Best Print-on-Demand Companies for T-Shirts in 2026

A t-shirt store lives or dies on the blank, not on the monthly fee. Printify is the default here because you can price more than one printer against the same design, and Premium stays optional.

The exception is a plain heavy cotton tee on a free account: Printful's white Gildan 5000 undercuts Printify's start before either company adds shipping.

Toolradar data: Printify drew 79 side-by-side comparisons in the 90 days to 16 October 2026, the most of the 11 print-on-demand tools tracked.

Those 8 rated tools carry 11,966 public reviews. Method: print-on-demand statistics.

Profiles: Printify and Printful.

This page prices the shirt for a store you run yourself, so the comparison is the printer's bill.

Etsy fees are in the Etsy print-on-demand guide, and dropshipping catalogs are in the services guide.

The store side is the Shopify review and Shopify pricing.

How we ranked: seven companies, with prices read on vendor pages on 16 October 2026. They are ordered by the published tee cost, whether a seat is required, and whether one company or a network prints the shirt. Links to Printify and Gelato may be affiliate links.

A print-on-demand t-shirt company prints your design on a blank after the customer pays, then ships it, so you never buy a carton of shirts first. The bill is the blank, the print, the shipping, and sometimes a monthly seat.

The companies below plug into a store such as Shopify, or they give you a shop of their own.

Printify routes the order to a print provider you pick, so you can swap printers. Printful prints most orders in facilities it runs, so the shirt stays consistent.

CustomCat, Teelaunch, Apliiq, Gelato, and Spreadconnect each sit between those two models, while you still set the retail price and the printer invoices you for production, sometimes for a plan, after the sale.

You upload art, pick a blank, and connect a store. When a customer pays, the printer charges your card for that unit and ships it. Profit is the retail price minus that invoice, minus the store's payment fee, and a low blank still fails if shipping eats the gap.

Marketplace cuts are in the Etsy seller fees post, and this page stops at the printer's bill.

A monthly seat buys a discount on the shirt, not the shirt itself.

On Printify, the Gildan start falls by $2.88 once Premium is on, so 14 of those shirts cover a monthly Premium seat and about 104 of them cover the yearly charge. Below that count, the free catalog is the cheaper way to print.

Two shirts with the same photo can leave different cash. Printify includes one print in the Gildan start and says domestic US shipping for one shirt typically runs $3.50 to $5.00. Added to the free-plan start, that is a planning band of $12.30 to $13.80 before the card fee, so subtract that band from retail.

It is a range across printers, not one printer's quote.

Printful's catalog lists White Gildan 5000 in S through XL at $7.50, with some other colors in those sizes at $9.44, so price the color you will sell. Shipping is extra, and the pricing page says the catalog figure can vary by fulfillment location.

On production cost alone, that white shirt beats Printify's free-plan start and does not beat Premium, so keep Premium if you already pay it.

CustomCat's public catalog lists the Gildan G500 at $9.58 on Lite, above both free-plan starts, so skip Lite if price is the goal.

The PRO gap on that shirt is $2.68, so twelve of them in a month clear the $30 seat. CustomCat's own note says 10 to 15 items a month usually covers PRO. Teelaunch's low end of the Gildan range plus $5.49 of US shipping lands at $12.39, and the high end lands at $17.39, so a larger size can erase the small-size margin.

Prices below were read on 16 October 2026, and the shirt figures are production costs. Shipping is included only where the vendor prints it on the same page, and plan math uses each vendor's own seat price.

Printify's pricing page lists a free plan and Premium from $39 a month or $299 a year.

The t-shirt pricing guide starts a Gildan 5000 at $8.80 and a Bella+Canvas 3001 at $10.98, or $5.92 and $8.77 on Premium.

The Premium help article confirms that yearly charge, and fourteen Gildan starts at the $2.88 gap cover one month of Premium.

Printful's pricing page keeps the account free and prices Growth at $24.99 a month, waived after $12,000 of sales in a year.

Its Gildan 5000 catalog lists White in S through XL at $7.50 and some colors at $9.44.

Its Bella+Canvas 3001 lists many S through XL colors at $11.92 and plain White at $12.25, and both prices include one placement while shipping stays separate.

CustomCat's catalog and its plan comparison agree on the Gildan G500 at $9.58 on Lite, with the PRO rate in the table.

The Comfort Colors 1717 is $14.39 and $11.51, not the Gildan headline.

Gelato's subscription page is $29.99 a month, or $19.99 a month on the yearly seat ($239.88, a $120 saving), and it does not print a tee price.

Teelaunch's Gildan unisex page is the range in its card, plus the US shipping on that same page, and its start guide says there is no monthly fee.

Apliiq's tee catalog starts the Gildan 5000 blank at $3.85, and its pricing guide adds $7.49 for a digital print and $1 to fulfill the item, which is $12.34 before shipping.

Spreadconnect says the platform is free of charge and puts $9 in the earnings calculator.

Pick Printify if you are still choosing a blank. The free catalog lets you put a Gildan next to a Bella, and Premium waits until you know the monthly shirt count.

Pick CustomCat if orders already come from the US and you can see 12 or more Gildan shirts in a typical month.

Pick Printful for a consistent Bella shirt and a label, if you can carry Growth until the yearly waiver. Pick Teelaunch for a shipping number on the shirt page and no seat.

Pick Apliiq for a label or embroidery, or Gelato when one design ships to several countries, after you check the shirt in the catalog. Pick Spreadconnect when the platform fee has to be zero.