Choosing a supplier for your print on demand business can feel quite overwhelming!
That's why we'll see which two biggest suppliers suit you.
Here are the main differences between Sellfy and CustomCat:
The main difference between Sellfy and CustomCat is the amount of control and features offered. Sellfy's all-in-one system means they're like a Shopify website builder and a supplier in one service! CustomCat is the traditional POD supplier for your website, with above-average profit margins and an ever-expanding catalog of products to use.
First, look at the overview of the areas we'll cover.
Overview: Sellfy vs. CustomCat
We'll be comparing Sellfy and CustomCat in these areas:
- The pricing & plans
- The profit margins of products
- The print quality
- The branding services
- The order fulfillment experience
- The shipping times
- The integrations to your store
- The customer support quality
Here's a rundown of the pros and cons of Sellfy and CustomCat:
| Sellfy | CustomCat | ||
| Pros | Cons | Pros | Cons |
| All-in-one system for a super fast setup | You can't build your store on a traditional ecommerce platform | Shorter turnaround time and lower product pricing than average | Only integrates with a few ecommerce platforms, like Woocommerce and Shopify |
| Various selling options beyond POD, like subscriptions, digital products, etc. | Payment gateways and app integrations are limited | State-of-the-art printing provider, Digisoft | Lacking user-friendliness in designing your products |
| Sellfy has a lot of built-in marketing tools you can use | Restrictive website customization | Generous free plan |
To sum up, let me give you a few examples of which supplier to choose:
Sellfy is an excellent choice if:
- You want the easiest and fastest way to create a POD store.
- You don't want to go through the hassle of manually maintaining your website.
- You want to expand to other products, such as digital.
CustomCat is an excellent choice if:
- You want a solid, well-rounded supplier to rely on.
- You want complete control of your website.
- You want to have a higher profit margin than average.
| Categories | Sellfy | CustomCat |
| Best pricing plans | ✖ | |
| Best profit margins | ✖ | |
| Best print quality | ✖ | |
| Best branding services | ✖ | |
| Best order fulfillment experience | ✖ | |
| Best shipping times | ✖ | |
| Best integrations to your store | ✖ | |
| Best customer support quality | ✖ |
If you want to save it for later – check out our infographic below:
What is Sellfy?
A similar platform to Shopify, Sellfy features built-in marketing tools and security features to make selling easy on your website. The process starts without even requiring a domain name.
It is an excellent platform for selling digital products and ideal for smaller businesses that don't have much to invest.
The Sellfy platform was launched in 2011 to sell digital products. Over time, it has evolved into an all-in-one ecommerce platform.
Creators can now sell print on demand products, digital products, physical products, and subscriptions through a single platform without installing additional apps.
Although Sellfy doesn't have as many customers as the major players in the market, that doesn't make it any less worthy.
You can access your online store from anywhere with an internet connection as a cloud-based platform.
No maintenance is required, and your subscription fee covers your hosting expenses. Plus, setting it up and using it doesn't require technical knowledge.
Here's a breakdown of Sellfy's pros and cons.
Sellfy's pros
- It's super fast to start a store. Since Sellfy is an all-in-one platform, you don't need to visit multiple sites to begin your POD store.
- Sellfy supports a variety of products. To scale more than just POD products, you can look into digital products and memberships to build your brand.
- You can build and manage your store all through the mobile app. While not entirely recommended, it's simple with a few taps on the phone.
Sellfy's cons
- There is not much control over the website's design. The ease and speed Sellfy offers come at the cost of limited customization.
- Average POD experience. Sellfy's POD offerings are about on par with the average POD experience, so it's up to you if that's good enough.
- Specific apps can only work with Sellfy. If you want to try something new and innovative, it will not be available on Sellfy's platform.
What is CustomCat?
CustomCat is a Detroit-based digital printing company. There is no minimum order requirement for their printing technology. Additionally, they ship directly to customers, saving you time and effort.
The turnaround time for their orders is excellent, with most orders being sent within 2-3 days (on average); this gives them a competitive advantage over other print on demand services.
There are also no 3rd party suppliers, so Customcat is in complete control of the printing process. Also, they have introduced a new printing supplier, Digisoft, to create the highest quality printing with the softest textures.
You'll also receive discounts if you sign up for their $30 monthly plan. Their integrations are with Shopify and Woocommerce platforms. You can also use their API without any fees.
Here's a breakdown of CustomCat's pros and cons.
CustomCat's pros
- CustomCat has an above-average profit margin and fulfillment times. CustomCat's supplier locations and sources allow a solid reason to use them reliably.
- A large variety of products. CustomCat is constantly expanding, so different colors and sizes are becoming easier to offer.
- No fees to use. Create your account, upload your designs, and connect your store to the products; you're ready!
CustomCat's cons
- The user interface. Their website can be overwhelming in navigation, as reported by their users.
- Limited integrations. While CustomCat covers significant platforms like Woocommerce and Shopify, you must look elsewhere to be on a lesser-known platform.
Which one has a better pricing plan?
Our first look at the difference between Sellfy and CustomCat is the available pricing and tiers of accounts.
Sellfy's pricing & plans
Sellfy's pricing is unlike any other POD supplier because they offer so much more!
They're also website providers, including the domain name and business emails.
All Sellfy pricing plans allow:
- The selling of physical, digital, membership, and print on demand.
- A few installment choices like Stripe and PayPal.
- Quick installment payments.
- Embeddable Buy Now button.
- A fast shopping basket and checkout module.
This is what you get for each of Sellfy's pricing plans:
Free: $0 monthly to sell up to ten print-on-request or actual items. This plan doesn't take into account digital sales. The free tier has full store customization, a Sellfy store space, high-level expense and VAT settings, and rebate codes.
Starter: Starting at $19 per month ($29 if you don't choose the yearly payment option) for up to $10,000 in sales for print-on-request, physical, digital, and membership items. as well as the capacity to add your custom domain name, send emails with 2,000 credits (each month) and add a business email address.
Business: Starting at $49 each month ($79 each month without the yearly payment option) for up to $50k in annual sales, everything from the past tier, 10,000 email credits, the marketing tools for Sellfy, and item upselling.
Premium: Starting at $99 monthly ($159 each month without the yearly payment option) for up to $200k in annual deals, everything from the past plans, 50,000 email credits, and needing client assistance.
Which plan is right for me if I decide to use Sellfy?
While there's nothing to lose by trying out the free tier, having only ten products in your store may be too limiting.
You'll be using Sellfy as your supplier and website if you know. You should use the starter tier and go for the higher ones when you have the sales to support their additional features.
CustomCat pricing & plans
CustomCat has two cost plans.
The CustomCat Lite arrangement has no month-to-month charge and is focused on beginners.
The CustomCat plan costs $30 each month, with discounted costs (for instance, a shirt on the Lite arrangement costs $9 per tee, while on the CustomCat plan, it costs $7 per tee).
This means you can make much more with lower product costs.
Regarding estimating for individual things, a basic pullover tee costs $11.19. CustomCat offers a two-week free preliminary for their paid tier.
Which plan is right for me if I decide to use CustomCat?
The CustomCat Lite is perfect for beginners because it has no fee or negative downside. If you are sure you'll be making sales, you can look into the Pro tier to save costs on the products with the lower pricing offers.
Pricing & plans final verdict: The winner of this category is CustomCat because they have no limitation on the number of products you can have with their free plan.
Which one has better profit margins?
Next, we'll see which allows the most profit per product purchase!
Sellfy's products
Sellfy's product pricing is average, so neither cheap nor expensive in the POD supplier market.
They offer these kinds of products:
- Clothing, including t-shirts, hoodies, sweatshirts, and tanktops
- Hats and Beanies
- Aprons
- Bags, Backpacks, Fanny Packs, and Laptop Sleeves
- Stickers
- Mugs
- Water bottles
- Phone cases
- Posters
Although they're a POD supplier, they also have a lot of ways for memberships and digital products to thrive.
CustomCat's products
CustomCat has a lot of apparel, home goods, and accessories for you to sell, and they're frequently expanding!
You'll also find the pricing competitive, with quality apparel material starting at $10.
CustomCat also offers branding on many of its products, unlike most POD suppliers. They have developed the Digisoft printing supplier for the state-of-the-art printing texture into their affordability.
The profit margins of products verdict: They both have similar products, but CusomCat does offer more at a faster rate. They also have noticeably better pricing and product selection as well.
Which has the better print quality?
Print quality is one of the biggest reasons people want out of a supplier because if the quality is terrible, you won't get repeat customers and will receive more refunds.
Print quality can make or break a supplier's success.
Sellfy's print quality
There's a little report on Sellfy's print quality. Based on the pricing and materials used for their products, it would be on par with what you're getting.
Even though many of the reviewers aren't mentioning the products themselves, there might be some helpful information to get a fuller idea of what Sellfy offers you.
CustomCat's print quality
CustomCat's product quality does a great job of standing up to the competition. However, CustomCat can have errors. All suppliers do.
The one thing they could improve is their mockups. There are reports from users who say they don't match appropriately to the final result.
Also, the quality is through over 50,000+ vendors that trust CustomCat to source from. Most users have had a positive experience and found the quality above the average supplier, with a 4.4/5 review on Shopify. (Source)
CustomCat also introduced Digisoft as their printing supplier with state-of-the-art printing technology for texture softness and high-quality design work.
The profit margins of products verdict: CustomCat's product quality has noticeably gotten a lot of praise from the average user, while it was challenging to find the general opinion of Sellfy's. Sellfy's pricing and materials seem to make an acceptable quality but not on the level of CustomCat's, especially with their Digisoft technology.
Which one offers a better branding service?
Branding is the supplier's service for your products to give a customized personal feel.
The most common example is a packaging slip that displays your logo and a personal message with every order. Sometimes these branding services can be an additional cost as well.
Sellfy's Branding
Sellfy does not offer any branding services for its POD products. Bummer!
CustomCat's Branding
CustomCat only offers a custom packaging slip message. They also allow personalized options for your customers, a massive plus in the competition.
Branding final verdict: Sellfy doesn't have any branding services, so CustomCat's custom products and message slips for every order give them the advantage.
Who has faster order fulfillment?
Order fulfillment is the time between the supplier receiving your order from your store to printing and shipping the product to the customer.
Now let's look at the average differences between Sellfy and CustomCat.
Sellfy's order fulfillment
Sellfy's fulfillment time stated on their help center is 2-5 days (Source)
So you can expect around 3-4 days on average, which is acceptable to the competition.
CustomCat's order fulfillment
CustomCat's order fulfillment takes about three business days and checks new orders every two hours. (Source)
Not much else has been said about how long it can be, so you may have to do your testing to know how long your customers will be waiting for their order to arrive!
Order fulfillment verdict: Based on the fulfillment claims, it's possible Sellfy can edge out the win in a day faster than CustomCat.
Who has the fastest shipping?
Shipping times are crucial to being successful. Amazon has set the standard for when customers want their purchases as fast as possible, so any advantage you can have over the average store will be noticeable.
Do both Sellfy and CustomCat ship internationally?
Sellfy and CustomCat both ship internationally! There are some countries they can't ship to, though.
Sellfy cannot ship to these countries:
- Cuba
- Iran
- Crimea
- Syria
- North Korea
CustomCat cannot ship to these countries:
- Cuba
- Falkland Islands
- Iran
- North Korea
- Somalia
- Sudan
What is the estimated delivery time for Sellfy and CustomCat?
For Sellfy, it may take up to 5-11 business days for US deliveries and up to 27 working days for international deliveries. These are about standard for the industry and can often be shorter.
CustomCat utilizes the expression 'hyper on-request satisfaction' to depict transportation speed.
They charge $3.99 for the main item, with an extra $1.50 for each additional item in the US. Most items will appear at their objective in around seven days, and you can send them straightforwardly to the client.
Global transportation is a marginally unique story, with $7.95 for the main item and an extra $5.95 for each different item. Worldwide conveyance can require 4-15 days once delivered.
What are the shipping rates for Sellfy and CustomCat, and how are they calculated?
Sellfy's shipping rates
Sellfy's total shipping rates can be found on their help center page.
It's important to note they do not cover the faster shipping costs, unlike CustomCat's. However, their shipping rates are on par.
CustomCat's shipping rates
CustomCat's shipping rates go into full detail on their website.
There is nothing out of the ordinary. Specifically, their shipping prices range from excellent to acceptable.
You can view the tracking of your product within two hours of the sale on your dashboard!
The shipping verdict: The winner goes to CustomCat due to having a more information-based guide, although their rates are similar.
Who has the more diverse integrations?
Integrations are necessary because not every supplier works with every website provider or marketplace website like Etsy.
Some suppliers make a great effort to be compatible with as many platforms as possible, while some may specialize in only one.
Sellfy's integrations
Sellfy integrates with its website-building platform. So this means you cannot use their POD products for a different website!
The good news is that Sellfy is excellent at being all you need and marketing strategies and can embed the products onto other sites.
CustomCat's integrations
CustomCat uses a lot of well-known website platforms like Shopify, WooCommerce, and BigCommerce.
CustomCat also offers an API system to work with websites that don't natively support them. You may need help from a developer for that to happen, though.
The profit margins of products verdict: CustomCat wins this due to offering integrations. Although Sellfy only uses its platform, it does the job well too.
Which one has the better customer support?
When things go wrong, your supplier's customer support can help you. Not all are equal; some can go the extra mile for you.
When choosing a supplier, it's essential to see if customer support is reliable and accurate.
The customer support of Sellfy
The customer support quality comes in the different tiers of Sellfy.
The premium tier allows you to have priority in your support. That means you'll receive help much faster than those with lower levels.
Sellfy has email support and live chat. The difference is that live chat is an instant conversation, while email is for the times you want to work on an issue when you have the time.
It's crucial to note that Sellfy does not offer phone support!
Sellfy also has a Help Center for looking through articles about starting your store and adding products, and that's only the tip of the iceberg.
Sellfy uses visual guides and screen captures, while other articles from other suppliers stick to message articles without images.
Learn about marketing, advanced settings, and setting up products through Sellfy University's blog page.
The customer support of CustomCat
CustomCat offers a lot of help choices for their users.
Phone support is accessible from 8 a.m. to 6:30 p.m. EST Monday-Friday.
Customer support is accessible through email and phone. CustomCat also has selling guides, advertising guides, and FAQs. It ultimately depends on you to find and learn from their help guides.
It's essential to note that CustomCat does not offer live text messaging in any way!
The customer support verdict: It's tough because they both excel where the other doesn't. Sellfy can offer more if you're paying for the premium tiers, though, so they have a slight advantage in this category.
So, Sellfy or CustomCat? (Which one fits you)
Sellfy helps you create an online store if you lack the technical expertise to create an ecommerce website.
Starting with a free forever plan is a great way to start without investing money. For 14 days, you can try the software risk-free by signing up and creating an online store in as little as five minutes.
It's best for:
- YouTubers
- Photographers
- Filmmakers
- Bloggers
- Musicians
CustomCat would be perfect for anyone with a WooCommerce or Shopify store. They offer a good selection of products, including some branded ones. A fast turnaround is their main draw - if this is important to you, you might want to consider CustomCat.
Compared to other print on demand services, their printing time is fine, and the print quality is even better.
CustomCat's behind-the-scenes features make it an excellent tool for analytics and marketing by splitting testing, upselling, and capturing customer data. Although they might not sound exciting, these simple tools could make a big difference in your sales.
CustomCat is for those who want a robust and well-rounded POD supplier that doesn't limit them.
Summary
Before we go to the final verdict, we've created a quick summary of this article for you, so you can easily remember it:
- Sellfy is for those who want a hands-off experience selling products that work, while CustomCat is for those who want the most control and robust features.
- CustomCat is well-rounded in many categories, including print quality, pricing, and shipping. Sellfy exceeds in fulfillment times and customer support.
- Sellfy is the more expensive platform, but after reaching a certain number of sales, the benefits will exceed what CustomCat can offer.
Compare other print on demand companies
Not sure yet if Sellfy or CustomCat is the right fit for your business? Check out our other comparison articles below:
And to compare more companies, visit the comparison hub!
Final verdict
With all the criteria verdicts tallied up, CustomCat is the supplier to choose.
That isn't to say Sellfy is the wrong supplier. It ultimately comes down to what you need and how much control you care to have. It's that CustomCat is the more authentic experience of the two.
Sellfy does much more than just being a POD supplier, so if you want to expand to other physical and digital products, there's something there for you.
Thank you for reading, and have a great day!
Want to learn more about print on demand?
Ready to move your print on demand store to the next level? Check out the articles below:
- 15 Best Print on Demand Companies and Suppliers
- 14 Best US Print on Demand Suppliers (Fast Shipping)
- Can You Combine Dropshipping and Print on Demand?
Plus, don't forget to check out our in-depth how to start a print on demand business guide here!
