Shopify vs Printify (2023): Building your Business

Shopify vs Printify: Which solution should you invest in for your company?

The decision can be difficult to make. After all, while both Shopify and Printify are tools designed to help would-be entrepreneurs build their own businesses, they both offer very different services. Shopify is a comprehensive ecommerce and website building platform, while Printify is a print-on-demand service, offering product creation and fulfillment support.

If you’re not sure which platform you should be investing in, the guide below should help you to make the right choice. Let’s dive in.

What is Shopify?

Shopify, as mentioned above, is a comprehensive SaaS solution, designed for the commerce market. The hosted platform provides companies with everything they need to build, grow, and manage their business. There are SEO and blogging tools for content marketing, social media, and email marketing integrations, and even solutions for inventory and order management.

Though Shopify primarily markets itself as one of the top ecommerce platforms, users can utilize the ecosystem to build just about any kind of website or store. You can even leverage Shopify POS tools to create an omnichannel sales strategy, with both online and offline selling.

Shopify comes with its own payment processing service, access to fulfillment and delivery support, and countless resources ideal for growing brands. You can even use reporting and analytical tools to make data-driven decisions about profit margins. Plus, with a comprehensive app store to access, users can connect their Shopify site with virtually any other tool – including Printify.

What is Printify?

Printify is a dropshipping and print-on-demand service provider. The all-in-one platform gives companies access to over 850 high-quality products they can customize with their own unique designs and branding. You pick the product you want to sell, add your elements in the Printify mockup generator, and then use Printify’s integrations to upload the item to your store.

Every time a customer places an order on your website, their information will be sent directly to Printify’s team of “print providers” who produce your order, package it, and ship it to its destination. Rather than printing products in-house. Printify works with a global network of distribution partners, most of which will allow you to order samples of your products from them before you commit to a long-term partnership. Once you’ve selected your partners, they handle all of the hard work for you, making sure your items reach customers as quickly as possible.

While Printify doesn’t allow users to create their own online store within the platform, it does allow you to connect your print-on-demand services to a range of existing ecommerce platforms. There are integrations available for Shopify, Etsy, Wix, and many other market-leading solutions. Plus, some Printify packages come with access to a custom API integration option.

What Can You Do with Shopify?

The biggest difference between Shopify and Printify is what you can do with the two services. Printify focuses exclusively on print-on-demand, helping to connect companies with the manufacturers and fulfillment providers who can produce and ship their products. Shopify is a lot more versatile.

With Shopify, you can build virtually any kind of website or store you like. You can design a website where you can manage bookings and appointments for your service-based business, host your own online blog, or create a store selling physical or digital products. You can even integrate Shopify with dropshipping and print on demand apps for quick and easy order fulfilment.

Plus, Shopify integrates with a range of platforms for omnichannel selling. You can use the tool to sell on social media, or access POS tools to synchronize online and offline retail locations. Shopify also features comprehensive tools for:

Brand development: Shopify makes it easy to develop a powerful brand online. You can purchase a custom domain name straight from the hosting provider, use templates and themes to customize your site however you choose, and even access tools for creating branded images and logos. You can even create custom, polished invoices.
Payment processing: Managing transactions and processing payments is easy with a Shopify store. The solution comes with it’s own dedicated payment solution, “Shopify Payments”, for secure credit card and debit card transactions. You can sell internationally in different currencies using Shopify Markets, integrate your own payment processing tools, and even use buy-now-pay-later options within the Shopify platform. Plus, there are tools for tracking all of your transactions, tax reports, and other essential data too.
Marketing: Shopify gives business owners numerous ways to engage their audience. The platform is search engine optimized as standard, and comes with blogging features for content marketing. There are in-built email marketing tools, as well as the option to integrate your store with external apps. Plus, you can leverage social media connections directly within Shopify. Apps are also available for creating sales, landing pages, pop-ups, and more.
Fulfillment: Shopify’s fulfillment network makes it easy to get products to your customers wherever they are. There’s also a comprehensive partner platform, where you can find discounted shipping rates, and connect with suppliers to offer faster shipping times to customers. You can manage everything from label printing to order tracking within your Shopify dashboard, and also integrate dropshipping or POD apps.
Automation: There are tons of automation tools available on Shopify. You can create automated email campaigns to inform customers about order updates, or automatically publish content according to your chosen time frame. Shopify even offers “Shopify Flow” to help you create more comprehensive automated workflows.

On top of all that, Shopify also offers access to a mobile app for on-the-go store or site management, banking solutions, merchandising tools and more. If you upgrade to the “Shopify Plus” plan, you can even create a headless commerce experience with advanced coding tools.

What Can You Do with Printify?

While Shopify supports companies in creating virtually any kind of website, or business online, Printify is a slightly different solution. It’s basically a directory for print-on-demand companies which simplifies and automates the process of sourcing and creating custom products.

The easy-to-use platform connects business leaders with manufacturers and fulfillment providers worldwide, so they can:

Create custom products: With Printify, companies can choose from a range of over 850 products to customize with their own designs. Options range from hoodies and t-shirts to tote-bags, phone cases, stickers, leggings, and tank tops. Users can leverage the convenient mock-up generator to add their product designs to any item in an instant, then order discounted sample products from printing partners for quality control.
Build their brand: With Printify, you can use a range of fulfillment companies around the world to create branded merchandise, then package each item with your own custom components. There are tons of branding options to explore, such as custom invoices, pack-ins, and branded labels for your garments.
Simplify fulfillment: Printify’s global partner network ensures you can ship your products to virtually any customer worldwide, no matter whether you’re located in the USA, Canada, Mexico, Australia, or in Europe. The order fulfillment partners handle all of the shipping issues for you. However, shipping costs and times can vary depending on your partner.
Sell across a range of channels: Printify integrates with a range of marketplaces and ecommerce platforms, such as Etsy, Ebay, Shopify, and Wix, so you can sell anywhere. Plus, on advanced plans, you’ll be able to leverage a custom API for more advanced integrations with a range of tools and applications.

Printify promises exceptional quality prints, amazing service, and excellent support to every customer, with an easy-to-use environment that any vendor can use.

Shopify vs Printful: Pricing

When it comes to pricing, you can expect to see some pretty significant differences in subscription fees between Shopify and Printify.

Shopify Pricing

Shopify offers a range of five packages in total, starting with the “Starter” plan for $5 per month if you’re selling on social media channels and in messaging apps.

The company’s “Shopify Plus” plan is offered at a custom price, for enterprise customers. There are also three core plans which should appeal to most companies, including:

Shopify Basic: $39 per month for 2 staff accounts, shipping discounts, 1000 inventory locations, store building tools, and a host of extra features like customer segmentation, discount codes, gift cards, abandoned cart recovery, and analytics.
Shopify: $105 per month for all the Basic plan features, plus lower transaction rates, 5 staff accounts, standard reports, international commerce, and ecommerce automations.
Shopify Advanced: $399 per month for the features of Shopify, plus extra staff accounts (15), even lower payment processing rates and advanced reporting features.

Printify customers can get started with the service for free. The free plan supports up to 5 stores per account, and comes with access to integrations, the Printify mockup generator, manual order creation, 24/7 merchant support, and custom order importing. There are also two paid plans:

Premium: $24.99 per month for all the features of the Free plan, plus up to a 20% discount on all products and up to 10 stores per account.
Enterprise: Custom pricing for all the features of the premium plan plus early access to new features, unlimited stores per account, API access, a dedicated account manager, and branded customer support for your clients.

How to Sell with Printify on Shopify

The reality is, you don’t really have to choose between Printify and Shopify at all. If you want to start selling custom products, you can use the two services together. In fact, Printify even has a dedicated Shopify integration to make this simple.

All you need is a Shopify account and a Printify account to get started. Once you have an account with both services, add the “Printify” app to your store from the Shopify app marketplace. Head over to Printify, log in with your credentials, and click on the “Ecommerce Platforms” tab. Click on “Add a New” store, and connect to your Shopify account.

From there, you’ll be able to access the Printify dashboard from your Shopify account, and choose the products you want to customize. You can sort through the variety of products Printify offers, then customize them in the mockup generator, before immediately adding them to your store.

Once you upload your product catalog to Shopify, every time a customer makes a purchase on your store, their details will be sent through to the white-label partners you choose to work with through Printify. Your chosen print-on-demand business will create all of your quality products for you, and ship them to your customers. Plus, you can monitor all of your orders in your Shopify backend, and keep track of your sales analytics.

Check out our complete guide to using Shopify and Printify together here.

Shopify vs Printify: Verdict

Both Shopify and Printify give companies an easy way to start building an online business. With Printify, you can create a variety of print-on-demand products with minimal upfront costs, and no monthly fee if you like. The solution comes with access to a host of fulfillment centers, all offering amazing print quality, and straightforward functionality.

Alternatively, Shopify gives beginners in the commerce world an easy way to build just about any kind of company, whether you’re selling online or offline, with dropshipping or your own warehouse. You can connect your storefront to fulfillment services, and manage every aspect of running and marketing your company in the Shopify backend.

If you’re not sure which option to choose, there’s no real need to make a decision. You can create a customizable store and sell across a range of channels, using tools like Printify, Printful, and other dropshipping solutions within your Shopify ecommerce store.