Abby B. Wondering which print on demand site to join? Unsure if you’re making the right choice for your new business? Here are 10 features to compare Printful vs Print Aura.
I know you’re interested in print on demand but also confused how it works, I was there myself too. All POD sites work differently and I just didn’t know which to join. Should I set up my business on Etsy or do I have what it takes to build my own Shopify store? Ultimately, as a beginner, we should take easy steps to make consistent progress.
Here are my reasons why I believe Printful is better than Print Aura for beginners looking to build a POD business!
*This post may contain affiliate links. This means I may earn a small commission (at no cost to you) if you sign up for a program or make a purchase using my link!
Does Print Aura Integrates With Shopify?
Aside from Etsy, Print Aura integrates with Shopify, WooCommerce, Storenvy and OpenCart. Sellers are not able to sell from the POD site itself and must connect to stores from these eCommerce platforms. Orders that come in from Shopify will be synced to Print Aura’s seller dashboard for fulfillment.
Is There Any Minimum Order For Print On Demand?
Print on demand has no minimum orders. Each item is only printed with designs once a purchase is made and then shipped directly to a customer. The process is the same for an order of 1 unit or an order of 20 units. Most POD sites are free to join with optional subscriptions for greater features.
Printful Vs Print Aura: 10 Features In Comparison
1. Signing up for an account
Both Printful and Print Aura are free to join. It’s super easy to sign up for a Printful account and should take less than a minute to do so. You can connect via social accounts like Facebook, Google or Apple – I prefer this if you forget passwords easily!
Overall, Print Aura’s interface looks old and signing up wasn’t very straightforward. Once you register the details and desired username, click “Register” and a registration email will be sent to your inbox. You’ll need to open it to get your system generated password – reset it as soon as you’re logged in.
Winner: Printful – just because it’s easier to sign up!
2. How the platforms work
Both Printful and Print Aura work the same. Sellers who join can upload their designs to products and sync these products to an external ecommerce platform or marketplace. Once an order comes in from a synced store, you’ll have to pay for the product cost and shipping on your Printful or Print Aura seller dashboard. They will then print the products and ship them to your customers directly.
Sales can’t be made on the site itself, unlike POD sites like Redbubble or Teespring. You can check out my comparison for Printful vs Redbubble HERE or Printful vs Teespring HERE.
I’ve made a list of the integrations Printful and Print Aura offers below. Take a look!
Winner: Undecided – both are similar
3. Choice of print on demand products
Some people say the amount of products a POD site offers is not as important as the price or quality of products – I beg to differ. I’m sure you’re looking to build this business for the long run and making switches later can cost you time, headache and money. I wouldn’t want that for you!
Printful has a lot more products to offer compared to Print Aura. There’s a couple reasons why having more products is great. Firstly, you get to diversify your sales away from just one single item. Secondly, offering a wider product range not only helps increase your store’s profitability, it also boosts your brand image against competitors.
People won’t know you’re running a print on demand store, they’ll actually think you make all these products on your own. More products, greater trust! That said, Print Aura’s product catalog is pretty decent and covers all categories a POD site should have – you’re still okay with it.
A summary of products offered by Printful vs Print Aura:
| Catalog | Printful | Print Aura |
| Products | Apparel Swimwear Hats & headwear Bags Keychains Facemask Hair accessories Jewelry Phone cases Socks Wall art Puzzles Drinkware Stationary Pillows Blankets Towels Aprons Fabric Bean bags Pet products | T-shirts Sweatshirts Tank Top Polos Dresses Onesies Pants Hats Bags Phone cases Wall art Drinkware Accessories Masks |
Winner: Printful – it’s obvious!
4. Generating mockups to impress
Mockups are what sets products apart, it’s the closest thing to the actual product that your customers will see before making a purchase. So, a good mockup can go a long way. Whenever uploading a design on Printful, you can automatically see how it will look on your desired product and these pictures will be used in your store’s listing. No guessing there!
Print Aura’s mockup generator is slightly different compared to Printful. You can’t directly see it when uploading designs. To customize mockups, Print Aura requests sellers to upload a mockup file template together with the design – although they mentioned it’s fine without. You can also use their other mockup generator (or this one), which I find simpler to use.
If you feel these mockups are rather limited, head on to Placeit – my favorite site for premium mockups. Their mockups will definitely make your listings stand out, especially on marketplaces like Etsy with huge competition.
Winner: Printful – very easy to use when uploading design, automatically adds to the listing without much work. Smoother interface and real human mockup for t-shirts are available.
5. Ordering a sample product for yourself
Printful lets you order samples at a discount once every month with a maximum of three items per order. Your sample discounts quota increases as your monthly sales increase – this sounds pretty logical to me. Maximum orders with discounts per month is five, so you can get 15 items! That’s 36 to 60 items per year, more than enough for you to test out!
As a welcome gift, Print Aura users get a 10% discount voucher to order samples. The capped discount is at $10 as it is only applied to the first $100 checkout value, excluding shipping. However, this is only a one-time voucher for sellers to experience the product themselves and can’t be used repeatedly. Something is better than nothing, right?
Some benefits of ordering product samples for yourself:
- Have a look and feel of actual product
- See the printing quality of your design
- Conduct a mini photoshoot yourself without relying on paid mockups
- Take videos of products for listings and increase conversion rates!
- Be confident about your product and know what to say if a customer asks
- Customer knows what to expect if listings include real live photos
Don’t forget to add disclaimers on your listings and mention how real products may look different than listings – due to printing process or lighting during photoshoot. This may sound reasonable to you but it might not be the case for others.
Winner: Printful – ordering samples should be a regular thing, you’re growing a biz for the long term. One voucher isn’t enough! Especially if you plan to sell a lot of products.
6. Shipping services and cost
Good shipping equals to customer’s happiness! Printful has fulfillment centers in few parts of the world, covers shipping in most countries and promises 2-5 days for product creation. I love that they provide accurate estimates at the point of ordering based on their existing capacity – you can view their shipping rates and delivery times HERE.
Print Aura has similar standard processing of 3-5 days, with Rush processing of 2-3 days (only applicable for garments at additional $2/each). Shipping charges aren’t as clear as Printful’s ready calculator but you can still have a good overview of Print Aura’s rates HERE.
For a standard t-shirt, below are the differences in shipping cost to the USA between Printful and Print Aura. There’s some difference!
| Shipping charges | Printful | Print Aura |
| 1st item | $3.99 | $5.50 |
| 2nd item (additional to the package) | $2.00 | $1.25 |
Winner: Printful – new customers are likely to purchase one unit to test out, cheaper shipping charges for one item will entice them even more.
7. Earning potential with each sale
Product pricing
Printful’s product pricing can be seen easily via the product catalog. Each item has its own price which varies with size, typically it would include the cost of one side printing. The price seen is the base cost that you’ll be paying as a seller to Printful everytime an order is fulfilled, excluding shipping charges.
Based on the sample below, Printful’s tri-blend t-shirt cost $3.05 lower than Print Aura’s tri-blend t-shirt – both in the color Oatmeal. You must remember that the price a customer is willing to pay for a t-shirt is similar regardless of where the shirt is produced, so choosing a cheaper alternative allows you to profit more and stay competitive. This puts aside the factors of quality and brand.
Prices differ for every product and for full comparison, check out their websites.
Monthly product discounts
If you work hard at your full time job, you should get a good bonus compensation. That’s how life SHOULD work! I’m happy to let you know that great POD sites will reward you if you achieve higher sales. It seems to be the way for Printful but not for Print Aura.
Printful rewards 5% discount from product cost for sales above $1,000 and this goes all the way up to 9%. The discounts are applied to sales made in the next month. Find out more on monthly discounts HERE.
Winner: Printful – I love myself extra discounts for working hard.
Read: How to save more with 20% off cost price with Printify
8. Integration with ecommerce websites for sales
Another factor that sets POD fulfillments apart is the sites they integrate with. At the moment of writing, Print Aura offers integrations with five sites only which are – Etsy, Shopify, WooCommerce, OpenCart and Storenvy. Although Print Aura covers some of the famous sites, it is much less compared to Printful’s 20+ integrations.
Some of the POD sites that integrates with Printful are:
- Etsy
- Shopify
- WooCommerce
- Amazon
- Wix
- Squarespace
- BigCommerce
- Prestashop
- eBay
- Gumroad
- Launch Cart
Winner: Printful – they offer a lot more integrations for users to explore and decide what they prefer.
9. Customer support when you face issues
Printful’s customer support is top notched. As a seller, I feel there are ample resources and help you can get. Aside from live chatting with their agents from your dashboard, a lot of questions are answered through their written FAQs. I’ve listed some of their support features in the summary table below, you can also read them HERE.
I feel Print Aura is pretty lacking when it comes to customer support. There isn’t much that you can find at the dashboard. You can click the “Support” tab at the top right corner and a form like the one below will pop up. An enquiry can be submitted but there’s not much info on how they will respond to you or how long it typically takes for them to respond.
Will it be an email? I guess so? There’s also not much detailed info on their blog or FAQs, compared to Printful’s.
Winner: Printful – running an online business can be scary. Without proper support, it only gets tougher! Trust me on this, I did a lot of dropshipping to know how one can worry A LOT over a single package.
10. Referral program to earn extra
I don’t have a great following on social media but I always love to recommend to friends and share what I use especially if these tools are helpful for me. Apps and sites that let you earn while referring are A+! It also means they have huge conviction in what they’re offering so win-win.
Printful has a referral program that lets you earn $5 credit every time someone makes a purchase on Printful’s site with your link – they get $5 off too. It’s free to join and you can get your referral link at your seller dashboard – click HERE. You can then use these credits for your own purchase and deduct further when ordering samples like I explained above. While it may not be in cash form, I still see some benefits to this so I’ll definitely take it!
Print Aura does not have any referral program for sellers to promote.
Winner: Printful – any extra way to earn is a win!
Summary Of Differences: Printful Vs Print Aura
| Features | Printful | Print Aura |
| Free sign up | ✓ | ✓ |
| Etsy integration | ✓ | ✓ |
| Shopify integration | ✓ | ✓ |
| Ecommerce integration | ✓ | ✓ |
| Selling at platform store | 🗴 | 🗴 |
| Discounts on samples | ✓ | 🗴 |
| Custom label your products | ✓ | ✓ |
| Include business cards and pamphlets in shipments | ✓ | ✓ |
| Live chat | ✓ | 🗴 |
| Educational content | ✓ | ✓ |
| Monthly discounts | ✓ | 🗴 |
| Referral program | ✓ | 🗴 |
| Affiliate program | ✓ | 🗴 |
Print Aura Integrates With These Platforms
- Shopify
- Etsy
- Storenvy
- WooCommerce
- OpenCart
Bottom Line
I know you might be thinking that I’m a huge advocate of Printful and my thoughts might be biased. But, I’ve done few of these comparisons with Printify, Redbubble and Teespring – to know that Print Aura does not come anywhere close to what Printful offers. While this might be true for the features I’ve listed above, you can try the products and service yourself – they might fair better there.
That’s it! If you’re new to print on demand and unsure which product to start with, below are my best guides for you to explore and decide.
- Tote bags for print on demand
- Tumblers for print on demand
- Phone cases for print on demand
- Posters for print on demand
- Leggings for print on demand
- Jewelry for print on demand
- Candles for print on demand
- Doormats for print on demand
- Hoodies for print on demand
- Pet products for print on demand
- Socks for print on demand
- Pajamas for print on demand
- Blankets for print on demand
- Baby clothes for print on demand
- Wrapping paper for print on demand
- Puzzles for print on demand
- Stickers for print on demand
- Athletic wear for print on demand
- Hats for print on demand
- Journals for print on demand
- Greeting cards for print on demand
- Mugs for print on demand
I’m sure you’ll find some great tips in each of them! Let me know down below.
Photo by Tim Mossholder
