Printful vs Print Aura

Printful vs Print Aura: Which POD solution is best for today’s business owners?

On the surface, Printful and Print Aura have a lot of similarities. Both solutions are “print on demand” platforms, which allow companies to add their own custom designs to a variety of products, to sell via their online store.

The two tools can both integrate with a range of ecommerce platforms, and both handle shipping and fulfillment on your behalf with a global partner network.

However, these tools do have some major differences to consider, in terms of pricing options, overall functionality, and customizable products.

Here’s your guide to comparing Printful and Print Aura.

What is Printful?

Printful is one of the most popular print-on-demand platforms available today. First launched in 2013, the platform provides companies with access to around 333 white-label products they can customize with their own designs, logos, and branded components.

Printful serves more than 200,000 customers across the globe, and ships to regions around the world. Printful provides access to the latest printing technology, with options like embroidery, DTG, and all over printing. Plus, it can integrate with virtually any platform or marketplace, from Wix and WooCommerce, to Shopify, Amazon, and Ebay. Printful boasts intuitive design tools, local fulfillment from partner facilities, custom branding tools, and no order minimums.

What is Print Aura?

Similar to Printful, Print Aura is a print-on-demand platform created to help merchants design custom apparel, accessories, and other products. Introduced by Matt Brickley in 2012, Print Aura focuses mainly on custom garment design, with hundreds of different options to choose from in different styles, colors, and sizes. There are no minimum order requirements on the platform, and Print Aura uses state-of-the-art technology to ensure fast turn arounds on all orders.

Print Aura also offers businesses access to useful design tools for creating high-quality mockups, branding options like customizable labels and packing slips, and global fulfillment centers. Additionally, the platform can integrate with a variety of tools, such as Etsy, WooCommerce, and OpenCart.

How Does Printful Work? Ease of Use

printful homepage - printful vs print aura

Printful is an extremely straightforward platform for beginners. Like Print Aura, the solution handles all of the work of manufacturing custom products and fulfilling orders on behalf of business owners. All you need to do to get started is set up an account with Printful, and choose items to customize from the company’s wide selection of products.

Printful provides access to easy-to-use and powerful design tools for entrepreneurs, allowing you to create custom mockups of your products to showcase on your website. You can also choose from a range of customization options, from all-over-printing, to embroidered garments.

Once you’ve created your design, you can add it to your website using one of the many integration options available on the Printful platform. Whenever a customer places an order on your store, their information will be sent directly to the Printful team. The company will then create your products, on demand, package them, with options for adding personalized thank-you cards, stickers, and coupons, and ship the item straight to your customer. Since the company works with a global network of fulfillment and delivery companies, you can quickly ship to customers anywhere.

The company also offers warehousing services, if you offer handcrafted and outsourced items on your store, so you can keep all of your products located in one place.

How Does Print Aura Work? Ease of Use

print aura hoempage - printful vs print aura

Similar to Printful, Print Aura works to make it as simple as possible for companies and creators to produce and sell their own customized products. Once again, all you’ll need to do to begin is sign up for an account, and choose the products you want to customize. Print Aura has hundreds of options to choose from, many of which have various styles, colors, and sizes to choose from.

Once you select the items you want to customize, you can use the platform’s built-in design tools to add your custom elements to your products. You’ll be able to upload a range of images for your items, such as logos, patterns, and images. After you’ve created your products, you can add them to your website using the Print Aura integration options to automate the order management process.

Every time a customer places an order, Print Aura will produce the product requested on demand, package it, and ship it to your customers. Print Aura also offers a range of ways to customize the packaging of your items, such as custom return labels and packing slips. With its global fulfillment network, Print Aura can ship items around the world, and delivers rapid turnaround times of between 3-5 days. Print Aura also offers businesses a guarantee to ensure items are free from defects.

Printful Pricing

Printful and Print Aura take a similar approach to pricing. Both tools will allow you to get started on the platform for free if you like. This means you only pay for the cost of the items you produce, and any shipping fees. Printful product prices can vary depending on a range of factors, including your customization preferences.

Additionally, shipping costs can vary depending on the type and quantity of products in each order. For a single product, shipping rates start at around $2.99 for standard shipping, with an average 2-5 day delivery time. In the past, Printful offered two premium plans to customers with access to more features. However, starting April 2023, the “Pro” and “Plus” subscriptions were discontinued.

Some of the features of these plans, such as the Etsy Keyword scout and carrier based shipping were discontinued too, while the background removal tool, promo maker, and custom mockup maker were made free for all customers. Customers can still access premium images from Printful’s collection for a price of $1 plus tax.

Print Aura Pricing

Similar to Printful, Print Aura doesn’t charge business owners anything to start their print-on-demand journey. There’s no monthly subscription cost, so you simply pay for the cost of your products, any custom elements (Such as labels and packaging choices), and your shipping fees.

The exact price you’ll pay for every unique product can vary, but Print Aura does generally offer a range of relatively low-cost solutions to choose from, with excellent discounts. The company also has a pricing wizard you can use to calculate the estimated cost of a product, so you can decide how much you want to charge for each item.

Shipping prices for Print Aura depend on the type of shipping option you choose, the location of your customers, and how many items you’re shipping. For instance, Standard shipping in the USA for products like T-Shirts cost $5.50 for the first item, then an additional $1.25 for every extra item. UPS shipping with tracking, which can deliver items within 2-3 days, costs $11.25 for the first item, and an additional $6.25 for every extra product. However, this is only available for pillows.

Printful Print Quality

So how does Printful compare to Print Aura in terms of printing quality? The easiest way to answer this question is to order a sample product from Printful once you’ve uploaded your designs into the system. Fortunately, it’s relatively simple to do this, as there are no minimum order requirements, plus you can get a 20% discount on sample products.

However, in general, Printful does take measures to ensure the print quality is as good as possible. The company uses the latest technology for printing, embroidery, and customization, so you should be able to rest assured you’ll get a fantastic result. Additionally, the brand promises the use of quality inks and premium materials, stating 99.74% of their orders reach happy clients with no issues.

Printful also offers a range of fantastic ways to customize your orders, with the option to implement intricate or simple patterns into your designs using an intuitive mockup generator. You can even add custom labels and tags to your products. Just make sure you upload high quality files to get the best results from every product.

Print Aura Print Quality

Similar to Printful, Print Aura invests in the latest direct to garment printing technology to ensure excellence for its customers. However, it’s worth noting there are fewer design options available from Print Aura. You can’t access embroidery options, and the business generally focuses on direct to garment printing options, which may limit some of your customization options.

While Print Aura gives businesses a decent number of options to choose from when it comes to adding designs to products, you may not be able to access options like all-over printing, which you can get from Printful. It’s also worth noting that Print Aura uses CMYK color mode for printing, which could mean you experience some color shifting if you upload PNG files to the design maker, as they use the RGB color profile.

On the plus side, Print Aura does allow you to order samples of your products, similar to most dropshipping solutions. However, you may not be able to access the same discounts you’d get with Printful.

Printful Best-Selling Products

The best print on demand products to include in your ecommerce store will always depend on a variety of factors, including the type of customers you’re trying to reach. Printful offers a lot of variety for any modern print on demand business, with a host of categories to choose from.

If you need help picking options for your ecommerce business, you can check out the FAQ section of the website for guidance, or visit the “bestsellers” tab in the Printful product catalog. Popular items tend to include quality products like:

Sports and athletic apparel: hoodies, leggings, and shoes
Stationary: Greeting cards, stickers, and notebooks
Accessories: patches, hats, and phone cases
Drinkware: Reusable bottles, cups and tumblers
Art: Wall art, canvasses, prints and posters
Home accessories: Coffee mugs, throws and blankets

Print Aura Best-Selling Products

While Print Aura focuses more on apparel than the Printful fulfillment company, there are still plenty of products to choose from. You can add your design templates to a host of different items, from tees to accessories. Plus, pack-ins and other products like custom labels make it easy to customize your items and showcase your brand.

Printful vs Print Aura: Which is Best?

When it comes to building your own print on demand business, choosing the right fulfillment services is crucial. Both Printful and Print Aura are popular print on demand companies, with a lot of great features to offer. Both print providers offer a range of items to choose from, alongside great integrations so you can quickly add new products to your Shopify store or online platform.

Plus, both tools don’t charge any significant monthly fees, so you only need to pay for the costs of things like t-shirt printing and order fulfillment. However, Printful does offer a slightly larger variety of print-on-demand services, such as warehousing and more printing options.

If you’re not sure which option might be right for your online business, it might be worth ordering some sample products from both providers to check print quality and shipping times.