wide-range of potential merch options.
- Redbubble is HUGE. They have huge customer base worldwide and are considered a trustworthy and quality company.
- Global fulfillment (typically fulfilled in or near the customer’s country, keeping shipping costs down).
- Payouts via PayPal or ACH Bank Deposit.
Redbubble cons:
- The upload and design process (placing and sizing the graphic on the merch) is a lot clunkier. Even though you do it on the same page, different products will pull up different design settings, which can be confusing.
- Prices can get high if you adjust for a higher payout.
- You have no control over sales or coupons. These are dictated by RedBubble.
- Too many merch options can be overwhelming.
Printful plus integration (referral link)
Printful is similar to Redbubble in that they have an amazingly large amount of merchandise that they can print on. The major different between Printful and TeePublic or Redbubble is that they do not run a storefront for you. Because of this, their merch costs are a lot lower because they are only taking a profit on the item + print, and aren’t also trying to defray the costs of running a bespoke webstore for you. Otherwise, fulfillment is similar. You can use Printful for yourself, printing out an order as small as a single t-shirt (basic tees + printing are less than $10 each), with bulk discounts automatically applying at certain thresholds. But…
Where Printful shines, though, is their direct integration with many storefronts including, but not limited t, Big Cartel, Etsy, TikTok, Storenvy, WooCommerce and more. With a small amount of set up, you can begin creating products in Printful, and then pushing them to a storefront. When someone purchases any item(s) that Printful fulfills, you can either choose to manually release the order for fulfillment or, better yet, in your settings select the option that allows Printful to immediately begin fulfilling orders as soon as they are placed.
For storefronts that Printful currently doesn’t integrate with (Bandcamp, for example) you can still create merch listings and then take the extra steps to manually fulfill item orders from Printful as needed.
Printful pros:
- No upfront costs (see cons below)
- Better per item prices mean you can set a higher profit margin and still charge the same as TeePublic or Redbubble does. A single basic shirt on TeePublic or Redbubble can cost between $20-22, plus shipping, and you’ll get between $2-4 in profit. A basic shirt through Printful costs as little as under $10, meaning you can set the price for $20 plus shipping, and make $10 in profit.
- The ability to design a single item template, and then push it to multiple shops (for example I have shops at both Etsy and Big Cartel).
- Free plan is all you need. For big sellers there is a premium plan which gets you advanced options, lower per-unit prices, and more.
- An amazingly wide-range of potential merch options.
- Global fulfillment (typically fulfilled in or near the customer’s country, keeping shipping costs down).
- Not a direct pro, but if many shops that Printful integrates with will give you the option to control your own sales or coupons.
Printful cons:
- While you can set up product templates, pushing them to the storefronts does also rely on any given storefront’s individual processes (for example, any items pushed to Etsy still require you go to Etsy and finalize the listing).
- Pushing products to certain storefronts, such as Etsy, require extra legwork, typically one-time at the start, to set up shipping profiles, etc. (Printful does provide guides on this for any instances which it does not automatically set up for you).
- While there are no up-front costs for Printful, this doesn’t preclude any fees that the storefronts you integrate Printful with may charge.
- While there are no up-front costs for Printful, they DO NOT directly coordinate with the payment system of any given shops you use. Eg.- If I sell an item with shipping and handling for $25 on Big Cartel, Big Cartel will transmit that $25 to my bank account. Then, when Printful fulfills the item, they will charge me their production and shipping rates. This process is automatic after establishing billing methods on Printful, but it does mean you will still see these extra steps on your credit card or PayPal account, even though you didn’t have to take action on them.
Some may wonder why I listed Prinftul and not similar service Printify. The reason for this is that, in my experience, Printify does not provide any services that are more robust than Printful, but DOES require out-of-pocket subscription costs even at their basic tier.
Other trusted merch providers
While these may not be full-service POD providers, they can often be cheaper options, especially in bulk.
Sticker Mule (referral link)
Sticker Mule does stickers well. I’ve used a lot of sticker companies and their products are consistently the best.
Sticker Mule pros:
- Fairly decent prices, but deep discounts start applying the more line items you add to you order.
- Regular “limited time” offers can really improve your stock on-hand. Think 50 sparkle stickers for $29 or 50 1.25″ buttons for $19, all with free shipping.
Sticker Mule cons
- Appears to be USA and Canada only, no international shipping.
- Up-front costs, stock on-hand.
Stupid Rad Merch Co.
By a punk, for the punks. This is a 100% small business creating stickers, screen-printed shirts, and more. They do quality work, and have great customer service.
Stupid Rad pros:
- Supporting small businesses.
- Usually best prices on bulk orders.
Stupid Rad cons:
- Up-front costs, stock on-hand.
- Bulk orders.