Printful is a print-on-demand company helping young entrepreneurs turn their ideas into reality. Using Printful, you can start your printing dropshipping business in no time.
The company seamlessly integrates with your online store to deliver products to your customers while helping you grow. Printful uses data-driven strategies to offer personalized solutions with the help of its in-house experts. It takes care of everything from sourcing to printing, fulfillment, and shipping products.
Over the years, Printful has amassed considerable popularity. In this article, we shall look at the entire journey including background, user statistics, net worth, and more.
But before we get down to it, let’s briefly understand how Printful works.
How Printful Works?
If you are thinking of starting a viable on-demand business, you first need products, a sales channel, and a fulfillment service.
The good news is that Printful gives you all three through product creation tools, integrations with eCommerce platforms, and packing, shipping, and delivery services.
Printful gives you access to over 344 customizable items. You can choose things you may be interested in through its catalog, customize them to your unique design, then list them on your online store or a marketplace.
When someone purchases your products, their order is automatically sent to Printful which prints the item ordered, packages it, and sends it to the customer.
But remember, Printful is not an eCommerce platform but rather a printing and fulfillment service.
Therefore, if you want to sell your printed items online, you must set up an online store or create an account with an existing marketplace to give you a channel to reach online shoppers.
Printful Background
Printful was founded in 2013 by Davis Siksnans and Lauris Liberts. Since then, the company has become a global sensation, with over 200,000 customers trusting Printful with their brands.
The Printful journey began in Latvia, a small country in Northern Europe. Its founders started with a social media platform, Draugiem, which is popular among Latvians.
Draugiem was so successful that it birthed other mini projects, which later grew into their own companies. For instance, a mini project like the messaging service created to support Draugiem grew into a text message payment service for vending machines.
Davis and Lauris used their social media knowledge to create a platform for managing and scheduling posts. They also collaborated with their gadget-loving colleagues to create unique office gadgets.
But in a country with a population of two million people, you can’t go very far. Therefore, Davis and Lauris started thinking of how to penetrate the global market.
The two created Desktime, Behappy.me, and StartUp Vitamins, offering inspirational quotes on products such as posters and t-shirts.
But their biggest challenge was getting someone to print these items for them, as they didn’t have money to invest in big printing machines for businesses that might not succeed.
After working with a few printing companies with little satisfaction, they decided to buy their printer. But that wasn’t easy either. The CEO had no choice but to do most of the dirty printing work in what seemed like a horizontal company hierarchy.
But what was fulfilling is that people loved what the Draugiem Group was doing. The company also received requests to print people’s stuff on their high-quality posters.
So Printful, an easy-to-use and small-business-friendly printing and sending service, was born. Printful would do everything from creating incredible designs to giving users all they need to set up their eCommerce store.
In 2022, Printful partnered with Patternbank to provide its customers with over 500 fresh, print-ready designs. Patternbank has also worked with popular apparel brands, including Nike, Marks and Spencer’s, and Urban Outfitters.
Patternbank disclosed that its range of patterns, including tropicals, florals, and geometrics, would be available under Printful’s Premium Images tab in the Design Maker segment.
Printful now boasts technologically advanced eService and is steadily growing. Its initial goal is to combine IT with eCommerce to fulfill your ideas on demand. The company has offices in Los Angeles but is headquartered in Charlotte and Riga, the capital of Latvia.
Also Read: Printful vs Printify
Printful Founders
Image: Labs of Latvia
Check Out: Printful vs Society6
As mentioned, Printful was founded by Lauris Liberts and Davis Siksnans in Latvia. Latvia is a small country with a population of two million people and is little-known for corporate leadership, but the two founders started a business that has grown to global success.
Siksnans started working with Liberts, a serial Latvian entrepreneur. Siksnans was always interested in IT. By age 13, he was already creating websites for friends. The idea of Printful was born from an already existing company by Liberts, Startup Vitamins.
Startup Vitamins mainly dealt with selling clothing, posters, and other items that could accommodate motivational quotes for entrepreneurs. By then, Liberts was physically printing items for Startup Vitamins from his home in the US.
On the other hand, Siksnans was in Latvia working on design and marketing software. Their interest in print and eCommerce is what propelled the birth of Printful. Siksnans and Liberts got their first clients by emailing Startup Vitamins customers.
The two are experienced in content marketing; hence, at the time of the Printful launch, they also had a budget for advertising. From leveraging partnerships and content marketing, Printful grew exponentially after integrating with Shopify and WooCommerce.
The founders were also lucky to get press coverage in its initial stages. Platforms such as Techcrunch featured the Printful story, which, according to its founders, played a crucial role in its growth.
Explore: Art of Where vs Printful
Printful Financing and Net Worth
In 2021, Printful was valued at more than $1 billion. Despite the pandemic, the company continued to grow rapidly, making it the first Latvian unicorn company.
The valuation of more than $1 billion followed a $130 million investment from Bregal Sagemount, the first ever that Printful had ever sought. Bregal invested in Printful without acquiring control of the company.
Also Read: Customcat vs Printful
The partnership between Printful and Bregal Sagemount would support the launching of additional products and services and expand to new demographics and channels.
Bregal Sagemount, a growth-focused private capital firm, has $4 billion worth of investment capital. It provides strategic capital assistance to market-leading companies in high-growth sectors.
In 2020, Printful experienced exponential growth in revenue by about 80%. By the same year, the company had sold over 32 million customized items to customers across the world.
In addition to receiving financing, Printful partnered with Junior Achievement Latvia, one of the largest education organizations, and Riga Business School to create an entrepreneurship and innovation program for companies run by students in Latvia.
The print-on-demand market is expected to grow in the next decade. Last year, the global print-on-demand market was valued at $5.397 billion. The value is expected to rise to $39.035 billion by 2031.
Check Out: TeeSpring vs Printful
Printful Business Model and Revenue
Check Out: Gooten vs Printful
Printful is one of the few companies that is open about its revenue. According to a report by the company’s head of marketing, Julia Gifford, the company made revenue amounting to $3 million just 18 months after its launch.
Julia states that the company was able to achieve all the above revenue with zero marketing budget. Their only customer acquisition channels included email marketing, technical integrations, content marketing, and paid advertising.
In June 2022, Printful posted a 115% growth from the previous year in enterprise customer growth. At the same time, they were reporting over $289 million in revenue.
The $289 million revenue was a 39% increase compared to 2020, which recorded $208 million in revenue. The revenue increase enabled Printful to fulfill more than 48 million items and attain a $1 billion total gross merchandise value (GMV) since its launch in 2013.
Printful reached the $77.4 million revenue mark in 2018. In 2019, the company rose to the record $116 million mark after attaining the 10 million printed product mark. Online shopping became even more popular in 2019.
Printful remained committed to its global growth and added up to 230 products in categories, including home and living, accessories, and clothing. In 2020, Printful opened its second fulfillment center in Barcelona and later in Canada.
Siksnans was excited about Barcelona, stating that it was a strategic location for the company as its home to influential entrepreneurs and tech enthusiasts.
According to Siksnans, 2021 was a good year, thanks to partnerships with renowned brands, such as Coca-Cola, MTV, and Comedy Central. Printful’s 2021 growth was also fueled by growing order volume.
As a result, the company expanded its operations to the US, Mexico, and UK markets. Printful opened a new fulfillment center in Latvia to accommodate the growing team. The company invested $32.4 million in equipment alone in 2021.
Check Out: Best Printful Alternatives
Siksnans points out that Black Friday and Cyber Monday are the busiest days for the company. On a good Black Friday and Cyber Monday weekend (BFCM), the campaign would generate $13 million in revenue from almost 285, 000 orders.
Printful continues to grow its product catalog. By 2021 the company had added over 70 products, bringing the total number of products to over 300.
Products that received more orders during Printful’s peak season included t-shirts and sweatshirts under the apparel category.
Printful is a free platform. It will not charge you to set up an account, has no minimums, and won’t charge you monthly maintenance or subscription fees.
Users will only incur charges when they place an order on the platform, where manufacturing and shipping fees apply.
Also Read: Teelaunch vs Printful
Printful User Statistics
Image: BuiltWith
Printful is one of the largest on-demand printing and fulfillment companies, always looking for new industry trends and technologies. The company continually adopts new technologies for better service delivery.
In 2022, it was ranked among the early adopters of the Coloreel Instant Thread Color Unit of Sweden (ITCU), ahead of the introduction of unlimited color embroidery.
Printful is currently installed in over 100K eCommerce stores in the United States. The number signifies a 0.6% increase quarter by quarter and a 23.1% increase year-over-year.
Some top stores using Printful include Sanrio, Darn Good Yarn, BlendJet Portable Blender, and SpeedCube Shop.
Also Read: Zazzle vs Printful
User statistics also took an upward trajectory since Printful was launched in 2013. In 2019, the platform reported having accumulated over one million registered users.
By then, Printful offered about 160 products with a team of 500 people spread across North America, Europe, and Mexico.
Out of the one million registered users, about 183,000 users sell Printful products through Shopify, while over 74,000 others are on the platform to sell its products through the online platforms built by Wix.
Printful has delivered over 65.9 million items, with an average of one million items every month. The platform has provided print and fulfillment services to over two million users.
Printful’s exponential growth was also witnessed in the expansion of its team. In 2020, the company reached a milestone of 20 million printed products, which prompted the company to expand to a team of more than 1,000 employees worldwide.
Also Read: Printful vs Print Aura
Final Word
As you can see, Printful has been going strong ever since it was created. It is easily one of the best print-on-demand companies in the market today.
If you are thinking of starting your print-on-demand dropshipping business, Printful is the way to go.
Scott L. Macarthur is a marketing consultant and an online author. He is mostly engaged in providing his expertise to startups and SMBs. He is also an author on TheNextWeb.