Print-on-demand merch

Don't want a closet full of shirts? Print-on-demand lets you sell merch without holding any stock. You upload a design, a fan orders, and our fulfillment partner Printful prints the item and ships it directly to the fan. You never touch the product. Sonic Bloom takes 0% commission — your only cost is what Printful charges to make and ship the item.

(Prefer to hold and ship your own stock? See Selling your own merch.)

Connecting Printful

1. In Merch, choose to connect your Printful account (it's free to create one).
2. Authorize the connection — this lets Sonic Bloom send orders to Printful automatically.

You only do this once.

Creating a product

1. Browse the catalog — start with our curated picker of popular items (tees, hoodies, totes, mugs, posters), or open the full Printful catalog if you want more options.
2. Choose the product and variant (color, sizes).
3. Upload your artwork. Printful generates a realistic mockup so you can see your design on the product.
4. Set your retail price. Your profit is the difference between what you charge the fan and what Printful charges you to produce and ship the item.

Publish it, and it appears on your store and /connect hub alongside everything else.

How a sale works

1. A fan buys the item on your site and pays with their card.
2. The order goes to your Stripe account (you get paid) and to Printful automatically.
3. Printful prints, packs, and ships the item straight to the fan.
4. When it ships, the fan gets tracking — from Printful — and the order is marked shipped.

Fans can add print-on-demand items to a cart alongside your other merch and check out once. Each print-on-demand item ships as its own Printful order, so each one carries its own shipping in the cart total — there's no combined-shipping discount across them.

You don't lift a finger after the sale.

Pricing it right

This is the one thing to get right with print-on-demand. Printful charges a base cost per item plus shipping. Set your retail price comfortably above that base cost so you actually make money after the card fee. A few dollars of margin on every shirt adds up; pricing too close to cost means you're working for free.

When you set a price, keep Printful's production cost (shown as you build the product) in mind, and add your margin on top.

Self-shipped vs print-on-demand

| | Your own merch | Print-on-demand | |---|---|---| | Who holds stock | You | Nobody (printed per order) | | Who ships | You | Printful | | Upfront cost | You buy stock | None | | Your margin | Higher | Lower (Printful takes production cost) | | Best for | Vinyl, CDs, limited runs | Shirts, hoodies, anything on-demand |

Plenty of artists do both — vinyl and signed CDs self-shipped, shirts and totes on print-on-demand.

Questions about print-on-demand? Get in touch.