If you’ve ever thought about selling custom merch on your website like hats, shirts, or tote bags, but don’t know what inventory would be worth your investment, print-on-demand is the way to go. Say farewell to the hassle of keeping inventory or shipping orders yourself, and then wondering what to do with the product that doesn’t sell.

After exploring several options, I can confidently say that Printful is my top pick for your merch shop.

Why Printful?

Printful makes it incredibly easy to sell branded products directly through your website, even if you’re not a web designer like me. They handle everything, from printing to packing and shipping, so you can focus on your business.

I especially love Printful’s embroidered products, which can normally be very expensive. If you’re like me, and you’ve ever looked up buying a professional embroidery machine for your own DIY projects, you know you can easily drop 10k on those bad boys. Printful offers lots of stitch styles and built-in design digitization so your products turn out exactly as you envisioned.

Where Canva Fits In

So where does Canva come into the picture? Canva is the easiest way to create professional-quality designs without needing advanced design software. You can make a logo, a slogan graphic, or even a hand-drawn style design and then upload it straight into Printful.

Here’s the simple process:

1. Open Canva and create your design. Use a transparent background PNG if you want it to sit cleanly on your product.
2. Export your design at high resolution (300 DPI is best for printing).
3. Upload the file into Printful’s design tool. You can adjust placement, resize, and preview it on products like hats, mugs, shirts, or tote bags.
4. Order a sample or publish the product to your online shop.

In less than an hour, you can go from idea → Canva design → Printful product ready for sale.

Testing It Out for Myself

Before I started offering print-on-demand website integrations to my clients (hint: this is a service I now offer r for Squarespace, Wix, Shopify, and more), I decided to test Printful myself.

I created a Printful account, designed a hat using their built-in design tool (though you can also upload your own design from Canva), and ordered it within twenty minutes. It arrived for about $20—not a huge profit margin if you plan to resell, but perfect for branding and local marketing.

Imagine your customers walking around town repping your logo. That’s basically free advertising. Plus, there’s no risk of buying a box of hats that never sell.

My hat turned out perfectly and I can’t wait to wear it around town! (Check it out on my Etsy and let me know if you want to buy one too!)

Printful Integrations

One of the best parts about Printful is how easily it connects to your website. They offer seamless integrations with Squarespace, Wix, Shopify, Square, and many other platforms. Once set up, orders placed on your website go straight to Printful for fulfillment without a middleman.

Pairing Canva + Printful + your website means you can design in Canva, upload to Printful, and start selling through your site in minutes. It’s the easiest print-on-demand workflow for small business owners.

Ready to try it out?

If you’ve been considering adding custom merchandise to your site, print-on-demand keeps it simple and low-risk. Canva makes the design process easy, and Printful takes care of the production and shipping.

Here is a link to get started. (Yes, that's an affiliate link).

And if you need help connecting Printful to your website or designing your first product, I’d love to help! This is a service I now offer for all my website clients.

Happy web designing!