Welcome to my review on What Is The Best Print On Demand? Can I make money with it?
More importantly, how much does it cost to get started?
Sure you can make money with all the available POD’s however they are not all alike as I explain below.
Let me be clear, I am not associated with any of the POD services in any way so you know you will be getting an honest review from me.
I spend my time writing reviews about the different programs available for making money online and sharing my experience and advice to others so they may succeed as well.
Congratulations by the way for taking the time to research before purchasing it. This is the best way to avoid scams while you search for a legit program to make money online.
In this review, I will be doing a comparison breakdown between Redbubble Printify Teespring Printful and Subliminator POD programs which will help you to decide which one is best for you.
To learn how to tell a scam from a legit program read my article How To Know A Scam Here, this will help you identify the tel-tail signs of one so you can avoid them.
Let’s get started…
POD stands for “print on demand“. These are companies that will allow you to design or upload a design onto a product of choice. Pick the few options available and it’s ready for printing or place it in your store for customers to view it.
When the product gets sold the company will print the product and deliver it to your customer for you. With some companies, they will even collect the money for you, take out their cost for printing and send the rest to you as profit. All of the companies allow you to set the price of the product.
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Let’s take a look at the first one on the list…
Table of Contents
What Is Redbubble Print On Demand About
Redbubble works somewhat differently than the other PODs which no doubt will attract many however some things about it will also be a deterrent to others.
Redbubble does all the work for you within their company:
- Allow you to design and place your product on their webpage
- They will advertise your products for you
- They handle the orders or sales by collecting the money
- Collect the money from the customer
- Print the product
- Mail the product out to your customer
- Handle issues and returns and refunds for you
- Keep an inventory and record everything for you
- They will then pay the remaining money left over to you.
One of the nice things about Redbubble is that they will do the marketing and selling for you. This is a huge deal because when it comes to marketing your product this can be half of the expense in your business. This is where Redbubble shines above the rest.
Every month people come to the Redbubble StoreFront to view and buy products for themselves or to sell in their store. They are actively marketing their products every month drawing thousands of people into the site. In fact, half of the traffic comes from the search engines like Google giving you a lot of exposure to your products.
The cool feature they have is when someone searches on Google for example a “funny T-Shirt print”, they will land directly on Redbubble’s page of funny T-shirts where they can see your designed T-Shirt. All the shirts you see on Redbubble are from people like you.
In 2020 alone Redbubble has sold over 400 million dollars worth of products. Their sales just keep going up each year so they must be doing something right.
Print On Demand Works like this
You type your Title in the provided blank box and enter your tags for a google search engine to find it.
Then scroll down to view the different sizes and layouts of prints available to you from the automatic builder.
Pick your color for your product and a couple of other options.
The last step is to view all the various layouts that get created automatically of your design and enable those you like.
They get uploaded to Redbubble’s site where Redbubble will advertise your product and take care of the sales and shipping and send you the money when they come in.
One of the greatest things about Redbubble is that it only takes like 2 minutes to design your product and you’re done.
And for those that don’t have the money to spend on startup costs or advertising, this is an awesome opportunity where it doesn’t cost anything to get started and you don’t have any running fees.
All you do is sign up, make a design and wait for your profits. They take care of everything else.
The money you make is entirely dependent on your design.
This no doubt will attract many of those that don’t know how or do not wish to get involved with the advertising side of things.
Redbubble Cons
- For some the cons do out weight the pros however there are many who say the cons don’t affect them because of their pro features.
- The downside of Redbubble is their printing. They do not have the best quality of printing. Their colours tend to be washed out even before washing however they did stay within the lines, just looks a bit washed out. The edges or lines also show a bit blurry as well. On the other hand, it’s not all that bad and is considered to be acceptable.
- There are many complaints about the quality of the shirt, they use cheap shirts which tend to wear out fast and don’t give you a feeling of quality.
- There are plenty of complaints concerning the quality of the print, washing off etc.
If your design is using just one color like black words and no pictures they do come out pretty good.
Don’t let this stop you though because their simple design matched with their free marketing has shown that their sales just keep going up every year. Their mailing package has a cool design on it as well which seems to go very well with the customers and giving the company and your business branding which is very powerful in the marketing world.
Redbubble Printing Cost
Their cost for printing is considered on the high side at $16.41 for a classic T-Shirt.
They automatically set the price with a 12.5 % markup meaning you will get $1.66 per shirt which is very low compared to the other PODs. You can change the markup if you wish however it would be best to keep it there at least until you start getting sales.
This leaves the cost to $18-$19 per shirt. The standard average profit margin of all goods is at 10% and 20% is considered good.
This is a great place to get started making money and when you are ready to take on a little more you can always branch out to one of the other programs to gain a higher profit margin.
Complaints
Redbubble has a 2.5 customer satisfaction rate which is very low.
Some complained about how they sensor way too much however the majority of the complaints are about their print quality, the colors do not show up as you expect.
Their customer service seems to be pretty good for the most part but it seems a hit and miss. Returning products seems to be a hassle, they don’t like to give a refund but credit instead.
This is not acceptable, as you can see some returned the shirts and only get a replacement in just as bad condition.
What Is Printify About
Printify will only create and print products on demand which means the downside is they don’t have a storefront to sell your products for you as with Redbubble.
You have to have your own storefront which you can easily set up on Etsy eBay or other popular sites online. You can also just get your own domain and create your own personal store.
Adding products to your store only takes a couple of minutes like Redbubble but the store will be your own of course.
How It Works
You go to their catalogue and pick the product you choose to put your print onto.
The products they have are of high quality and cover just about everything you can think of.
You can choose from different quality T-shirts and the 3001 T-Shirt is one of their nicest and is a very comfortable shirt to wear.
It’s easy to add your design to the shirt or upload a design from your computer onto the shirt. You then pick your price and a few other options before adding it to your storefront.
Not like Redbubble, you have to advertise your own products from your own storefront and when sales come in they go to Printify for printing.
Their cost to print a T-shirt is also cheaper than Redbubble at only $8.10 per shirt leaving more profit for you and also the chance of out beating your competition. That is like half the cost to print which will make a huge difference and the quality is a lot better as we will get into that in just a moment.
However, keep in mind Redbubble has to pay out a lot of money for advertising. With Shopify you will have to either find free traffic or pay for advertising and that can add up quickly.
Of course, you also have to collect the money from the customer and Printify will charge you for the cost of production & mailing by adding it to your credit card on file with them.
Printify Print Quality
Printify outsources all its printing services to other companies. This gives you several companies you can choose from for printing.
The price can range from $8 to $12 dollars depending on the company you choose. This is good because you are not stuck with one company to print your products for you.
Not all of their printing resources print with the same quality but you can choose a different one if you wish. Overall they all do a good job however the higher costing ones tend to have a better quality print. This is something you will have to test and decide for yourself.
Their high-quality T-shirt 300 material is a really nice shirt which I would recommend. The print from one source was not what I liked, it showed a little fade after one heavy test wash. It showed white lines around some sides and the coloring was off just a bit.
Red looks like pink and white are not really all that white. Blue is a light blue. When printed on a higher quality shirt they do look better.
The prints coming from Monster Digital print service have a much better print product. They do cost a little more but in my opinion, it is worth it because the quality of the print is higher.
The print was not blurry and the colors were sharp and colorful looking as the original.
Printify Complaints
If you look at some of the complaints from Printify about the quality of the prints, they don’t say which company printed them and that is very important because they are not all the same.
Most of the complaints if not all are from people sticking with the lower quality cost of printing.
Listen, guys, if you just make $1 per shirt is better than having a refund because not only is it not a sale but you also have lost a customer. Your money is in the repeated customer.
The complaints vary from printing quality to poor service support.
The service you choose for your printing within Printify has no effect on Printify. That is with the printing company you picked and to solve it just pick a different one.
Cons
- Overall this company does a great job handling your order and getting it to the company you choose to print it. There are very few complaints about it.
- The downside is because it doesn’t have a storefront, you will require your own storefront which will create slight problems when starting out. Today this is not such a big deal.
- You can not print single items.
- Printify also has a membership which you have to pay monthly.
I believe this one is more suited for those who are looking to have their own storefront but I would not recommend it for beginners unless you have some training first which you can get here for FREE.
This article ended up being a lot longer than I anticipated and therefore I had to break it up into 2 articles. The second part will be on the next 3 PODs, Printful, Subliminator and Teespring.
If you enjoyed my article please share a few words below in the comments. If you feel I left something out or if you have personal experience with any of these PODs please share it with us below, I am sure others would appreciate it.
Click Here To Continue to part two…
Here’s How I Make A Living Online?
I have been making a living online now for the past 4 years and I can tell you the best way to make a living online is with Affiliate Marketing for the following reasons:
- you don’t need a product of your own
- you are not tied to any product to promote
- you are not tied to any company
- there is no recruiting as in MLM’s
- no dealing with customers
- no dealing with products
- ads are already done for you
- pay raises come naturally as more people find your site
- it’s one of the lowest entry-level into online marketing
- the income is unlimited
The best part is that everything you do towards your own business builds to greater potential. No one can shut you down because you are an independent business. If a product is no longer available or you can get it cheaper somewhere else great.
And you will always have an income even while you sleep or go on vacation.
Click Here To Learn More About The Program That Got Me Started
What a thorough article on the best print on demand!!! I have been looking into starting my business and printing the T-shirts and some other items later on. I have been investigating what are the best options for me and my start-up. Thanks for sharing such an awesome review on some of the established companies.
Thanks for stopping by Sunny. I am very pleased I was helpful in helping you to decide in a POD service for your business. I tried to put them all into one article but it was just too long so I split it into two.
These are the top performers people are choosing to go with and as a beginner, I do recommend Redbubble however do expect to expand once you have a nice income flowing.
There is another POD service called ‘Merch By Amazon’ you can read my review here.
I do not recommend this one to beginners due to the high competition and their Tier systems which holds you back. There are a few other negatives as well.
Just stick with one of these here in this review and you will be fine.
Thank you for sharing your thoughts with us today Sunny.
I wish you all the best, take care now.
I had been hearing the term Redbubble a lot. But I didn’t know what it was. I now understand it’s an online marketplace for print-on-demand products based on user-created art. That is, a kind of Amazon that offers a series of blank products to which we put the design and leave them for sale for others to buy.
Cool, I am glad I was able to clear that up for you. Yes, Redbubble is a print-on-demand service where you have a website with them and create a design on products to sell. The thing with Redbubble that is different than the rest of them is that they will also advertise for you and they don’t hold back views from you like others.
I believe Redbubble is the best choice when getting started because it’s the easiest and they advertise for you and they don’t hold back views from you just because you are a newbie.
Yes, it is somewhat like Amazon where you pick a blank product and put your design on it to upload to your storefront.
Amazon also has a print-on-demand service called ‘Merch By Amazon’ which you can read about it here.
Their POD service I believe is not a good one to get started in due to the high competition along with their Tier system which puts a limit on how many you can create and how much exposure they will give you.
Be sure to read my Merch By Amazon Review here before trying it so you know exactly what you will be getting into.
Thanks for dropping by today Henry, I appreciate it.
I wish you all the best,
I am not familiar with either Redbubble or Printify for on demand printing. Correct me if I am wrong, but my understanding is that the actual design is not done by Redbubble or Prinity, but you supply the design yourself? They will then just do the printing for you.
I see Printify has different quality t-shirts to choose from. But can one supply your own t-shirt with a better quality like organic cotton or bamboo, or are you limited to choosing a garment that they stock?
Those are great questions you asked. No, they don’t create the design, you create the design using their program which is very easy to do.
The design portion is very simple and straightforward, you pick a product like a T-shirt, to begin with. Then add some text to it, change the font and colors and that is pretty much it. Once created you can upload it to your store.
When an order comes in they will print it and ship it out for you. All your job is to create a design that sells and you’re into the money.
Yes, some like Printify have a selection of products you can choose from however you can not use your own material as far as I know. The material is bought in large rolls and would be very a huge cost to you.
Some of the companies do have a choice of the material which is nice. Others like Redbubble do not so you are stuck with the same cheap material.
Printify also has different print shops so you can also choose a different print shop depending on your needs.
I would not get too hung up with the word organic because in most cases it’s a marketing term today. Cotton is organic in nature and so is bamboo. You can put in fine print at the bottom of the shirt ” Organic” and it may sell very well.
So the answer is, yes, you have to pick from the products they have.
Thank you for dropping by and asking your questions, I am sure others were wondering the same thing.
Cheers