With print-on-demand, you upload a design, list the product in your store, and a print company makes the item only after a customer orders it, then ships it to the customer. You don't buy stock, store boxes or pack parcels. What you give up is the price of buying in bulk: every order is produced as a single item, and the supplier charges you its single-item price plus shipping each time. That's why the thing to check before launch isn't the design or the store theme. It's how much is left from each order once the supplier has been paid.
A Shopify Community post shows how this goes wrong: a seller who charged €20 plus €3.75 shipping for a test order was charged €24.81 by the print company for the same order.
How the money moves
- The customer pays your store the product price and the shipping you charge.
- Your store or marketplace passes the order to the print company, through an app or integration.
- The print company charges you for the product, the printing and its own shipping, and makes the item.
- It ships the parcel to your customer. You keep the difference between what the customer paid and what you were charged, minus your payment and platform fees.
Two consequences matter for your prices. The shipping you charge at checkout is yours to set, but the print company charges you its own rate no matter what you collected; a Shopify Community answer to a new print-on-demand seller put it exactly that way. And if you offer free shipping, the supplier's shipping cost comes out of your product price.
Work out the margin per order
Do this for each product before you publish it. An example with made-up numbers for a t-shirt:
| Line | Amount |
|---|---|
| Product price the customer pays | $28.00 |
| Shipping the customer pays | $4.99 |
| You receive | $32.99 |
| Supplier: shirt with one print | −$13.50 |
| Supplier: second print area (back) | −$5.50 |
| Supplier: shipping | −$4.75 |
| Payment fees (say 3% + $0.30) | −$1.29 |
| Left before advertising | $7.95 |
If you plan to advertise, divide your expected ad spend by the orders you expect from it and subtract that too. At $6 of ads per order, this shirt leaves $1.95.
To set a price from a target margin, work backwards: price = total cost per order ÷ (1 − target margin). With $25 of costs and a 30% margin target, that's $25 ÷ 0.7 = $35.71.
Three lines in that table can swing the result: the second print area, the shipping difference on international orders, and the ads line. Run the numbers for your most expensive shipping destination as well as your home market.
Check before you launch
Order samples. Look at the real print, the color on the real fabric, the size against the size chart, and how the parcel arrives. A design that looks sharp in a mockup can print soft if the file resolution is low.
Make your checkout shipping match the supplier's. Compare what your checkout charges with what the supplier charges you for each region. A new seller on the Shopify Community found their checkout charging UK customers more than three times what the print company charged them to ship a poster, because the store's own flat rate was set far above the supplier's. If your store has its own stock as well, a mixed order may ship in two parcels from two places, and your shipping rates need to cover both.
Put the real timing on the product page. Production time plus shipping time is what the customer waits. Made-to-order items take longer than items from a shelf, so say so before checkout, not after the customer asks where the order is.
Write your returns policy for made-to-order items. Decide what you'll do when a customer orders the wrong size or changes their mind, because the supplier may not take that item back; check your supplier's policy and write your own to match. A misprint or damaged item is a different case: check how your supplier handles it and what proof (such as a photo) it asks for. Our guide on return postage rules covers who pays to send things back.
Run one real order end to end. Order from your own store as a customer, and check the order reaches the supplier, the payment is taken from you, the shipping email with tracking reaches the customer, and the money left matches your table.
Where Printful fits, and its limits
Printful is one print-on-demand supplier that connects to store platforms and marketplaces. On its pricing page, Printful says there are no upfront costs: you pay for fulfillment after a customer orders. The Free plan costs $0 a month and gives 20% off sample orders, limited to one sample order a month with up to 3 items at first. The Growth plan costs $24.99 a month (free once you reach $12K a year in sales) and gives up to 33% off product prices and 25% off samples.
A paid plan only pays for itself when your monthly product costs are high enough for the discount to beat the fee. With the shirt above, a 10% saving on $19 of product cost is $1.90 an order, so you'd need about 13 orders a month to cover $24.99. Check the actual discount on your products in your account before you upgrade; "up to 33%" doesn't apply to every item.
Printful won't bring you customers, and its single-item prices mean thinner margins than buying a printed batch. Compare the same product's base cost and shipping across two or three suppliers before choosing.
When print-on-demand isn't the right fit
It's a good way to test designs and products with no stock risk. It's less suited to:
- a product that already sells steadily in one design and size range, where a printed batch may cost much less per unit than single-item production;
- very low-priced items, where the supplier's shipping is a large share of the price;
- customers who expect next-day delivery.
One workable route: launch new designs on print-on-demand, watch which ones sell, and move the steady sellers to batch printing once the numbers justify holding stock.