How we compare print on demand services
We list 9 print on demand services selling into the UK, and a published rate card exists for 9 providers. Every figure comes from the service's own published pricing, in pounds. Where a service will only quote, the table says so.
The calculator takes your monthly order volume, the price you sell at, and whether you would pay for a membership. Each service is costed as its published t-shirt base cost plus its UK delivery charge at that volume, with the membership discount applied where one exists, and the table sorts by the result. A delivery-days slider hides services slower than the time you set. Commission does not change the order.
Every print on demand sale is priced per order
Your margin is what is left after the service takes its base cost and delivery out of the price your customer paid. Delivery does not track base cost, so a cheap garment behind an expensive courier can land dearer than a better garment behind a cheap one. The calculator adds the two before it sorts.
| Provider | Base cost (t-shirt) | UK shipping |
|---|---|---|
| Contrado | £26.45 incl VAT | £2.49 |
| Gelato | £8.77 | £2.80 |
| Gooten | £5 | £7 |
| Merchize | £4 | £5 |
| Printful | £8.10 incl VAT | £3.59 |
| Printify | £6.95 | £4.50 |
| Prodigi | £6.82 | £4 |
| Teemill | £15.30 (implied) | Included |
| Yoycol | £4 | £6 |
Check the VAT basis first: some cells carry it inside the figure and others do not. If you are VAT registered, VAT on a supplier invoice is input tax you reclaim, so the ex-VAT figure decides your margin. Below the registration threshold it is money gone. Young children's clothing is zero-rated for VAT where it meets HMRC's size criteria, which changes what you collect on a kids' tee, not what the printer charges you.
Teemill's base cost is implied from a minimum sell price model with its own store builder rather than a published wholesale base, so treat that figure as derived rather than quoted.
The break-even on a paid print on demand membership
Divide the monthly fee by the saving on one order (the discount applied to base cost, generally not to delivery). The answer is the number of orders a month at which the membership pays for itself. Compare it to your quietest month, not your best one.
| Provider | Membership /mo | Membership saving |
|---|---|---|
| Contrado | Free | None |
| Gelato | £16.66/mo (Gelato+, annual) | ~20% on a tee |
| Gooten | Free | None |
| Merchize | Free | None |
| Printful | £19.99/mo (Growth, free above £9K/yr) | ~10% on a tee |
| Printify | £29/mo (Premium, monthly) | ~21% on a tee |
| Prodigi | Free | None |
| Teemill | Free | None |
| Yoycol | Free | None |
The plans differ in ways the fee hides: one is an annual commitment even though the figure is monthly, one can be stopped the month it stops earning, and one is waived above a turnover threshold. Free access is a different deal, not a worse one: the base cost is the price.
Samples are the other cost nobody budgets for, because approving a print from a screen mockup is how you end up refunding a colour.
| Provider | Sample discount |
|---|---|
| Contrado | Wholesale base for dropshippers |
| Gelato | Discounted samples |
| Gooten | Sample credit (VIM) |
| Merchize | Samples at base cost |
| Printful | 20% to 25% off |
| Printify | Standard pricing |
| Prodigi | At cost |
| Teemill | Order at retail |
| Yoycol | Order at cost |
Where a print on demand order is printed, and what an EU sale costs after Brexit
This row sets delivery time and your customs position. When a garment is made outside the UK and shipped to a UK customer, that order is an import, and import VAT and possibly duty attach to it somewhere in the chain.
| Provider | UK print locations | UK delivery |
|---|---|---|
| Contrado | London (handmade, made to order) | 1 to 4 days |
| Gelato | UK sites within a 140+ facility network | 4 to 5 days |
| Gooten | UK and EU production partners | 2 to 7 days |
| Merchize | Vietnam (primary); claimed UK, EU, US, AU, China nodes | 7 to 20 days |
| Printful | Wolverhampton (own DTG and embroidery facility) | 4 to 8 days |
| Printify | UK print partners (Prodigi, Print Clever, Harrier) | 2 to 7 days |
| Prodigi | UK production lab | 2 to 3 days |
| Teemill | Isle of Wight factory | 2 to 4 days |
| Yoycol | China | 7 to 14 days |
Check the Express delivery row before promising next day on a product page.
A sale from a UK printer to a customer in the EU is an export. Unless you have arranged otherwise, the recipient can be asked for import VAT and a handling fee by the courier before they get the parcel. A shopper billed again on the doorstep blames you. The EU's Import One Stop Shop lets you charge destination VAT at checkout on low-value consignments instead. The clean way round it is to have the order printed inside the EU, which a distributed network can do and a single-site UK maker cannot; the Global delivery row says which is which.
Faults, returns and the custom goods exemption in print on demand
You are the trader, not the printer. Whatever the fulfilment service agrees to cover does not narrow the rights your buyer has against you.
Under the Consumer Contracts Regulations a distance-selling customer normally has fourteen days to change their mind and return goods for a refund. Goods made to the consumer's specification, or clearly personalised, are excluded. A shirt printed with a name or a customer-supplied image usually sits inside the exclusion. A shirt carrying one of your standard catalogue designs, printed only after they ordered it, very often does not, because it was made to your specification rather than theirs. Treat the exclusion as narrower than it sounds and take advice if the line is unclear for your range.
None of that touches faults. Under the Consumer Rights Act goods must be of satisfactory quality, fit for purpose and as described, and a customised item is no exception. A misprint is your problem to fix regardless of who printed it. So read the returns row as a supply agreement, not a customer policy.
| Provider | Returns / misprints |
|---|---|
| Contrado | Defects replaced |
| Gelato | Free replacement on defects (30 days) |
| Gooten | Free reprint on defects |
| Merchize | Reprint or refund on defects (contact support) |
| Printful | Free reprint or refund on Printful errors (30 days) |
| Printify | Free reprint or refund on defects (30 days) |
| Prodigi | Free reprint on defects |
| Teemill | Circular take-back scheme; defects replaced |
| Yoycol | Reprint on defects |
Every one of those rows covers defects. None covers a customer who ordered the wrong size or changed their mind. That cost is yours and belongs in your margin model from the first month.
Channels, range and branding a print on demand service supports
Check the Platforms row for the storefront you sell on before anything else, because it removes options faster than price does. Teemill also includes a store builder for sellers without one.
| Provider | Catalog size | Branding |
|---|---|---|
| Contrado | 450+ | White-label and private-label dispatch |
| Gelato | 150+ | Labels, inserts |
| Gooten | 525+ | White-label slip; paid white-label packaging |
| Merchize | 150+ (claims around 1,000) | Custom packaging, labels, inserts |
| Printful | 500+ | Inside labels, pack-in inserts, custom packaging |
| Printify | 1,300+ | Neck labels, pack-in inserts (partner-dependent) |
| Prodigi | Very large (500k+ SKUs) | Via API and packing options |
| Teemill | Apparel and organic focused | Via your own store and subdomain |
| Yoycol | 800+ (all-over-print) | White-label supported |
Breadth matters less than it looks, because most sellers ship a small number of lines repeatedly. Branding matters more: if a repeat customer is the point of the business, an unbranded polybag works against you on every order. The AI and mockup rows are useful for listing photography, not a reason to accept a worse unit cost.