If you're on a free plan and shipping one t-shirt to a US buyer, Gelato leaves you the most, then Printify, then Printful, and the whole spread is under two dollars a shirt. That only matters if you have buyers to send to your store, though, and that's where Redbubble and TeePublic come in.
Which site leaves you the most on a t-shirt?
Take the same shirt on all three services, a Bella+Canvas 3001. Printed and delivered to a US address, it costs you $15.11 through Gelato, $16.24 through Printify and $16.87 through Printful. Sell it for $25 with free shipping and you have $9.89 left on Gelato, $8.76 on Printify and $8.13 on Printful, before your store and payment fees come off.
So on money kept per shirt, the order is Gelato, then Printify, then Printful. The gaps are small, $1.13 and then 63 cents, so I wouldn't pick on price alone. Where your buyers live and how much say you want over who prints the shirt matter just as much, and the sections below cover both.
Now the catch. Those three don't sell anything for you. They print and ship when an order comes in from a store you built and buyers you found. Redbubble and TeePublic work the other way around: shoppers are already browsing there, but you get a smaller slice of each sale. A fatter margin on a shirt nobody sees is worth less than a thin one on a shirt that sells.
There are a dozen more sites out there. These five cover the two routes a new seller realistically takes.
Two kinds of site: your own store or someone else's marketplace
Say you've made a design with a grumpy cat holding a coffee mug, and you want it on a shirt.
Route one is your own store. You open a shop on a store platform or a selling channel and connect Printful, Printify or Gelato to it. You choose the shirt and set the price at whatever you like. When someone buys, the service prints it, ships it and charges you the base price plus shipping. The rest is yours, minus what your store and payment processor take.
Notice who did the work there. You paid for the storefront and wrote the listing, and you had to get a stranger to land on it. With no audience, that last job is the hard one.
Route two is a marketplace. You upload the cat design to Redbubble or TeePublic and it appears on products in their catalog. Their shoppers search "grumpy cat shirt" and may find yours. The marketplace runs the storefront, takes the payment, prints, ships and deals with the customer, and you earn a share of each sale under its terms.
You don't pay for a store or chase traffic. In return, you don't control much either. The customer belongs to the marketplace, and your design sits next to thousands of other cat shirts.
That's why the ranking below needs reading with care. The top spots go to sites where you keep more per shirt if you can bring the buyer.
The best print on demand sites, ranked by what's left on one shirt
Same shirt for the first three rows: one Bella+Canvas 3001, sold at $25 with free shipping to a US buyer, on the free plan. These are the prices each site listed in early October 2026. Printful's and Printify's are for sizes S to XL. Gelato's is for a white shirt in size S, which it sells as the Premium Unisex Crewneck T-shirt.
| Rank | Site | Type | Base price | US shipping, first item | Plan fee | Left on a $25 shirt | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Gelato | Own store | $10.12 | $4.99 | $0 on Free | $9.89 | Sellers with buyers spread across countries |
| 2 | Printify | Own store | $11.29 (Printify Choice) | $4.95 | $0 on Free | $8.76 | Sellers who want to compare print providers |
| 3 | Printful | Own store | $11.92 | $4.95 | $0 on Free | $8.13 | Sellers building a brand with custom labels |
| 4 | Redbubble | Marketplace | Set by Redbubble | Handled by Redbubble | 50% of your markup on the Standard tier | About $1.14 at the default 10% markup | No audience, no store |
| 5 | TeePublic | Marketplace | Set by TeePublic | Handled by TeePublic | Built into its fixed artist cut | A fixed amount per sale, lower during sales | No audience, no store |
A few things to know before you trust any row. Printify's price is for Printify Choice, where Printify picks the print provider for you. Choose one yourself and the same shirt starts anywhere from $11.43 to $14.98. The two marketplace rows work differently, because you never buy the shirt there, and their sections below explain those figures. And "left on a $25 shirt" is arithmetic, not a forecast. It's what remains before your store's fees, and only once a sale happens.
Each site in ranked order
1. Gelato
Gelato works like the next two, as a service you plug into your own store. On this shirt it's the cheapest of the three: $10.12 for the Bella+Canvas 3001 and $4.99 to ship the first one in the US, then $0.99 for each additional one. That last number adds up on bigger orders. Two shirts ship for $5.98 on Gelato, against $7.15 on Printful and $7.35 on Printify.
It's built for sellers whose buyers are scattered across countries. Gelato sends each order to a production partner near the buyer, and it has more than 250 of them in 32 countries. You don't pick the printer. Gelato routes the order for you.
If most of your buyers are outside the US, run the same sum for their country before you decide: the shirt's price plus shipping there, subtracted from your selling price. Our Gelato review has the plan prices and a poster example.
2. Printify
Cheaper than Printful on this shirt, and free to use. The Free plan lets you connect up to 5 stores, and Printify doesn't charge a listing or transaction fee of its own.
Shipping has a wrinkle. The first shirt is $4.95 and each extra one is $2.40, but that lower rate only applies when the items are the same product type from the same provider. If a buyer orders a shirt and a mug, or two shirts from different providers, you pay more to ship than you might expect.
Because Printify is a network of print providers, your results depend on which one prints the order. With Printify Choice, Printify picks for you and you get the $11.29 price. It suits you if you want a low price and you'd like the option of comparing providers and choosing one yourself. There's more on that in our Printify review.
If you want something cheaper than the Bella+Canvas, the Gildan 5000 starts at $9.68 with Printify Choice.
3. Printful
The most expensive of the three on this shirt, by 63 cents over Printify: $11.92 for the Bella+Canvas 3001 and $4.95 to ship the first one in the US, then $2.20 for each additional one. On a two-shirt order its shipping comes to $7.15 against Printify's $7.35, so 20 cents of that gap comes back.
Printful gives you clear timing. Fulfillment takes 2 to 5 business days, then US delivery takes another 3 to 4. So tell your buyers to expect roughly one to two weeks.
It also has branding extras, like an inside label for $0.99 or an outside label for $2.49 per shirt. Printful suits you if you care more about the shirt feeling like your brand than about the last dollar. Its budget tee, the Gildan 64000, lists at $9.63. That's a different shirt from Printify's Gildan 5000, so don't read those two prices as a like-for-like comparison. For these two side by side, see Printful vs Printify.
4. Redbubble
There's no base price to subtract here, because you aren't buying the shirt. Redbubble sets a base price, you add a markup on top, and the shopper pays both. The markup starts at 10% unless you change it. Then your account tier takes a platform fee out of that markup: 50% on Standard, which is where most new sellers land, 20% on Premium and nothing on Pro.
So on a shirt the shopper pays $25 for, a 10% markup is about $2.27, and a Standard account keeps about $1.14 of it. That's far below the $8 to $10 above, but you didn't pay for a store or find the customer.
It's a good fit when you have designs and no one to show them to. Our Redbubble review goes through the tiers and fees in detail.
5. TeePublic
It suits the same seller as Redbubble, but it pays differently. You don't set a markup. TeePublic sets the price of every product and pays you a fixed amount per sale, and that amount is lower when the site runs a sale, when the buyer uses a coupon, and during a design's first 72 hours.
I rank it alongside Redbubble more than below it, and plenty of sellers put the same designs on both. Look at its earnings page for the current amounts before you upload. Our TeePublic review explains the account categories that decide whether shoppers can find you.
Are the paid plans worth it yet?
Probably not in your first months.
Printify Premium is $39 a month, or $24.99 a month if you pay $299 for the year. It takes up to 20% off most products and raises your store limit to 10. On our shirt, the base price drops from $11.29 to $9.04, a saving of $2.25. That means you'd need to sell about 12 of those shirts a month to cover the annual-billing price, or about 18 on monthly billing. Below that, the plan costs you money.
Printful Growth is $24.99 a month and gives up to 33% off product pricing, with the discount varying by product. On our shirt the price drops from $11.92 to $9.78, a saving of $2.14, so it also takes about 12 shirts a month to pay for itself. A store that's already on Growth can get a year of it free once it passes $12,000 in yearly sales, which is a nice touch for later.
Gelato+ is $29.99 a month, or $19.99 a month billed yearly, with up to 33% off products. Check the discounted price of your own shirt inside your account and do the same division.
Start on free. Upgrade when your monthly orders make the plan pay for itself.
The costs that sit on top
That $9.89, $8.76 or $8.13 isn't what lands in your bank account. Three kinds of cost still come off.
Your store or selling channel. A store platform usually charges a monthly fee. A selling channel with its own shoppers usually charges per listing or per sale. Either way, look up the current rates for the one you're using.
Payment processing. Whoever handles the card payment takes a small cut of each order.
Branding extras. These are optional. An inside label on Printful adds $0.99 to every shirt, which is a real bite out of an $8 margin.
Here's how to use this. Take your channel's fees on a $25 sale and subtract them from the figure in the table. If the result is too small, raise your price or pick a cheaper shirt before you launch, not after.
One more for anyone with buyers abroad: shipping changes a lot by destination. On Printful, a first t-shirt ships for $4.99 to Europe, $8.59 to Canada and $7.99 to Australia or New Zealand.
Which one to pick for your situation
No audience and no store. Start on Redbubble or TeePublic, or both. You'll earn less per shirt, but you'll learn which designs people buy without paying for a storefront. Later you can take the winners to your own store.
You already have a store, or followers to send to one. On price alone, use Gelato. On the same shirt it leaves you $1.13 more than Printify and $1.76 more than Printful, which is about $57 and $88 across 50 shirts. Pick Printify if you'd like to choose your own print provider.
Your buyers are mostly outside the US. Price the shirt on Gelato for their country first, and compare it with Printful's rates for that region.
You're building a brand. Use Printful, and budget for the label. The margin is thinner, and that's a fair price if the unboxing matters to you.
Whichever you choose, order a sample of your own design before you list it. Print quality depends on the shirt, the provider and the artwork, and a price table can't show you how the result looks. A sample costs you about one shirt's worth of money, and it's cheaper than a refund.
FAQ
Is it free to start on Printful, Printify and Gelato?
Yes. All three have a free plan, and you only pay the base price and shipping when an order comes in. Printify's free plan connects up to 5 stores and Gelato's up to 2, and Printful's has no store limit. Remember that the store you connect them to may have its own fees.
Can I use a marketplace and my own store at the same time?
Yes, and it's a sensible way to begin. Put your designs on Redbubble or TeePublic to reach their shoppers, and run your own store through Printify or Printful for buyers you bring yourself. Just check each marketplace's terms on selling the same design elsewhere.
Which site is best if I have no audience yet?
A marketplace. Redbubble and TeePublic already have shoppers searching for designs, so your shirt can be found without you driving traffic. You'll keep a smaller share of each sale, but a store with no visitors doesn't sell anything.
Does a paid plan make sense in my first few months?
Rarely. Printify Premium needs around 12 to 18 Bella+Canvas shirts a month to cover its own cost, depending on how you're billed. Stay on free until your orders are steady enough to clear that.
Why does my Printify price differ from the one listed here?
Printify prices vary by print provider, so the same shirt can show a different base price depending on which one you select. Always check the figure for your chosen provider before setting your selling price.
