Print on demand is a way of selling products without owning any. The design is yours, the shop is yours, and the printing, packing and posting happen at a factory that only starts work once someone has paid you.

This page covers the model itself: how an order moves, what you pay and when, what can be printed and what your customer opens.

What print on demand is

Inkthreadable is a print on demand manufacturer, which means we print and ship one item at a time on your behalf, under your brand. Nothing is made in advance. An order arrives from your shop, we print that item, and it goes out to your customer in white label packaging.

The alternative is buying stock in advance. You pick your sizes and colours months ahead, pay for all of it up front, and store it somewhere until it sells or doesn't. Print on demand takes both the guess and the up-front money out, and puts a production lead time in their place.

What you keep control of

You set your own prices, write your own listings and own your customer list. We never contact your customers or put our name anywhere on your product.

What happens when someone buys

The order reaches us automatically and leaves as a parcel three to five working days later.

1. Your shop tells us.

   Shopify, Etsy, WooCommerce, TikTok Shop, Big Cartel, Wix, Squarespace and Order Desk connect directly, and there's a CSV upload and an API for anything else. Or you can place manual orders in your Inkthreadable account each time you take an order in your store.

2. We print it.

   Which machine depends on the fabric and the product.

3. We cure, check and pack it.

   Prints are heat-cured so they survive the wash, then the order is picked, packed in paper packaging and labelled for shipping.

4. It ships to your customer.

   Tracking goes back to your shop, so your customer can follow their parcel.

What it costs, and when you pay

There's no set-up fee, no monthly subscription and no minimum order, so the only money that leaves your account before a sale is for any sample orders you place.

You pay the product price and the postage at the time the order is placed. This is the whole point of the model for anyone starting out; you pay per order, not for bulk stock upfront.

One t-shirt, sold at £25, works out like this.

Shop fees can be easy to miss, so keep them in mind. On Etsy that's a $0.20 listing fee, a transaction fee of 6.5% of the total including delivery, and payment processing on top, so build these fees into your product price rather than your profit margin.

Per unit, one t-shirt printed on demand costs more than one shirt out of a bulk run of 200. What that difference buys you is the freedom to list 12 designs, find out that two of them sell, and owe nothing on the other 10.

Looking to the future, Inkthreadable offers reward pricing tiers based on monthly order volume. You can save up to 10% off product prices as your volume grows, and it's entirely automatic so you don't need to worry about managing your account.

How long an order takes

Production takes three to five working days at Inkthreadable, from the order landing with us to the parcel leaving the building. UK delivery adds one to five days depending on the service you choose, starting from £2.88, and we ship worldwide. Full shipping times and prices are on the shipping page.

What can be printed

Apparel, accessories, homeware, posters, canvases and fine art prints, using six print methods under one roof.

DTG printing cures the ink into the fabric. The garment is pre-treated first, which opens up the fibres so the ink bonds with them rather than sitting on the surface, and our Kornit printers use CMYK plus red, green and white channels, so bright colours land closer to your file without being mixed out of four inks.

In contrast, DTF printing sits on top of the fabric. The design is printed onto film before being heat-pressed against the product, causing an adhesive layer to bond with the fibres for a permanent finish.

If you're choosing between the two garment methods, the DTG versus DTF post goes through them properly.

How your shop connects

Inkthreadable connects to Shopify, Etsy, WooCommerce, TikTok Shop, Big Cartel, Wix, Squarespace and Order Desk, with a CSV upload and an API for everything else. Or you can place orders manually as you receive them if you'd prefer.

Most sellers get connected in under 10 minutes. If you haven't built a shop yet, that's the step to do first, then you can connect your store and get started building your catalogue.

What your customer opens

A white label parcel arrives, so they've no idea it came from a print on demand supplier. Printed neck labels on t-shirts can be visible in the neckline, and custom packing slips carry your logo and your message.

Both neck labels and packing slips are printed with the order, so neither asks you to commit to providing any stock. Orders ship in plastic-free paper packaging and prints are made with water-based, vegan inks. More on materials and offsetting is on the sustainability page.

Who prints your order

We do, in our UK factory, with a team of print technicians, embroiderers, pickers and packers in the building. We're family-run and we've been doing this since 2013.

Support is email and live chat, weekdays 9am to 5pm, answered by people who've been doing this for an age. Inkthreadable's customer support will give you the confidence to get started, and to keep going if something goes wrong.

How to start

Order a sample of the product you want to sell, in the colour you want to sell it in, then put it through the wash a couple of times and see what the print does. That's the only reliable way to know what your customer will get.

Then connect your shop, list the product, and let the orders come to us.

Frequently asked questions