How we compare print on demand services
We list 10 print on demand services that ship to Australian customers, and a published rate card exists for 10 services. Every figure comes from the vendor's own pricing page. Base cost is quoted on a plain t-shirt, so catalogues that differ widely can be compared like for like. Several of these companies price in US dollars, so their figures move with the exchange rate.
The calculator takes your orders per month, your selling price and whether you hold a paid membership, and works out each service's cost per order and your margin from base cost plus Australian shipping, with the membership discount applied. The delivery slider hides services that cannot deliver inside your window. Enter your current cost per unit to see the difference. Commission does not change the order.
Which print on demand services print in Australia
Some of these companies print inside Australia, some print offshore and freight the parcel in, and the wording matters. "Prints in Australia" can mean named local printers or an unnamed local production network. Both deliver a domestic parcel. Only the first tells you who made it.
| Provider | Prints in Australia | AU delivery |
|---|---|---|
| Contrado | No (made in London, UK) | 4 to 7 days |
| DropShirt | Yes (metro) | 1 to 5 days (Express 1 to 2) |
| Gelato | Yes (local partners) | 2 to 5 days |
| Gooten | Partial (mostly overseas) | 10 to 20 days |
| Merchize | No (ships from Asia) | 10 to 25 days |
| OGO | Yes (Melbourne) | 2 to 7 days |
| Printful | Yes (Brisbane, Melbourne) | 2 to 5 days |
| Printify | Yes (via partners) | 3 to 7 days |
| Prodigi | Yes (AU lab) | 2 to 5 days |
| Yoycol | No (China) | 10 to 20 days |
If your buyers are mostly overseas, printing in Australia is the wrong optimisation: it makes local orders fast and export orders slow. Services that print near the customer wherever they are tend to quote a narrower spread. Work out your customer split first, then read the row that matches it.
| Provider | Global delivery time | Express delivery |
|---|---|---|
| Contrado | 3 to 10 days | No |
| DropShirt | 10 to 25 days | Yes |
| Gelato | 5 to 12 days | No |
| Gooten | 10 to 20 days | No |
| Merchize | 3 to 25 days | Yes (DHL, expensive) |
| OGO | 10 to 25 days | Yes |
| Printful | 5 to 12 days | No |
| Printify | 5 to 15 days | No |
| Prodigi | 5 to 15 days | No |
| Yoycol | 10 to 25 days | Yes (DHL, expensive) |
Base cost plus shipping: what a print on demand order costs
Nothing on this page requires a subscription. Your cost is per order: the base cost of the item plus Australian shipping on that parcel. Retail price minus those two, minus whatever your store platform and payment provider take, is your margin, and no volume makes a bad per-unit number good.
| Provider | Base cost (t-shirt) | AU shipping |
|---|---|---|
| Contrado | $64 | $15.90 |
| DropShirt | $18.35 | $10.00 |
| Gelato | $20.01 | $12.89 |
| Gooten | $10 | $15 |
| Merchize | $8 | $22 |
| OGO | $17.00 | $9.00 |
| Printful | $21.95 | $10.49 |
| Printify | $16.04 | $10.49 |
| Prodigi | $13.17 | $9.00 |
| Yoycol | $7 | $15 |
Add each pair together before you form a view. The order of the base cost column is not the order of the sum, and a low base cost often carries dearer freight because the parcel is coming a long way. A blank is also a specific garment from a specific brand, and some of the gap between the cheap and the dear end of this table is generic against premium. Order a sample before you list anything; the sample discount row in the table above lists each service's terms. If you are registered for GST, the price you charge includes GST you remit, so work your margin from the GST-exclusive price.
When a print on demand membership pays for itself
A membership is not a feature upgrade. It is a fixed monthly fee that buys a percentage discount on base cost, which makes the break-even mechanical. Take the discount as a fraction of the base cost you actually pay, divide the monthly fee by that per-order saving, and the result is the number of orders per month at which the membership breaks even. Check it against your worst month, not your best, because the fee is charged whether or not you sell anything.
| Provider | Membership /mo | Membership saving |
|---|---|---|
| Gelato | $28/mo (Gelato+, annual) | ~20% on a tee |
| Printful | $39.99/mo (Growth, free above $12K/yr) | ~10% on a tee |
| Printify | $54/mo (Premium, monthly) | ~24% on a tee |
Note the condition inside Printful's value: the fee is waived above a published annual sales figure. The rest of the table has no membership, listing Free in that column. The saving is quoted on a t-shirt and other items discount at different rates, so a shop selling mugs or wall art should read the vendor's item-level figures. Start without a membership, and buy it when your order count says it pays.
Misprints and returns: who wears the cost in print on demand
Under Australian Consumer Law you are the seller. Your customer's consumer guarantees run against you, not against the company that printed the shirt, wherever the printer is. Whether your supplier reimburses you is a separate commercial question between you and them.
| Provider | Returns / misprints |
|---|---|
| Contrado | Defects replaced |
| DropShirt | Defects replaced (Australian Consumer Law) |
| Gelato | Free replacement on defects (30 days) |
| Gooten | Free reprint on defects (4 weeks) |
| Merchize | Reprint or refund on defects (contact support) |
| OGO | Defects replaced (Australian Consumer Law) |
| Printful | Free reprint or refund on Printful errors (30 days) |
| Printify | Free reprint or refund on defects (30 days) |
| Prodigi | Free reprint on defects |
| Yoycol | Reprint on defects |
Every row is about defects. None covers a change of mind, because the item did not exist until your customer ordered it, so your own returns policy has to say so before the sale. A time window is a real term: a customer unhappy about a faded print is often not unhappy until the second wash. And a replacement on an offshore order travels the same distance again, so a misprint costs you the delay as well as the goods. A domestic printer buys you more than speed; it compresses the cost of being wrong.
Which print on demand services connect to your store
Your existing sales channel narrows this table before price does. Every service here connects to Shopify. Beyond that the lists diverge, and some are Shopify only. If you are routing orders from something that is not a storefront, the API row is the one to read.
| Provider | Platforms | API access |
|---|---|---|
| Contrado | Shopify (native app) | Yes (REST API) |
| DropShirt | Shopify | Via dashboard |
| Gelato | Shopify, Etsy, WooCommerce, Wix, Squarespace, BigCommerce | Yes |
| Gooten | Shopify, Etsy, WooCommerce, BigCommerce | Yes |
| Merchize | Shopify, WooCommerce, Etsy, Amazon, eBay, TikTok Shop | Yes |
| OGO | Shopify | No (Shopify app only) |
| Printful | Shopify, WooCommerce, Wix, Squarespace, Etsy, BigCommerce, eBay | Yes |
| Printify | Shopify, WooCommerce, Wix, Squarespace, Etsy, eBay, BigCommerce | Yes |
| Prodigi | Shopify, Etsy, WooCommerce, BigCommerce | Yes |
| Yoycol | Shopify, WooCommerce, Etsy, eBay, Wix | Not confirmed |
An integration is a sync, and the thing it syncs badly is stock. A print on demand item has no stock level, so the failure you actually hit is a discontinued blank: when a vendor drops a colour or a size, your listing keeps selling it until you notice. Check your live listings against the catalogue on a schedule rather than waiting for a customer to find the gap.