# Slop City > Run a merch or dropship store as a city of AI agents # Pricing URL: https://slopship.com/pricing Every plan includes a city of your own, a helper bot and monthly AI credits. Pick the size that fits your shop. | Outpost | City | Metropolis Monthly price | $49 | $99 | $149 Annual price | $470 (20% off) | $950 (20% off) | $1430 (20% off) Cities | 1 | 3 | 6 Stores | 2 | 6 | Unlimited Credits per month | 50 | 100 | 150 Helper messages per month | 300 | 1500 | 4000 Auto mode | No | Yes | Yes API and MCP | Not included | MCP read and write | MCP read and write, plus REST writes ## Credit packs Extra credits for AI work, available on higher plans. Pack credits are valid for 12 months. Pack | Credits | Price | Available from 25 credits | 25 | $19 | City 100 credits | 100 | $59 | City 300 credits | 300 | $149 | Metropolis Prices in USD. Taxes are not included and may be added when billing starts, where required. Pick a plan and start your city. # Docs URL: https://slopship.com/docs ## Getting started 1. Sign up at /signup with your email, pick a plan and pay with Stripe. Your plan gives you a city of your own and its monthly credits. 2. Open your city. Each building is one job; crates (ideas, designs, products) travel between them. The Factory makes the product through a print-on-demand partner, or sources a dropship item. 3. Visit the Town Hall. Items waiting for a decision show up there. Approve or reject; nothing moves on without you while a building is set to ask. 4. Open Settings to set the default autonomy, change your password and create API keys. ### Autonomy Every building runs in one of three modes: suggest (it proposes, you do everything), ask (it does the work and waits for your approval) or auto (it acts on its own). Auto is only available on plans that include it and is never on by default. ## MCP server Point any MCP client at https://app.slopship.com/mcp with a bearer key. It speaks JSON-RPC over HTTP (initialize, ping, tools/list, tools/call); responses are plain JSON and the server keeps no session. ``` { "mcpServers": { "slop-city": { "url": "https://app.slopship.com/mcp", "headers": { "Authorization": "Bearer " } } } } ``` Read tools: buildings_list, ideas_list, designs_list, ip_check_get, products_list, listings_list, orders_list, bank_summary, approvals_list, stuck_list, autonomy_get. Write tools: approvals_approve, approvals_reject, autonomy_set. Ask the server for tools/list to see the current set. API access is included on City and Metropolis. Write tools need an MCP scope of read and write. A write never publishes, orders or spends by itself. ## REST API The REST API lives under https://app.slopship.com/api/v1 and uses the same bearer key. The OpenAPI 3.1 description is at /openapi.json. ``` curl -H "Authorization: Bearer $API_KEY" https://app.slopship.com/api/v1/approvals ``` - GET /api/v1/buildings, ideas, designs, ip-checks, products, listings, orders, bank, stuck, approvals, autonomy - POST /api/v1/approvals/{item_id}/approve and /reject - PUT /api/v1/autonomy/{building_id} ## Free tools over MCP and REST The free tools need no key. Without an Authorization header, /mcp lists and runs only these six tools, and each one is also a REST endpoint. Fair-use rate limits apply to every address. - print_size_check, pod_profit_calc, trademark_risk_check, etsy_tags_titles, dropship_margin_calc, niche_validate - GET or POST /api/v1/tools/ with JSON or query arguments; GET /api/v1/tools lists them - See /tools for the install snippet ## API keys Create keys in Settings. A key is shown once, only its hash is stored, and you can revoke it at any time. Keys stop working immediately if the plan no longer includes API access. ## Use it from your agent Step-by-step setup for Claude Code, Cursor and Claude Desktop is on the agents page: /docs/agents. ## Machine-readable files - /llms.txt and /llms-full.txt: a short and a full text description for AI assistants - /openapi.json: REST API description - /server.json and /.well-known/mcp: MCP server metadata - /sitemap.xml # Use from your agent URL: https://slopship.com/docs/agents Slop City is built to be driven by agents as well as people. Your AI assistant can read your city (ideas, designs, products, listings, orders, the bank) and approve or reject work in the Town Hall queue, through an MCP server or a REST API. It works the same for print-on-demand and dropshipping stores. ## 1. Get an API key API access is included on City and Metropolis. Create a key in Settings. It is shown once and only its hash is stored. Keep it in an environment variable, never in a repo. ## 2. Connect over MCP ### Claude Code ``` claude mcp add --transport http slop-city https://app.slopship.com/mcp --header "Authorization: Bearer $API_KEY" ``` ### Cursor (.cursor/mcp.json) ``` { "mcpServers": { "slop-city": { "url": "https://app.slopship.com/mcp", "headers": { "Authorization": "Bearer ${env:API_KEY}" } } } } ``` ### Claude Desktop (claude_desktop_config.json) ``` { "mcpServers": { "slop-city": { "command": "npx", "args": [ "-y", "mcp-remote", "https://app.slopship.com/mcp", "--header", "Authorization: Bearer ${API_KEY}" ], "env": { "API_KEY": "" } } } } ``` The server speaks JSON-RPC over HTTP (initialize, ping, tools/list, tools/call) and keeps no session. Ask for tools/list to see the current tools. ## 3. Or use the REST API ``` curl -H "Authorization: Bearer $API_KEY" https://app.slopship.com/api/v1/bank curl -X POST -H "Authorization: Bearer $API_KEY" https://app.slopship.com/api/v1/approvals/ITEM_ID/approve ``` The full OpenAPI 3.1 description is at https://app.slopship.com/openapi.json. ## What an agent can do - Read: buildings, ideas, designs, IP checks, products, listings, orders, the bank summary, stuck crates and pending approvals. - Write: approve or reject an item, set a building's autonomy. - A write never publishes, orders or spends by itself. Auto mode must be switched on by you, on a plan that includes it. ## Discovery files - /llms.txt and /llms-full.txt: plain-text descriptions for AI assistants - /.well-known/mcp: MCP endpoint metadata - /server.json: MCP registry document - /openapi.json: REST API description - /sitemap.xml Keys are checked on every request. If your plan stops including API access, the key stops working at once. # Compare URL: https://slopship.com/compare A plain comparison of the ways to run a print-on-demand or dropshipping store: by hand, with a freelancer, or with spreadsheets and print-on-demand dashboards. We describe approaches, not other products. "Typically" means what is common, not what any one tool does. | By hand | Freelancer or agency | Spreadsheets and POD dashboards | Slop City Who does the design work | You | A person you hire | You stitch the steps together | AI agents, one building per job Cost shape | Your time | Per project or retainer | Dashboard subscription plus your own glue work | Subscription from $49 a month plus credits Approval control | Total | By review round | Whatever you build | Ask mode by default, approvals in one queue IP check before artwork | If you remember | Varies | Only if you add it | Built in as a step, not a guarantee Scales to many niches | Slowly | At linear cost | If the workflows hold up | Designed for it, within plan limits Learning curve | Low per task, high in total | Low | High | Moderate: learn the buildings ## When it is a good fit - You want to test many niches and keep a human decision on what goes live. - You prefer one pipeline with a clear approval queue over a pile of separate tools. - You want to drive the shop from your own AI assistant through MCP or an API. ## When it is not - You want a single hand-made brand with a distinctive art style: a human designer will serve you better. - You need a specific marketplace or print partner we do not connect to yet. - You need legal clearance on designs. An automated IP check is not a legal opinion. All product names and trademarks belong to their owners. Where we describe categories of tools we do so generically. # Alternatives URL: https://slopship.com/alternatives Slop City is not for everyone. Here are the honest alternatives, and when each one makes sense. ## Do it yourself with a print-on-demand storefront Cheapest in cash, expensive in hours. A good choice if you only plan to sell a handful of designs and enjoy the work. ## Hire a designer or small agency Best when you need a consistent brand and original art. You pay per piece and the volume is limited by budget. ## Build your own automation If you are technical and want full control, you can chain generic automation and AI tools yourself. Expect to maintain it. Slop City gives you the same shape (ideas, designs, checks, listings, books) as one maintained product. ## Other AI store builders Several tools generate designs or stores with AI. Compare them on four questions: can you approve each step, is there an IP check, can you export your data, and what happens to your listings if you stop paying? ## What to ask any tool, including this one - What does it do without asking me? - What does it cost at the volume I actually expect? - Which marketplaces and print partners are connected today, not on a roadmap? - Who is responsible for trademark conflicts? # FAQ URL: https://slopship.com/faq Q: What is Slop City? A: Slop City runs a print-on-demand or dropshipping store as a small city of AI agents. Tees and other merch are the main example, but a building can also source any dropship product. Each building is one job: finding product ideas, designing, checking for trademark conflicts, making or sourcing the product, listing it, and keeping the books. You watch and approve from one screen. Q: Will it publish or spend money without asking? A: Not unless you tell it to. By default every building asks for your approval before a design moves on. Auto mode, where a building acts on its own, is switched off by default and only available on City, Metropolis. Writes made through the API or MCP never publish, order or spend by themselves. Q: How much does it cost? A: Plans start at $49 a month (Outpost) and go up to $149 a month. Annual billing is cheaper than twelve monthly payments. Prices are on the pricing page and are charged in USD. Q: What do I get when I sign up? A: A city of your own, a helper bot, your plan's monthly credits and the Town Hall where you approve what goes live. You sign up, pay for the plan you pick and your city opens. Q: What are credits? A: Credits pay for AI work such as generating designs. Every plan includes a monthly amount, and you can buy extra packs on the plans that allow it. Plan credits lapse at the end of the billing period; pack credits last 12 months. Q: Does it check for trademark problems? A: A Customs House step runs an IP check on each idea before any artwork is made, and flags anything it is unsure about for you to review. It reduces risk. It is not legal advice and it cannot guarantee that a design is free of conflicts, so you stay responsible for what you sell. Q: Does it only do t-shirts? A: No. T-shirts and hoodies are the most common starting point, and mugs, posters and phone cases follow the same path. The Factory makes the product through a print-on-demand partner such as Printful, or sources it from a dropship supplier. Product type is a field on every product, not a built-in assumption. Q: Does it do print-on-demand or dropshipping? A: Both. Print-on-demand is the first connection (Printful). Dropshipping uses the same pipeline: the Factory sources the item from a supplier instead of printing it, and the Harbor lists it. More supplier connections are added step by step. Q: Which shops and print partners does it work with? A: The city is built around print-on-demand and dropship fulfilment and marketplace storefronts. Connections to partners are enabled step by step. Until a connection is live, the pipeline runs as a dry run and shows what it would do. Q: Can I use it from my own AI assistant? A: Yes. City and Metropolis include API access: an MCP server at /mcp and a REST API at /api/v1 with an OpenAPI description. Keys are created in Settings and shown once. Q: Who can see my designs and data? A: Your city, designs and records are only visible to your own login. Each account is isolated from every other account. # Can You Sell a Phrase on a T-Shirt? Trademark Check URL: https://slopship.com/blog/can-i-sell-a-phrase-on-a-tshirt-trademark-check Last verified 2026-10-18. General information, not legal advice. A search that finds nothing is not a clearance. Yes, you can usually sell a short, common phrase on a shirt, but not one that is registered as a trademark for clothing and used as a brand. To check, search the phrase in the USPTO's Trademark Search tool, filter to live records, and look for a goods description that mentions shirts or clothing (class 25). A live hit on clothing means stop. No hit means lower risk, not zero risk. Three separate things can get a listing removed: a trademark claim, a copyright claim, and a right of publicity claim. Only the first is solved by the search below. Trademark vs copyright vs right of publicity Protects Does a short phrase qualify? What the seller should do Trademark A word, phrase or design that identifies the source of goods ( USPTO ) Yes, if used as a brand for goods or services Search registers before you print Copyright Creative works. Names, titles, mottos, slogans and other short expressions are not registrable ( Copyright Office, Circular 33 ) No, but longer text (lyrics, poems) can be Do not print lyrics or passages you did not write Right of publicity A person's name, face or likeness (state law, varies) Not applicable Do not use a real person's name or image to sell, without permission The Copyright Office says it will not register short phrases "even if the word or short phrase is novel, distinctive, or lends itself to a play on words." It also says that under certain circumstances they "may be protectable under federal or state trademark laws." That second sentence is why a funny slogan can be free of copyright and still be someone's trademark. Step by step: search the phrase in the USPTO database The USPTO retired the old TESS system on November 30, 2023 and replaced it with a new tool called Trademark Search ( USPTO notice ). It lives at tmsearch.uspto.gov and is linked from the USPTO search page . Status of any record you find is in TSDR . Search the exact phrase in the basic search, then again with the words in a different order and with the likely variants (plural, spelling, "u" for "you"). The USPTO says marks conflict when they are similar in sound, appearance, meaning or commercial impression, not only when identical ( likelihood of confusion ). Filter to live records. A dead or abandoned record is not a current claim, though it can tell you someone tried to use the phrase. Open every live hit and read the goods and services text. This is the part that decides your answer. Check the owner and whether they run a clothing brand, a band, a team, a school or a media franchise. Write down what you found with the date, even if it is "no relevant hits". If a dispute comes later, the record helps. Which classes to check for each product Trademarks are registered for specific goods, grouped by Nice class. Identical marks can coexist for unrelated goods, and goods count as related if they are similar, competitive or sold through shared channels ( USPTO ). So search the class for what you sell, plus the neighbours. You sell Check class Also check T-shirts, hoodies, hats 25 35 Posters, stickers, cards 16 25 Mugs, tumblers 21 25 Phone cases 9 25 Class 35 includes retail store services, which matters if the phrase is a store or brand name rather than just a design. These class numbers are a starting point: look up your exact product in the Trademark ID Manual before you rely on one. Reading live, dead, pending and the goods description Live/registered: an active registration. Treat it as a claim. Live/pending: an application not yet approved. If it registers, a later conflicting application can be refused because of it ( USPTO ). Dead: abandoned, expired or struck from the register. Lower risk, but the owner may still use the phrase and have unregistered rights. Goods description: "T-shirts; hooded sweatshirts" is a direct hit. "Providing online educational courses" for the same phrase is a different business, so the risk is lower. Phrases that pass, phrases that do not Example: you want to print "Coffee first, adulting later". You search the phrase and variants. You find nothing live in class 25. You see one dead record from 2016 for a coffee shop. Decision: lower risk, record the search, publish. Example: you want to print a famous sportswear slogan with one word changed. Your search shows a live class 25 registration for the original. Decision: stop. Slightly changed wording does not fix this, because similar sound or meaning is enough ( USPTO ). Use this checklist before you design: Is the phrase a brand, band, team, school, show or character name? If yes, stop. Is it a lyric or a line from a book, film or poem? If yes, stop (copyright, not just trademark). Is there a live record in class 25 with the same or a similar phrase? If yes, stop. Is there a live record in the class for your other product (16, 21, 9)? If yes, read the goods text and decide whether it is a related product. Is the phrase generic or descriptive of the shirt itself, like "100% cotton"? Lower risk. Did you write down the date, the terms searched and the result? If no, do it now. The stop list: brand names and logos, characters, sports teams, universities, bands and music artists, lyrics, film and TV titles, and any real person's name or image. Where does the ornamental doctrine fit? The USPTO refuses registration when a mark appears only as decoration. Its own example is a quote like "The Pen is Mightier than the Sword" across the front of a shirt, which reads as decoration while the neck label shows the real source ( USPTO ornamental refusal ). That is why a plain big-print slogan often cannot be registered for shirts. It is not a defence you can rely on. An owner can show the phrase also identifies a source through other goods or services, and a marketplace may act on a notice without deciding that question. Checking each phrase by hand across five classes takes a while per design. Slop City's agents run this check on every phrase before the design starts and flag live clothing hits, but a person decides the borderline cases. The result is not a legal clearance. The free trademark risk checker does the same walk-through for a single phrase. If you generate artwork with AI, the AI-generated designs article covers lookalike risk. If you sell to the EU or UK The USPTO register only covers US federal registrations. For the EU, search the EUIPO trade mark database (EUIPO's own search tools). For the UK, the government's trade mark search lets you search by keyword, phrase or image. It says Jersey and Guernsey have their own registers. Use the same method: exact phrase, variants, clothing class, goods description. What happens if you get a notice Print providers put the risk on you. Printify's Intellectual Property Policy has merchants warrant that they have the right to use their content, and says it may suspend accounts subject to multiple IP notices. Etsy's Intellectual Property Policy says it may terminate selling privileges of members subject to repeat or multiple notices, in appropriate circumstances and at its discretion. Etsy does not publish a fixed strike count, so do not plan around a number. What to do on a notice: stop selling the item, take it down on every channel where you list it (the provider, the marketplace and your own store), do not relist a slightly changed version, and keep a record of what you sold. Whether and how to answer the complainant is a legal choice. See Etsy's rules for print on demand for the listing side, and the per-shirt profit breakdown for what a removed batch costs you in lost margin. When to ask a trademark attorney Ask one when: the live hit is in class 25 and the owner is a real clothing brand, but your phrase is not identical; you already have stock or a large number of orders on the phrase; you plan to build a store brand or product line around the phrase; you received a cease and desist letter, not just a marketplace notice; you want to register the phrase yourself (a filing is its own process, and the USPTO's ornamental rules apply to your specimen too). See the pricing page for what Slop City handles and what stays with you. FAQ Is it legal to put a quote on a t-shirt? Copyright does not cover short phrases, so a short quote is not blocked by copyright. Trademark is the risk: a live registration for the same or a similar phrase on clothing can get a listing removed. Longer passages such as song lyrics can be copyrighted. Can someone own a common phrase on shirts? Sometimes. A phrase can be registered for clothing if the owner uses it as a brand. The USPTO also refuses marks that only decorate a shirt, but that argument is the owner's to win or lose, not a shield for you as a seller. Which trademark classes should I search for a t-shirt? Class 25 for clothing. For other products also check class 16 (paper goods and posters), class 21 (mugs), class 9 (phone cases) and class 35 (retail services). Confirm goods wording in the USPTO ID Manual. What happens if I get a trademark notice from a marketplace? The listing is usually removed, and repeat notices can close the shop. Stop selling the item, do not relist it, and consider asking an attorney before replying. Does a USPTO search clear me worldwide? No. It covers US federal registrations only. Search the EUIPO and UK registers if you ship there, and note that unregistered rights are not in any register. # Can You Sell AI-Generated Designs on Print on Demand? URL: https://slopship.com/blog/can-you-sell-ai-generated-designs-print-on-demand Can You Sell AI-Generated Designs on Print on Demand? Yes, if four things check out: the marketplace allows it (Etsy requires disclosure), your print provider accepts the file, you accept that you may own less of the design than you expect, and the output does not copy someone else's protected work. The fourth is where sellers lose listings. This is general information, not legal advice. Policies change, so each section links the page it comes from. Last verified 2026-10-18. Marketplace, provider, copyright and infringement are four separate questions with four different decision makers. This article takes them one at a time and ends with a pre-listing checklist. Is it allowed? The short answer in one table Question Who decides Short answer 1. Does the marketplace allow it? Etsy, other marketplaces Etsy: yes, with disclosure in the listing description 2. Does the print provider allow it? Printful, Printify Their terms put clearance of the file on you 3. Can you own and enforce it? US Copyright Office, courts Only the human-authored part 4. Can it infringe someone else? Rights holders, platforms Yes. This is the main risk Does the marketplace allow AI designs? On Etsy, AI is allowed but must be disclosed. Etsy's Creativity Standards put AI creations made from a seller's own prompts under "Designed by a seller", and its Seller Handbook says sellers must disclose in their listing description if an item was created using AI. Etsy files AI creations made from a seller's own prompts or inputs under "designed by" the seller, and does not allow selling AI prompt bundles. One limit on this check: Etsy's own pages returned an access error (HTTP 403) when I tried to open them directly, so this wording comes from Etsy page excerpts shown in search results, which agree with each other. The Seller Handbook article "What is Etsy's stance on AI creations?" covers the same point. Open the pages yourself before relying on an exact phrase. I also found a claim online that Etsy applies a "substantially altered" test. I could not corroborate it from Etsy, so it is not repeated here. Our Etsy rules article covers the rest of the Etsy policy. I did not verify AI rules for any other marketplace, so none are described. Check each one before uploading there. Does your print provider allow AI designs? Providers care about the file, not how you made it, and their terms put clearance on you. Printful's intellectual property policy says it "reserves the right to remove, at our discretion, any Content that may infringe the IP rights of others", that you alone are responsible for content you upload, and that it may suspend accounts that are subject to multiple notices of IP infringement. I found no AI-specific rule in that document. Printify's Third-Party AI Tool Terms of Use say outputs "may be similar to or inadvertently incorporate existing copyrighted material or trademarks", that "you are responsible for clearing the rights for any Output you use commercially", and that you may not be able to claim copyright ownership in outputs generated solely by an AI system. Printify's help page on IP blocks returned an access error during research, so I do not describe how its blocks work. Expect any provider to be able to block a product on an IP report. Who owns an AI-generated design? Probably less than you think. The US Copyright Office's Copyright and Artificial Intelligence, Part 2: Copyrightability (January 29, 2025) reaches these conclusions, read from the report itself: Prompts alone do not provide sufficient control. Given current generally available technology, they do not make the user the author of the output. Human authors are entitled to copyright in their works of authorship that are perceptible in AI-generated outputs, such as your own drawing used as an input. They are also entitled to copyright in the creative selection, coordination or arrangement of material in the outputs, and in creative modifications of the outputs. Neither using AI as an assistive tool nor incorporating AI-generated content into a larger copyrightable work affects the availability of copyright for the work as a whole. Courts agree on the basic point. In Thaler v. Perlmutter , No. 23-5233, decided March 18, 2025, the D.C. Circuit held that the Copyright Act requires a work to be authored by a human being. The Supreme Court denied certiorari (No. 25-449) on March 2, 2026, according to the SCOTUSblog case page . A denial of review is not a ruling on the merits, so the appeals court decision stands as it was. For a print on demand seller the effect is concrete. A pure prompt-to-print design may be copyable by others, and you may struggle to enforce a takedown against a seller who lifts it. You can still sell it. You just cannot assume exclusivity. Can an AI design infringe someone else's rights? Yes, and being AI-made is no defense. Printify's terms above say so directly: outputs can incorporate existing copyrighted material or trademarks. Your listing is judged by what is on the shirt. Check three layers separately: Images: characters, mascots, team marks, brand logos, celebrity likenesses. Text on the design: slogans and brand phrases. The search steps are in our trademark phrase check . Listing text: titles, tags and descriptions. A clean design can still draw a complaint if the title names a brand. A prompt that names a franchise, character or living brand invites the model to copy it, so leave those names out. What is a safe workflow for AI designs? This is a process a careful seller can follow for each design. Keep a record. Save the prompt, the tool and version, the date and every iteration. If a rights question comes up, this shows what went in. Add human-authored elements. Hand-draw a part, set the typography yourself, composite and rework the output. The Copyright Office describes these as possible grounds for protection. That is not a guarantee, but unedited output has none. Strip brand cues. Remove any shape, name or palette that points to a franchise. Clear the text. Search every phrase for the product class you sell (class 25 covers clothing). Reverse-image check the final art. Look for near-matches to existing designs. Disclose where required. On Etsy, put the AI statement in the listing description. Clean the listing text. No brand names in the title or tags. Steps 4 and 5 are the manual chore. For the phrase, the free trademark risk checker screens it against a local list of brands and known slogans and links to the official searches. A clean result is not clearance. Slop City's design flow applies the same screening before a design reaches a listing, described on the pricing page . Pre-listing checklist Check Pass condition If it fails Prompt names no brand, character or artist Yes Rewrite and regenerate Phrase searched for the relevant class No live clothing registration for the exact phrase Drop or rewrite the phrase Art compared by reverse image search No close match Redesign Human edit added At least one element you made Add one, or accept no exclusivity Prompt and iterations saved Stored with the date Save before listing Marketplace disclosure written In the description (Etsy) Add it Title and tags No third-party marks Remove them AI tool's terms read Commercial and print use allowed Use another tool or file What is still unsettled? How much human input is enough. The Copyright Office judges case by case, and I found no published threshold. Training data. Part 3 of the Office's report, on generative AI training, was released in pre-publication form on May 9, 2025, and a final version is still to come. It affects model makers more than sellers, but it could change the terms you agree to. Platform wording. Etsy and the providers can change policy at any time. Re-check before a launch. FAQ Do I have to tell buyers my design is AI-generated? On Etsy, yes, in the listing description. Check the rules of any other marketplace you use. Can I copyright an AI-generated t-shirt design? Not from prompts alone. Human-authored elements, and creative selection, arrangement or modification of the output, can be protected, per the Copyright Office. Will Printful or Printify reject AI designs? The terms I could read do not ban AI. They put responsibility for rights on you, and they can remove infringing content. What is the biggest real risk? Output that resembles a protected character, logo or slogan. Does the AI tool's own licence matter? Yes. Read the terms of the tool you used for commercial and print use. Sources (read 2026-10-18) US Copyright Office, Copyright and Artificial Intelligence, Part 2: Copyrightability (PDF) , read in full text US Copyright Office, Copyright and Artificial Intelligence , index of Parts 1 to 3 Thaler v. Perlmutter, D.C. Circuit opinion (PDF) SCOTUSblog, Thaler v. Perlmutter, No. 25-449 Printify Third-Party AI Tool Terms of Use Printful intellectual property policy (PDF) Etsy Creativity Standards , read through search excerpts only (HTTP 403) Etsy Seller Handbook, stance on AI creations , read through search excerpts only (HTTP 403) Related: profit per shirt after fees , print file sizes . By the Slop City team. Last verified 2026-10-18. # Dropshipping Profit Margin After Shipping and Fees URL: https://slopship.com/blog/dropshipping-profit-margin-after-shipping-and-fees The commonly quoted average net margin for dropshipping is 10% to 30%, but those figures come from tool and vendor blogs, not independent datasets, and many are gross margin. Your own net margin per order is (1 - refund rate) x price, minus product cost, shipping, payment fees and ad cost, and you can compute it in a minute. In the three hypothetical examples below, margin before ads is 24.5% to 45.1%, and after ads at a 3.0 ROAS the net margin runs from a 9% loss to a 12% profit. For made-to-order products such as printed shirts, the cost stack is different. That case is in How Much Profit Does a Print on Demand Shirt Make? . This article covers stocked goods that a supplier ships to your customer. How do you calculate dropshipping profit margin? Define two terms and keep them apart. Gross margin is (price - product cost) / price. It ignores shipping, fees, refunds and ads, so it is always the biggest number. Net margin is what is left after every cost, divided by price. The model used throughout this page, per order: Contribution = (1 - r) x P - C - S - F Net profit = Contribution - A Break-even ROAS = P / Contribution P is the price the customer pays, including any shipping you charge. r is the share of orders refunded. A refunded order returns the revenue, but you have still paid the supplier and the shipping. That is why r multiplies only P. C is the supplier's product cost. S is the supplier's shipping cost to your customer. F is the payment fee: percentage times P, plus the fixed amount. A is ad spend per order (your cost per acquisition). ROAS is revenue per ad dollar. Break-even ROAS is the ROAS at which A equals Contribution, so profit is zero. Assumptions: the payment fee is not returned on refunds, refunded goods are not resold, and there are no chargebacks. Chargebacks add a dispute fee plus the lost order, covered further down. Which fees come out of every order? Item Rate Source Stripe, US domestic cards 2.9% + $0.30 per successful transaction Stripe pricing , read 2026-10-18 Stripe, international cards +1.5%, plus 1% if currency conversion is needed Stripe pricing Stripe dispute fee $15 per dispute, plus $15 more if you contest it manually (refunded only if you win) Stripe pricing PayPal Checkout, US domestic 3.49% + $0.49 PayPal business fees , read 2026-10-18 PayPal international surcharge +1.50% PayPal merchant fees PayPal dispute fee $15 standard PayPal merchant fees PayPal chargeback fee $20, for payments not made through a buyer's PayPal account PayPal merchant fees Shopify third-party payment provider fee (if you do not use Shopify Payments) 2% on Basic, 1% on Grow, 0.6% on Advanced Shopify pricing , read 2026-10-18 Etsy listing fee $0.20 per listing, renews every 4 months Etsy fees policy , updated 5 Oct 2026 Etsy transaction fee 6.5% of item price plus shipping and gift wrap you charge Etsy fees policy Etsy payment processing, US 3% + $0.25 per order Etsy Payments policy Etsy Offsite Ads 15% of the order total for shops under $10,000 in sales over the prior 365 days, 12% once past it, capped at $100 per order; only on orders attributed to those ads Etsy fees policy The worked examples below use a 2.9% + $0.30 card rate, which is Stripe's published US rate. Shopify Payments rates differ by plan and country, and the USD figures are not confirmed here, so read yours on Shopify's pricing page and swap them in. Supplier shipping has no market average. Each supplier publishes its own rate table by weight and destination, so the examples use labelled hypothetical costs. Replace them with your supplier's current rates. What does a worked dropshipping P&L look like? All three products below are hypothetical examples, not named suppliers or real listings. Refund rates are assumptions you should replace with your own. Example 1: a small desk lamp Price $49.99, free shipping, supplier cost $18.00, supplier shipping $6.50, refund rate 5%. Line Amount Price (P) $49.99 Refund allowance (5% x P) -$2.50 Product cost (C) -$18.00 Supplier shipping (S) -$6.50 Payment fee (2.9% x 49.99 + 0.30) -$1.75 Contribution before ads $21.24 Margin before ads 42.5% Break-even ROAS (49.99 / 21.24) 2.35 The gross margin on this item looks like 64% ((49.99 - 18) / 49.99). After shipping, fees and refunds it is 42.5% before ads. At a ROAS of 3.0, ad spend per order is 49.99 / 3 = $16.66, so net profit is 21.24 - 16.66 = $4.58, a net margin of 9.2%. Example 2: a $19.99 accessory Price $19.99, free shipping, supplier cost $5.00, supplier shipping $3.50, refund rate 8%. Contribution: 0.92 x 19.99 = 18.39, minus 5.00, minus 3.50, minus fee 0.88 (2.9% x 19.99 + 0.30) = $9.01 , a 45.1% margin before ads. Break-even ROAS is 19.99 / 9.01 = 2.22. At a ROAS of 3.0, ads cost $6.66 per order, leaving $2.35, which is 11.8% net. The fixed $0.30 fee takes a larger bite from cheap items. Example 3: a bulky item Price $79.99, supplier cost $34.00, freight-style supplier shipping $19.00, refund rate 6%. Contribution: 0.94 x 79.99 = 75.19, minus 34.00, minus 19.00, minus fee 2.62 = $19.57 , a 24.5% margin before ads. Break-even ROAS is 79.99 / 19.57 = 4.09. The gross margin looks like 57%, but shipping consumes a quarter of the price. At a ROAS of 3.0 this product loses money: ads cost $26.66 per order against $19.57 of contribution, a loss of $7.09 per order. What is break-even ROAS for dropshipping? Break-even ROAS is the lowest return on ad spend at which a channel does not lose money. If your ad platform reports a ROAS below it, you pay to make sales. If it is above, the gap is your profit. Product Contribution before ads Break-even ROAS Net profit at ROAS 3.0 Desk lamp, $49.99 $21.24 2.35 +$4.58 Accessory, $19.99 $9.01 2.22 +$2.35 Bulky item, $79.99 $19.57 4.09 -$7.09 Break-even ROAS rises quickly as contribution shrinks: a product with a 25% margin before ads needs about twice the ad efficiency of one with 45%. Is free shipping worth it in dropshipping? Free shipping changes the arithmetic in one direction only: you still pay S, and it now has to come out of P. Take example 2 and charge $4.99 shipping instead of absorbing it. P becomes 24.98 (price plus shipping paid). The fee is 2.9% x 24.98 + 0.30 = $1.02. Contribution is 0.92 x 24.98 = 22.98, minus 5.00, minus 3.50, minus 1.02 = $13.46 . Break-even ROAS falls from 2.22 to 24.98 / 13.46 = 1.86. That is better on paper. What paper does not show is conversion, and there is no reliable general number for how much a shipping line costs you. Test both variants with the same traffic. On Etsy there is an additional wrinkle: the 6.5% transaction fee applies to the shipping you charge as well as the item price, per Etsy's fee policy. Run the lamp on Etsy instead, free shipping, no Offsite Ads sale: transaction fee 6.5% x 49.99 = $3.25, listing fee $0.20, processing 3% x 49.99 + 0.25 = $1.75, total $5.20 against $1.75 at a 2.9% + $0.30 card rate. Contribution drops from $21.24 to $17.79 and break-even ROAS rises from 2.35 to 2.81. If a sale comes through Offsite Ads at the 15% rate for shops under $10,000 in yearly sales, subtract another $7.50. For which products Etsy allows at all, see Is Print on Demand Allowed on Etsy? , which also covers the platform rules that apply to supplier-shipped goods. If you take payments through PayPal on Shopify Basic instead of Shopify Payments, the stack is PayPal's 3.49% + $0.49 plus Shopify's 2% third-party fee. On the lamp that is $1.74 + $0.49 + $1.00 = $3.23, not $1.75. That is $1.48 of margin on every order. How much do refunds and chargebacks cut the margin? The refund rate is the input people guess. Here is the lamp (example 1) across a range of refund rates, with every other line unchanged. Contribution = (1 - r) x 49.99 - 26.25. Refund rate Contribution before ads Margin before ads Break-even ROAS 0% $23.74 47.5% 2.11 3% $22.24 44.5% 2.25 5% $21.24 42.5% 2.35 8% $19.74 39.5% 2.53 12% $17.74 35.5% 2.82 15% $16.24 32.5% 3.08 Each added point of refund rate costs about $0.50 of contribution on a $49.99 product. Moving from 5% to 15% pushes break-even ROAS from 2.35 to 3.08, which is the difference between an ad set that works and one that does not. Refund rate is driven largely by shipping time and "where is my order" disputes. The process side, with the policies and evidence that matter when a customer disputes a charge, is in Print on Demand Refunds, Chargebacks and Shipping Times . The numbers here are the cost side only. A chargeback is worse than a refund. You lose the order value, still owe the supplier, and pay a dispute fee: $15 on Stripe, and $15 standard on PayPal ($20 for some payments not made through a buyer's PayPal account); see the fee table. Shipping promises also have a legal floor in the US. Under the FTC's Mail, Internet or Telephone Order Merchandise Rule, if you state no shipping time you are held to 30 days from receiving a properly completed order (50 days if the buyer applied for credit to pay at the time of ordering). If you cannot meet your date, you must offer the customer a choice of a delay or a refund ( 16 CFR 435.2 ). Supplier shipping that takes three weeks is therefore both a refund-rate problem and a compliance one. This is general information, not legal advice. Doing this sheet by hand for every order is where most stores lose the thread. You can test your own numbers in the dropship margin and shipping calculator . To see what Slop City costs, go to pricing . Which products are not worth dropshipping? Compute contribution at your honest refund rate, then break-even ROAS, and compare it with what your channel returns. Bulky or heavy items. Example 3: shipping took a quarter of the price. Low-priced items. The fixed $0.30 fee and the cost of winning a customer do not shrink with price. High expected refund rates , such as size or fit driven products. Supplier shipping times you cannot promise. The cost is the refund plus the dispute fee. Products needing a ROAS you have never reached. If your channels return 2.0 to 2.5 and the product needs 4.09, only price or supplier can fix it. FAQ What is a good dropshipping profit margin? One that stays positive at the ad cost you actually pay. In the examples above, margin before ads was 24.5% to 45.1%, and after ads at a 3.0 ROAS it ran from a 9% loss to a 12% profit. How do I calculate break-even ROAS? Price divided by contribution per order: 49.99 / 21.24 = 2.35 for the lamp. Should I offer free shipping? It is a price decision, since you still pay it. Test it against charged shipping with the same traffic. How long can I take to ship in the US? With no stated time, 30 days under 16 CFR 435.2, otherwise offer a delay or a refund. Do processor fees come back on refunds? Check your processor's terms. The examples assume they do not. Sources and last verified Last verified 2026-10-18. Author: Slop City team. Sources: Stripe pricing , PayPal business fees , Shopify pricing (third-party fee percentages; read the USD card rates for your plan there), Etsy fees policy , Etsy Payments policy , 16 CFR 435.2 . All product costs, supplier shipping, refund rates and ROAS values in the examples are hypothetical inputs, not market averages or measured data. The 10% to 30% net range in the introduction is as published by tool and vendor blogs and is not independently verified. # How to Validate a Print on Demand Niche Before Designing URL: https://slopship.com/blog/how-to-validate-a-print-on-demand-niche How to Validate a Print on Demand Niche Before Designing Validate a print on demand niche by scoring it on five free checks: demand, supply, difference, IP risk and price. Give each check 0, 1 or 2 points, and only design for niches that score 7 or more out of 10 with no zero on IP risk or price. A pass takes roughly 30 minutes per niche with free tools. Last verified: 2026-10-18. Etsy, Google and USPTO screens change, so treat the click paths below as a guide and check them against what you see. What validation can and cannot tell you It can tell you a niche is a bad bet: nobody searches for it, it is full of identical listings, it is made of other people's brands, or the price people pay cannot cover your costs. It cannot tell you a niche will sell. A passing score means the first few designs are worth the time. Nothing more. Everything below uses signals you can see yourself. Most guides stop at "check Google Trends and look at competitors". This one turns those looks into a score with a stop rule, so you can drop a niche in 30 minutes instead of after ten designs. There are no conversion benchmarks here, because none of the free tools publish them. The five checks 1. Demand: do people search for it, and is the line holding? Three free looks, in this order. Autocomplete. Type the niche into the Etsy search bar and into Google, and write down every suggestion that mentions the niche plus a product word (shirt, mug, gift). Suggestions come from what people type. A niche with no suggestions at all has little typed demand. Google Trends. Open Google Trends , enter the niche phrase, set the region to your main market and the range to 5 years. The chart shows relative interest from 0 to 100, not volume. Look at direction (flat, rising, falling) and seasonality (a spike every December is a gift niche, not a year-round one). Compare against a term you already know sells to put the line in context. Communities. Search the niche on Reddit and in niche forums or Facebook groups. You are looking for people asking where to buy something, or complaining that nothing exists for them. Write down their exact words. Those words become your title and design brief. Score: 0 if there are no autocomplete suggestions and the trend line is falling or empty. 1 if there are a few suggestions and the line is flat. 2 if there are several product-word suggestions, the line is flat or rising, and you found real people asking for things. 2. Supply: how crowded is page one? Search the niche on Etsy. Etsy usually shows a result count near the top of the page. Note it, but do not score on it alone, because a broad phrase has a huge count that says nothing about your exact angle. Then look at the first two pages: How many listings are from shops with many reviews on this specific product? Do any carry a badge such as Bestseller? Etsy sets the rules for badges and changes them, so read a badge as a hint that the listing sells, not as a measurement. How recent are the reviews? A page one full of reviews from last month means live demand. Reviews all from years ago means a niche that moved on. Score: 0 if page one is dominated by established shops with fresh reviews and near-identical designs. 1 if it is mixed. 2 if page one has few reviewed listings but the demand check is strong, which is the gap you want. 3. Difference: can you say something they do not? Open the top 10 listings and write one line on what each design says. If you cannot name an angle (a joke, an identity, a specific sub-group, a style) that is absent from all ten, you are the eleventh copy. Check the reviews of the top listings for complaints too: "wrong size", "colour looks off", "not what I expected" are gaps in the product you can fix. Score: 0 if you cannot name an angle. 1 if you can name one but it is easy to copy. 2 if you can name an angle that comes from a real community phrase you found in check 1. 4. IP risk: is the niche made of other people's property? Look at the autocomplete list and the top sellers. If the best-selling phrases are brand names, film or game characters, sports teams, universities or song lyrics, the niche fails. These are the listings that get taken down. Sellers drift into this because branded shirts show up first and look like proof of demand. They are proof of demand for someone else's brand. For anything borderline, run the phrase through the USPTO Trademark Search and read the goods description for clothing (class 25). The full steps are in Can You Sell a Phrase on a T-Shirt? Trademark Check . This is a screening step, not legal clearance. Score: 0 if the demand is mainly branded. 1 if some phrases are risky and you can avoid them. 2 if the niche is made of generic or community-owned phrases. 5. Price: does the selling price cover your costs? Look at what the top listings charge, and which price they cluster around. Then work backwards: price minus provider base cost, shipping, marketplace and payment fees, and an allowance for ads and refunds. The full stack is in How Much Profit Does a Print on Demand Shirt Make? . If the going price leaves you nothing at a realistic cost, the niche fails whatever the demand is. Score: 0 if the going price is at or below your break-even. 1 if there is a thin margin. 2 if the going price leaves a margin you would accept after an ad and refund allowance. Scoring sheet and kill thresholds Check 0 1 2 Demand No suggestions, falling or empty trend Few suggestions, flat trend Several product suggestions, flat or rising trend, real requests found Supply Page one crowded with fresh, identical listings Mixed Few reviewed listings for a strong demand signal Difference No angle you can name Angle is easy to copy Angle comes from a real community phrase IP risk Demand is mostly branded Some risky phrases, avoidable Generic or community phrases Price At or below break-even Thin margin Acceptable margin after ads and refunds Rules for the total out of 10: 7 to 10: design three to five test listings. 5 to 6: only continue if you can lift the weakest check with a different angle or product. Re-score. 4 or below: drop it. Any 0 on IP risk or price: drop it, whatever the total. Those two cannot be fixed by working harder. You can run this sheet on a page of paper, or score it with the niche validator , which takes the five scores and shows the verdict. Doing these lookups by hand for ten niches is slow. The research agent in Slop City can do the lookups and write up the notes, and the thresholds above stay yours to set ( see plans ). Worked example: one niche passes, one fails These two niches are illustrations to show the method. The counts and trend shapes below are example values chosen for the walk-through, not measurements of any real search. Example niche A: "left-handed fishing" gifts Demand (2). Etsy autocomplete shows "left handed fishing gifts" and "left handed fisherman shirt". Google Trends shows a flat line with a bump each December. A forum thread has a user asking where to find left-handed fishing gear that is not boring. Supply (2). Page one has a handful of reviewed listings, and most carry generic fishing designs rather than left-handed ones. Difference (2). None of the top ten designs play on the left-handed reel joke. That is a community phrase from the forum thread. IP risk (2). All phrases are generic. No brands. Price (1). Going price clusters where a tee leaves a thin margin after fees. Total: 9 of 10, no zero on IP or price. Build four test designs: two jokes, one identity line, one illustration. Example niche B: a fan niche for a popular game Demand (2). Autocomplete is long. Trends line is rising. Supply (0). Page one is full of reviewed shops with fresh reviews. Difference (1). You can think of angles, but fans copy them within days. IP risk (0). Every top phrase is the game's name or a character. Price (1). Thin. Total: 4 of 10, and a zero on IP risk. Kill it. The demand was real, but it belongs to the game's owner. The method stopped a month of designing here. After validation: how many designs, and how to read the first 30 days Pick the design count before you list, so you cannot talk yourself into one more. Three to five varied angles is enough to separate the niche from any single design. List them together, and keep the titles built from the real phrases you wrote down in check 1. At 30 days, look at what you can actually see: impressions, views, favourites, and any sale. Compare designs against each other, not against a number from a blog. A niche where several designs get views but none get a sale points at price or product. A niche where nothing gets views points at titles or demand. Rewrite the score sheet with what you learned and decide: double down, change the angle, or drop it. If you sell something that is not made to order, the margin maths differs: see Dropshipping Profit Margin After Shipping and Fees . If you want a demand signal before listing, post the mockup in a community where the buyers already are and read the replies, or run a small ad to the mockup and watch whether anyone clicks. Both are cheap, and both give you words and reactions rather than proof of sales. Sources Read on 2026-10-18: Google Trends help: how Trends data is adjusted : values are scaled from 0 to 100 as a proportion of all searches, so they show relative popularity, not volume. USPTO Trademark Search : the USPTO's free trademark search system. Etsy result counts, autocomplete, review dates and badges are read from the live site and change often; no figure from Etsy is quoted in this article. FAQ How many designs should I test per niche? Enough to tell the niche from the design. One failed design tells you about that design. Three to five designs with different angles, listed at the same time, tells you about the niche. Set the number first and stop when you reach it. Is a low number of Etsy search results good or bad? Neither on its own. Low results with no autocomplete suggestions often means no demand. Low results with suggestions and a flat or rising Trends line is the pattern worth a test. Can Google Trends tell me how many shirts a niche sells? No. It shows relative interest from 0 to 100 for the period and region you pick. It shows direction and seasonality, not sales. Do I need to check trademarks before validating a niche? Yes, at niche level. If the top suggestions are brands, characters, teams or lyrics, the niche fails before any design exists. Phrase-level checks come after. Does passing validation mean the niche will sell? No. It removes weak bets cheaply. The only proof of demand is a sale of your own listing. # Is Print on Demand Allowed on Etsy? Rules for 2026 URL: https://slopship.com/blog/is-print-on-demand-allowed-on-etsy Is Print on Demand Allowed on Etsy? Rules for 2026 Yes. Etsy allows print on demand when the design is yours (or the buyer's own text or image) and you disclose the print provider as a production partner on the listing. It does not allow you to put a print provider's catalog items, someone else's artwork, or a blank shirt you resold into your shop as if they were your own work. Last verified: 18 October 2026 against the Etsy pages listed under Sources. Etsy changes these pages, so check the "last updated" line on each before relying on this one. What decides whether a print on demand listing is allowed? Three rules decide almost every case. The item must fit one of Etsy's four categories: made, designed, handpicked or sourced by a seller. Print on demand lives in "designed by a seller" (your original design, printed by a third party) and "sourced by a seller" (a buyer's own text or image printed by a production partner). You must disclose the production partner and give accurate ship-from information. If AI was used to create the item, say so in the listing. On timing: the Creativity Standards page shows "Last updated on Jun 10, 2025". The Seller Policy and the Fees & Payments Policy show "Last updated on Oct 5, 2026". This article does not compare older versions, so it makes no claim about what changed on those dates. It quotes the current text. What does Etsy's policy text say? Quotes are copied from the current pages and kept short. The four categories. From the Creativity Standards : "Designed by a seller: Sellers' original designs that are produced or printed by a third party or offered as a digital download." "Sourced by a seller: Items that enable buyer creativity, including craft and party supplies and items that are personalized with a buyer's custom text or image." Print on demand of your own design. Same page, under "designed by a seller": "Sellers' original designs produced by a production partner: Original designs created by a seller and produced with the assistance of a production partner. Sellers must disclose that an item is made by a production partner, and provide accurate information about where the item will ship from." Etsy's own examples include "A seller's unique, original design, printed onto a blanket by a production partner" and "a graphic logo created by a seller and printed onto a phone case by a third-party printer". Buyer-personalized print on demand. Under "sourced by a seller": "Buyer-personalized items produced by a production partner: Items created using a buyer's unique text or image, produced by a production partner." The example Etsy gives is "A t-shirt, hat, or neon sign that can be personalized with a buyer's name or special phrase", and its qualifying examples include "Buyer-personalized t-shirt printed on demand". What does not qualify. Same section: "Resold blank items that are ready to use without craft intervention, such as blank t-shirts, hats, or tumblers". Under "designed by a seller", the non-qualifying examples are "A bundle, collection, scan, or PDF of someone else's work" and "AI prompt bundles". AI. "Seller-prompted AI creations: Creations that were generated using AI tools (e.g., AI image generators such as Dall-E) based on a seller's original prompts. Sellers must disclose within their listing description if an item is created with the use of AI." What a production partner is. From Working with Production Partners on Etsy : "A production partner is a company or individual (who's not part of your Etsy shop) that helps physically produce items based on your own, original designs, such as a printing service, an apparel producer, an engraver, etc." The same page says production partners "do not include your own shop members or suppliers from whom you source ready-made products to resell." The print on demand line. From Does Etsy Allow Drop Shipping or Reselling? : "Using production partners, including print-on-demand services, to fulfill and ship orders is allowed on Etsy, as long as the items being sold are the seller's original design (or the buyer's customization). However, if a seller uses a production partner to sell products they did not design and buyers did not personalize, this would violate Etsy's policies." Disclosure in the Seller Policy. The Seller Policy requires "An accurate representation of how the item was made, by whom, and where it is being shipped from" and "If you work with a production partner, you must disclose that production partner in your relevant listings." Which print on demand situations are allowed and which are not? The "verdict" column is my reading of the quoted rules applied to common print on demand situations. It is not Etsy's wording and not legal advice. Situation Verdict Why (Etsy wording) You drew the design, a provider prints it on a tee, partner disclosed Allowed "Original designs created by a seller and produced with the assistance of a production partner" Buyer types a name or uploads a photo, provider prints it Allowed "Buyer-personalized items produced by a production partner" Your design, partner not disclosed, ship-from shown as your city Not allowed Disclosure and accurate ship-from are required A mug from a provider's catalog with the provider's stock artwork, unaltered Not allowed Not your design, not buyer-personalized: "this would violate Etsy's policies" A pack of clip art or a marketplace design bundle printed on shirts Not allowed "A bundle, collection, scan, or PDF of someone else's work" does not qualify Blank shirts bought wholesale and resold Not allowed "Resold blank items that are ready to use without craft intervention" Design generated from your own prompts, AI use stated in the description Allowed "Seller-prompted AI creations" with disclosure Same design, AI use not stated Not allowed Disclosure is required, not optional Design is a famous brand logo or character Not allowed "items that violate our intellectual property policies are not allowed to be sold on Etsy" (Seller Policy) Worked example: two listings from the same provider Example, not a real shop. A seller uses one print provider for everything. Listing A: a hoodie with a lettering design the seller drew in a vector editor. The seller adds the provider under Production partners, shows a finished mockup as the first image, and describes how the hoodie is made and where it ships from. This fits "designed by a seller". Listing B: the provider's catalog includes a ready-made poster with licensed artwork. The seller pushes it to Etsy untouched. The seller did not design it and no buyer personalized it. This is the exact case Etsy describes as a violation, and disclosing the provider does not fix it. Disclosure is a condition on legitimate production partner use. It does not turn resale into design. How do I add a production partner and fill in the listing details? From Etsy's production partner help page: In Shop Manager, choose Settings, then Production partners, then Add a new production partner. Enter the partner's business name. Etsy requires the business name but lets you keep it private. In that case you enter a public title such as "Apparel printer". Enter the partner's location (city, state or province). In "About production partner", describe how you work with them. This is public. In the listing editor, assign the partner in the Production partners section of Listing details. Or select listings in Shop Manager, choose Editing options, then Change production partners. Buyers see your partner information in your shop's About section. The seller policy also asks for an accurate description of any shop members who help make items. Images: Etsy points to its Listing Image Requirements. For personalized items the Creativity Standards say "your first image must show a finished, customized item rather than the blank product or placeholder text (e.g., 'Your Text Here')." What should I check before publishing a print on demand listing? The design is my own, or the buyer supplies the text or image. I can show where the artwork came from (source file, prompt log, or the buyer's upload). No artwork comes from a bundle, a scan of someone else's work, or a provider's stock library. The production partner is added in Shop Manager and assigned to this listing. The ship-from location matches where the provider actually ships from. If AI generated any part of the design, the description says so. The title, tags and images contain no brand names, logos, characters or "inspired by" wording that points to someone else's mark. The first image is a finished product mockup, not a blank or placeholder text. The About section describes how the shop works with the partner. Which titles and tags avoid policy problems? Etsy's seller policy bars items that "violate our intellectual property policies", and it says listings "may have decreased visibility because they include terms that represent a prohibited item". So keep brand names, celebrity names and franchise terms out of titles and tags, even as comparisons. Describe the design itself (subject, style, who it is for), plus the product type. Checking each title and tag by hand across a catalog is tedious. Slop City's free Etsy tag and title generator builds 13 tags and a title from a few keywords, and you can screen the wording with the free trademark risk checker . For the phrase itself, see how to check if a phrase is trademarked . Slop City's pricing page lists the plans that automate this work across a catalog. What is the difference between dropshipping and print on demand on Etsy? The difference is who designed the item. Etsy defines drop shipping as "the practice of selling ready-made products that are shipped directly from a third-party supplier to the customer, without any alteration or customization by the seller." Print on demand of your own design makes a new item, so it is production. For the margin side of true dropshipping elsewhere, read dropshipping profit margin after shipping and fees . For what the Etsy fees do to a print on demand shirt, see print on demand profit per shirt . What happens if a listing is removed? The Seller Policy says Etsy "may remove any listings that violate our policies" and uses "a combination of automated systems, manual monitoring and flags from members and third parties". It adds that "listing fees are non-refundable" and that Etsy "may also suspend or terminate your account for any violations". Practical order of work: Read the notice and find which listing and which rule it names. Compare the listing to the checklist above. The usual causes are an undisclosed partner, stock artwork, a brand term, or AI not stated. Fix or delete the listing. Do not relist the same item under a new title. For a suspended shop, the Seller Policy says Etsy will generally notify you of the suspension. This article does not cover appeal steps, because the policy pages quoted here do not set them out. Use the instructions in the notice and the Etsy Help Center. A removed listing has still cost you the listing fee, which is $0.20 per listing in the Fees & Payments Policy (checked 18 October 2026). For AI-specific questions, see can you sell AI-generated designs on print on demand . FAQ Is print on demand allowed on Etsy? Yes. Etsy's help center says using production partners, including print-on-demand services, to fulfill and ship orders is allowed as long as the items are the seller's original design or the buyer's customization. The partner must be disclosed on the listing. Can I sell a print on demand shirt that uses a design I did not create? No. Etsy says that using a production partner to sell products you did not design and buyers did not personalize violates its policies. A bundle, collection, scan or PDF of someone else's work does not qualify as designed by a seller. Do I have to tell buyers I used AI for a design? Yes. The Creativity Standards say sellers must disclose within their listing description if an item is created with the use of AI. The seller policy repeats that AI-created items must be disclosed in the relevant listings. Is dropshipping allowed on Etsy? Not for ordinary products. Etsy says drop shipping is not allowed, with a limited exception for craft and party supplies. Print on demand of your own design is production, not resale. Where do I add a production partner on Etsy? In Shop Manager, choose Settings, then Production partners, then Add a new production partner. You can also add one from the Production partners section of a listing's details. Sources Read 18 October 2026. Etsy's Creativity Standards , last updated Jun 10, 2025 on the page. Etsy Seller Policy , last updated Oct 5, 2026 on the page. Working with Production Partners on Etsy . Does Etsy Allow Drop Shipping or Reselling? . Etsy Fees & Payments Policy , last updated Oct 5, 2026 on the page. Etsy blocks automated requests, so the text was checked against Internet Archive copies of each page (Creativity Standards 28 Aug 2026, Seller Policy 11 Oct 2026, Fees 10 Oct 2026, both help articles 2026) and against the fee figures read on the live pages on 18 October 2026. # T-Shirt Print File Size: Pixels, DPI and Placement URL: https://slopship.com/blog/print-file-size-for-tshirts For a standard full-front print on a print on demand t-shirt, export a transparent PNG at 3600 x 4800 pixels, which is 12 x 16 inches at 300 DPI. Printful accepts at least 150 DPI on most products (1800 x 2400 pixels at the same size), and Printify recommends 300 DPI . For logo placement, Printful puts a full-front print 3 to 4 inches below the collar and a left chest logo about 3 inches below the neckline, covered in the placement section below. Last verified: 2026-10-18 against the provider pages linked at the end. Print areas change per product and per size, so treat the table as a starting point and confirm in the product's own File guidelines tab before you upload. What pixel size should each print area be? The print areas come from Printful's t-shirt placement guide . The pixel columns are arithmetic (inches x DPI), shown at 300 DPI and at 150 DPI. Placement Print area (in) Pixels at 300 DPI Pixels at 150 DPI Full front, most products 12 x 16 3600 x 4800 1800 x 2400 Full front, select upgraded DTG products 15 x 18 4500 x 5400 2250 x 2700 Back (DTG) 10 x 12 up to 12 x 16, depending on product 3000 x 3600 up to 3600 x 4800 1500 x 1800 up to 1800 x 2400 Center chest typically 6 x 6 up to 10 x 8 (8 x 8 most common) 1800 x 1800 up to 3000 x 2400 900 x 900 up to 1500 x 1200 Left chest 2.5 x 2.5 up to 5 x 5 750 x 750 up to 1500 x 1500 375 x 375 up to 750 x 750 Sleeve most often up to 4 x 3.5 1200 x 1050 600 x 525 Two caveats. Printful says it is upgrading the full front area from 12 x 16 to 15 x 18 inches for select DTG products and sizes, so check which one your product uses. Printify's knowledge hub uses a 4500 x 5400 px canvas (15 x 18 inches at 300 DPI) and asks for a minimum of 300 DPI at physical scale, but that is blog guidance, and Printify says the Product Creator shows the actual requirement for each print area. Embroidery is different: it uses stitch-ready artwork, and Printful lists a 4 x 4 inch maximum for left chest and center chest embroidery. The rest of this article is about printed (DTG) files. How do inches and DPI turn into pixels? Pixels = print width in inches x DPI. DPI is the number of pixels laid across each printed inch, so the same file gets less detailed as it is printed bigger. To check any file, divide its pixel width by the print width in inches. Example (illustrative artwork, not provider data): a 1500 x 1500 pixel illustration. Printed width Effective DPI Against Printful's 150 minimum 5 in (left chest) 1500 / 5 = 300 Above it 10 in (center chest) 1500 / 10 = 150 At the minimum 12 in (full front width) 1500 / 12 = 125 Below it The same artwork works on the chest and fails across the whole front. Printful's own example makes the same point: a 5 x 5 inch design at 100 DPI doubled to 10 x 10 inches is cut to 50 DPI. Is 150 DPI or 300 DPI the right target? Printful states the 150 DPI minimum applies to most products, and that phone cases and stickers need 300. Printify recommends 300 DPI for PNG and JPEG, and says a lower resolution may be enough depending on the product (its help center article, which blocked direct access when we checked, so this wording comes from the search-result text of that page). For a shirt, 150 DPI is usually enough for bold shapes and large lettering. Thin lines and small type are where extra pixels show. Printful advises not exceeding 300 DPI. What does a provider do with a file that is too small? Neither provider's pages we could read promise a rescue. Changing the DPI tag in an editor adds no detail, it only relabels the same pixels. Printful warns that enlarging lowers DPI, and Printify's knowledge hub says to avoid upscaling low-resolution web images. Rebuild or regenerate the art at the target pixel size instead. Where does a logo go on a t-shirt? Placement is measured from the collar. From Printful's placement guide : Full front: 3 to 4 inches below the collar. Center chest: 3 to 3.5 inches below the collar. Left chest: about 3 inches below the neckline and 2 inches from the armpit. Back (DTG): upper back, between the shoulder blades. Printful calls these general guidelines and says exact positions vary by shirt size. Printify's design size article gives other numbers (for example, left chest roughly 4 to 6 inches below the collar in one place and 3 inches in another), so rely on the mockup for the product you actually use. What size is a standard, oversized or pocket-position print? Standard is the table above. An oversized look is a full-front file at the maximum area, which is why the 15 x 18 inch products matter if you want more than 12 x 16. A pocket-position design is a left chest print of 2.5 x 2.5 to 5 x 5 inches, so the file can be small: 1500 x 1500 pixels covers the largest case at 300 DPI. Printful's guide does not mention pockets, so for shirts with a real pocket, use the mockup generator. How does the design scale on youth, small and 3XL shirts? Printful says larger sizes need slightly more spacing below the collar but gives no measurement. Printify's design size article says its designs are sized on a size L garment, that anything smaller is automatically scaled down, and that sizes above L are not scaled up (this is a Printify blog statement, not a Printful rule). Check the smallest and largest size you sell, not only the medium. What file type and color profile should I use? Format: PNG. JPG cannot store transparency and may print with a white background (Printful). Transparency: use a transparent background and check it in your editor before uploading. Printify's guidance asks for pixels that are either fully solid or fully transparent, because soft glows and feathered shadows can leave a chalky white ring. Color profile: sRGB (Printful names sRGB IEC61966-2.1). Printful converts to CMYK for printing. Ribbed garments: Printful prints them unstretched, so ink sits on the ribs and gaps can show when the shirt stretches. Avoid fine detail there. What should I check before uploading? Pixel width divided by print width in inches: at least 150 on Printful, 300 where you can. Canvas matches the product's current print area for the size you sell. PNG with a transparent background, no leftover white box. No soft semi-transparent edges if the provider asks for it (Printify). sRGB profile. Thin lines are thick enough to survive on fabric. Full-front offset is 3 to 4 inches from the collar, checked in the mockup. Looked at the smallest and largest size, not only the middle one. The free print size checker runs the pixel check on the Printful 12 x 16 inch front area from your image dimensions, no account needed. In Slop City, the design-to-listing agent runs this same check before a design goes to a provider. The file should also match the mockup in the listing, which matters for the rules around Etsy listings . If you are still choosing what to print, see how to validate a niche , and the cost of each shirt is a separate question. More at /pricing . FAQ What size should a t-shirt design be for print on demand? Export a transparent PNG at 3600 x 4800 pixels for a standard 12 x 16 inch front. Printful accepts 150 DPI on most products (1800 x 2400 pixels), so the product's File guidelines tab is the final word. Is 150 DPI enough for a print on demand t-shirt? On Printful, yes, it is the stated minimum for most products. Printify recommends 300 DPI. Should a print on demand design be a PNG with a transparent background? Yes. Printful says JPG cannot hold transparency and may print with a white background. What happens if my file is too small? Enlarging lowers effective DPI. Printful's example: 100 DPI at 5 x 5 inches becomes 50 DPI at 10 x 10 inches, which prints soft. Sources (read 2026-10-18) Printful: Create the perfect DTG file Printful: T-shirt design placement guide Printify Help Center: What type of print files does Printify require? Printify Knowledge Hub: PNG file setup for t-shirts Printify Blog: T-shirt design size # How Much Profit Does a Print on Demand Shirt Make? URL: https://slopship.com/blog/print-on-demand-profit-per-shirt Most print on demand shirts net somewhere between $2 and $15, and a 20% to 40% margin is the usual planning target (Printful's own margin guide gives that range). In the worked example below the same shirt makes $3.27 at $24.99 and $12.32 at $34.99, so price, ad fees and reprints decide the result. The rest of this page is the arithmetic, line by line, so you can swap in your own numbers. What this page adds: Etsy fees come from Etsy's own policy pages, every provider figure is labelled "example", and the ad-fee case and the reprint reserve are separate lines instead of being hidden in a flat percentage. All figures in the worked example are not quotes from a provider. Provider catalog prices change and differ by country and print method, so read yours live from the Printful catalog or Printify catalog before relying on any result. Last verified: 2026-10-18. The short answer Example assumptions (not provider quotes): a unisex tee with one front print costs $13.00 to make, $5.00 to ship in the US, is listed on Etsy with shipping included in the price, and 5% of orders are reprinted or refunded. Selling price Fees Cost + reserve Profit Margin $24.99 $2.82 $18.90 $3.27 13.1% $29.99 $3.30 $18.90 $7.79 26.0% $34.99 $3.77 $18.90 $12.32 35.2% Break-even is about $21.38 with no ads. If an offsite ad drives the sale, break-even rises to about $25.63. A single "20 to 40%" figure hides these assumptions: the same shirt spans 13% to 35% here with no change in cost. The cost stack for one shirt (worked example) Every sale passes through the same lines. Write them in this order and nothing gets lost. Base cost and print cost The provider charges one price for the blank garment plus the print. Printful's catalog price for a shirt covers the blank plus one print and varies with print technique, placement, color and size, so a "from" price on a listing page is the cheapest variant, not your variant. Pick the exact color, size range and technique you will sell and record that price. For the example we use $13.00 (example, not a quote). Placement and file quality also change what you can sell. See print file size for t-shirts for the pixel math, because a rejected or reprinted file is a cost line (see below). Shipping, and when it is charged twice Providers price shipping by product category: a first item rate and a lower rate for each additional item in the same order. Printful's shipping page lists, for T-shirts, tank tops, long sleeves and polos, a standard US rate of EUR 4.69 for the first item and EUR 2.10 for each additional item (page read 2026-10-18; it displayed euros and we found no USD figure, so check your own currency view). The second shirt is EUR 2.59 cheaper to ship than the first. The trap: if a buyer orders a shirt and a mug and they come from two providers, or from two fulfilment locations, you pay the first-item rate twice. Check whether your listing lets buyers combine items from different providers, and price shipping as if they will. Example shipping for this page: $5.00 per shirt. Marketplace and payment fees On Etsy, the fee stack for a US seller is a $0.20 listing fee, a 6.5% transaction fee and payment processing of 3% plus $0.25. These are the rates in Etsy's Fees & Payments Policy and Etsy Payments policy (read 2026-10-18). The transaction fee applies to the item price plus any shipping and gift wrap you charge, and processing applies to the whole order, so charging shipping separately does not avoid fees. The example includes shipping in the item price, so fees are calculated on the price shown. For a store on your own site, the card processor replaces the marketplace. Stripe's standard rate for domestic online cards is 2.9% plus $0.30, with extra for international cards (+1.5%), currency conversion (+1%), and manually entered cards (+0.5%) (read 2026-10-18). Fee total at $29.99: 6.5% is $1.95, 3% is $0.90 plus $0.25, plus the $0.20 listing, which is $3.30. Ads, refunds and reprints (the hidden line) Etsy's Offsite Ads fee is charged only when a buyer clicks an ad and buys, at 15% of the attributed order total (item, shipping and gift wrap) for shops under $10,000 in sales over the prior 365 days, or 12% once a shop reaches $10,000. Etsy caps it at $100 per order, and attribution requires a click on the ad followed by an order within 30 days. At $29.99 that is $4.50, which wipes out more than half of the example profit. Reprints and refunds are the line almost every calculator drops. If a misprint is the provider's fault check your provider's reprint policy for what it covers; a customer-side problem (wrong size ordered, low-resolution file, address error) is yours. The example reserves 5% of the $18.00 fulfilment cost, which is $0.90 per shirt. This is an assumption, not a benchmark. Replace it with your own rate after 50 to 100 orders. The reserve scales: each extra percent of orders redone costs $0.18 per shirt here. How to set a refund-rate guardrail, and what providers cover, is in POD refunds, chargebacks and shipping promises . Break-even and target price at three price points Fees in the example are 9.5% of the price plus $0.45, and fulfilment plus reserve is $18.90. So: Break-even price = (18.90 + 0.45) / (1 - 0.095) = $21.38 . Price for a 30% margin = 19.35 / (0.905 - 0.30) = $31.98 . With a 15% offsite ad on the sale, fees are 24.5% of price plus $0.45: break-even = 19.35 / 0.755 = $25.63 , and a 30% margin needs 19.35 / (0.755 - 0.30) = $42.53 . Price No ad profit With 15% ad profit With ad margin $24.99 $3.27 -$0.48 -1.9% $29.99 $7.79 $3.29 11.0% $34.99 $12.32 $7.07 20.2% Read this table before choosing a launch price. A shirt that clears 26% organically can lose money on an ad-driven sale. Decide your price for the ad case if you cannot opt out; shops that have not reached $10,000 in sales can opt out of Offsite Ads, per Etsy's help center ; at $10,000 participation becomes mandatory at the 12% rate, where the example break-even is about $24.65. You can run these numbers with your own costs in the POD profit calculator . Tracking this per order by hand is where most stores lose the thread. Slop City records cost, fees and refunds against each order automatically, so you see profit per sale instead of a monthly guess. See /pricing . Hoodies, mugs and posters: where the margin is thinner Heavier products raise both production and shipping cost while buyers resist higher prices. All inputs below are examples; fees use the same 9.5% plus $0.45 and a 5% reserve. Product (example) Make + ship Price Fees Reserve Profit Margin Hoodie $32.00 + $9.00 $54.99 $5.67 $2.05 $6.27 11.4% Mug $9.00 + $5.00 $18.99 $2.25 $0.70 $2.04 10.7% Poster $9.50 + $5.00 $24.99 $2.82 $0.73 $6.94 27.8% The pattern, not the figures, is the point: the flat $0.45 and fixed shipping weigh most on low-priced items, and heavy items carry shipping that does not shrink with price. Check each category's live catalog price; mugs and posters can sit well above or below the examples. When a paid plan with a discount pays for itself Providers sell subscriptions that discount product prices. Printful's pricing page lists a Growth plan at $24.99 a month with up to 33% off product pricing, free once you reach $12,000 a year in sales. Printify's pricing page lists Premium from $39 a month billed monthly or from $24.99 a month billed yearly, with up to 20% off all products and up to 33% on new products (read 2026-10-18). "Up to" matters: the full discount does not apply to every item. Break-even volume = monthly fee / discount per shirt. Assuming a 20% discount on the $13.00 example shirt, the saving is $2.60. A $24.99 plan pays for itself at 24.99 / 2.60 = 9.6, so 10 shirts a month. A $39 plan needs 15. Under 10 sales a month, the plan costs more than it saves; at 100 a month it is worth about $260 minus the fee. Check whether the discount applies to shipping (assumed no here). Common mistakes that turn a profit into a loss Pricing from the "from" price on a catalog page instead of your color, size and print method. Forgetting that fees apply on shipping you charge, or pricing a free-shipping listing at a pre-fee margin. Ignoring the ad case when an ad fee applies automatically. Counting a discounted plan price without checking your monthly volume. Using a flat reprint rate of zero. Even 5% costs $0.90 per shirt here. Selling a design you cannot defend. A takedown costs the whole listing; see can I sell a phrase on a t-shirt . FAQ What is a realistic profit margin on a print on demand shirt? In the example, about 13% at $24.99, 26% at $29.99 and 35% at $34.99 with no ads. Subtract every line instead of using a flat percentage. Is print on demand profitable with Etsy offsite ads? Only at higher prices. The $29.99 shirt falls from 26% to 11% margin when the 15% fee applies, and break-even rises from $21.38 to $25.63. Why is my real profit lower than my calculator says? Usually reprints and refunds, shipping charged twice across providers, and fees on the shipping amount. Do print on demand subscription plans pay for themselves? Above a monthly volume. At a 20% discount on a $13.00 shirt, a $24.99 plan breaks even at about 10 shirts a month. Does this apply to dropshipping stocked products? No. Made-to-order items carry reprint and production-time effects stocked goods do not. See dropshipping profit margin after shipping and fees . Sources (read 2026-10-18) Printful pricing Printful shipping rates Printify pricing Stripe pricing Etsy Fees & Payments Policy Etsy Payments policy How Etsy's Offsite Ads work Printful margin guide Printful catalog , Printify catalog Built a number you want tracked per order? See plans . # POD Refunds, Chargebacks and Shipping Promises URL: https://slopship.com/blog/print-on-demand-refunds-chargebacks-shipping-times POD Refunds, Chargebacks and Shipping Promises On a print on demand order the provider pays for defects it caused (misprints, damage, wrong item) and you pay for everything else: buyer's remorse, sizes the buyer chose, bad addresses and any chargeback fee. The buyer sees one seller, you, so match what you promise the buyer to what your provider covers. This is general information, not legal advice. Who pays for a refund, reprint or return on a print on demand order? Situation Provider covers? You absorb Buyer's legal position (summary) Misprint, damaged or defective item (reported inside the provider's window, with photos where asked) Yes: free reprint or refund Nothing, if you file the claim in the window Entitled to a fix or refund Wrong size or color the buyer chose No Base cost plus shipping if you refund No automatic right to return a personalised item (see below) Buyer changed their mind, standard shirt, EU or UK No Base cost, if you accept the return 14 day cancellation right unless the goods are personalised Wrong or incomplete address Mostly no. Printify offers a paid replacement or partial refund; Printful reships at your cost Reprint or reship cost Usually still owed an order Package lost in transit Usually yes, within the claim window Nothing if claimed in time Entitled to delivery or refund Late delivery past your stated date No Refund or goodwill gesture FTC rule requires a delay notice and a cancel option Chargeback No, treat as your cost Order value plus Stripe fees Issuer decides The table summarises the sources at the bottom. Provider help pages change and some blocked automated access, so I could confirm part of each policy only from archived copies and search extracts. Check the live page before you rely on a window or exclusion. What do Printful and Printify cover for defects and misprints? Both use the same shape: report a problem with the order, and they reprint or refund when the fault is theirs. Printful. Its help center describes reprint or refund for misprinted, damaged or defective items, and says you do not have to send the product back. The current help center gives 30 days from delivery to report a problem with a received product. An older archived version of the page said four weeks, and lost-package claims were measured from the estimated delivery date, so treat the exact window as something to check. Quality claims need clear photos, and approved refunds go to your Printful Wallet by default. Wrong size or color ordered, and change of mind, are not covered because every item is made to order. Printify. Its "When is a product eligible for replacement?" article (archived copy, 2023) gives 30 days from delivery for an incorrect or faulty product, reported through Submit Issue on the order. If several products share a design, it asks for one photo or video showing all affected items in a single frame. It excludes four cases: a lost order with an incorrect address from your customer, a buyer who wants another size or color, a garment with a size deviation under 1 inch from the size guide, and low-quality prints caused by a low-quality design. For an order returned because of an incomplete address it offers a replacement at an additional charge or a partial refund. That list of exclusions is where sellers lose money. A blurry file is the clearest example: the reprint is on you (the file rules are in the print file size article ). Worked example (illustrative numbers, not a price quote): a shirt sells for $30. The provider charges $12 for the shirt plus $5 shipping, and fees on the sale are about $2. If the print arrives misaligned beyond tolerance and you claim inside 30 days with a photo, the provider reprints and you keep the order. If the buyer ordered a medium and wanted a large, you refund $30, the provider refunds nothing, and you are out the $17 provider cost plus any sale fees that are not returned. Nobody did anything wrong, which is why this case belongs in your listing text, not in your inbox. Do you have to accept change-of-mind returns on personalised items in the US, EU and UK? US. There is no federal right to return an item for change of mind. Your return policy is whatever you state, and marketplaces may impose their own rules. Etsy's Purchase Protection for sellers can cover qualifying orders up to $250 that never arrive, arrive late, or arrive damaged, provided the order matches your listing and you meet its tracking and good-standing conditions. For damaged items, Etsy's policy supports your first eligible case and then once per calendar year, so otherwise you resolve damage cases yourself. Read the current policy before relying on it. EU. The Consumer Rights Directive (2011/83/EU) gives consumers 14 days to withdraw from a distance contract without giving a reason (Article 9), and you must refund within 14 days of being told of the decision (Article 13). Article 16(c) removes that right for "goods made to the consumer's specifications or clearly personalised." A shirt printed with a buyer's own name or uploaded photo fits. A catalogue design you printed for sale to anyone is made to order, but arguably not personalised, so do not assume the exemption covers it. Member states implement the directive, so check the country you sell into most. UK. The Consumer Contracts Regulations 2013 give a 14 day cancellation period after delivery. GOV.UK tells businesses that if they do not tell the customer about the right, it extends to 12 months. Regulation 28(1)(b) exempts goods "made to the consumer's specifications or clearly personalised." The same caution applies to stock designs. Practical rule: state in the listing which items are final sale and why ("printed to order after you pay"), and refund defects without argument. A clear statement does not create the legal exemption, but it removes the surprise that causes most disputes. What shipping time can you promise on a print on demand store? The US FTC Mail, Internet, or Telephone Order Merchandise Rule (16 CFR 435.2) sets the rule for shipping promises: You need a reasonable basis to expect to ship within the time you clearly state. If you state none, the default is 30 days after a properly completed order. If you cannot ship in time, you must offer the buyer, without being asked, the choice to accept the delay or cancel for a prompt refund, with a revised shipping date. Keep records. The rule lets the FTC treat a seller without evidence of on-time shipping in the ordinary course as lacking a reasonable basis. Your provider ships, so build the promise from its current production and carrier figures. Stripe's own dispute-prevention guidance for unreceived products says the same in plain terms: communicate shipping times before checkout, communicate delays quickly with a refund option, and send tracking. Shipping-promise checklist Production and carrier times differ by product and destination, so run this per product: Read the provider's current production time for this exact product. Write the slow end, not the average. Read the carrier estimate for each region you sell into. Use the slow end again. Add the two and put the total in the listing, before the buy button, as a date range. Check that your store's checkout shows the same range as the listing. A mismatch is the first thing a dispute reviewer sees. Decide in advance who sends delay notices and when: the day an order crosses your stated window, not when the buyer asks. Send tracking to the buyer automatically, and keep order timestamps, the provider's ship confirmation and tracking events in one place. That is your proof you ship in the ordinary course. Split orders: if a cart contains items from two providers, the buyer gets two parcels and two timelines. Say so at checkout. What evidence wins a print on demand chargeback? When a cardholder disputes a charge, the issuer pulls the money back immediately. With Stripe in the US, you pay a $15 fee when the dispute is received. If you counter, Stripe lists a further $15 for disputes started after June 17, 2025, returned if you win. The received fee is never returned. Other countries have different amounts. Example (illustrative, ignoring sale fees): a $30 order with $17 already paid to the provider, so $13 of expected margin. Lose the dispute and you end at minus $32: no revenue, $17 of cost, $15 received fee. Win it and you end at minus $2: the $30 comes back, the counter fee is returned, but the $15 received fee is not. Rules that matter before you respond: You get one submission. Stripe says you get one chance to submit evidence and cannot edit it. The response window is typically 7 to 21 days depending on the card network, and missing it loses the dispute. The bank reads only what you attach. Stripe tells you not to include links, video or audio, or requests to call. Combine files per evidence type into one document, 4.5 MB combined at most. Contact the buyer first. A refund or replacement before the dispute is formally filed is far cheaper. Stripe notes that settling the claim amicably, for example with a store credit or replacement, may get the buyer to withdraw the dispute. Refund and chargeback decision table What the buyer claims Best move Evidence to gather "Item not received" Check tracking. If delivered, send proof; if not, refund or reship Tracking with delivery scan, shipping address match, your stated delivery range, delay notices "Not as described" or "defective" Refund or reprint if the photo shows a real defect Listing photos and text, provider claim record, buyer messages "Wrong size ordered" Offer a partial refund or store credit if margin allows; hold if policy is stated Order record showing the selected size, size chart link, final-sale text shown at checkout "I never agreed to the order" (fraud) Check whether 3D Secure applied; respond if it did Order IP and email, delivery to the card's billing region, Stripe's automatic 3D Secure data Buyer cancelled after production started Refund if you can, since the item is already made Production timestamp, cancellation message, policy text Refund first when it costs less than the dispute fee plus the lost order, which for most POD items it does. Do it before the buyer escalates. Stripe says the monitoring programs do not consider refunds when identifying disputes, so a refund does not erase one already filed. When should you pause a print on demand product with a high refund rate? Card networks watch dispute ratios, not refund ratios, and for a small store the thresholds are far away. Per Stripe's documentation of the programs, Visa's VAMP lists a non-compliant threshold of 0.5% and a count of 5, and an excessive threshold of 1.5% and a count of 1,500 outside the CEMEA region, which includes the US and EU. Visa counts early fraud warnings together with disputes. Mastercard's Excessive Chargeback Merchant program starts at 100 to 299 chargebacks and a 1.5% to 2.99% rate, both required. Stripe itself calls the programs comparatively rare. Do not quote a single "1%" figure from a blog, because the networks changed these rules recently and the figures differ by program. For a small store the practical guardrail is internal: if refunds or reprints on one product exceed what your margin can carry, stop selling it and find the cause. The usual suspects are a size chart that misleads, a file that prints darker than the mockup, or a shipping promise longer than the listing says. Track refund and reprint rates per product, not per store. The POD profit calculator lets you set a refund and reprint rate and see where the margin turns negative. If you would rather not keep that spreadsheet by hand, Slop City's agents record cost and fees per order (see pricing ). To see how refund and reprint rates feed into unit economics, read how much profit a print on demand shirt makes . If you ship from a supplier rather than a print provider, dropshipping profit after shipping and fees covers the same sensitivity. Marketplace rules on what you can list are in is print on demand allowed on Etsy . Sources (last verified 2026-10-18) FTC Mail, Internet, or Telephone Order Merchandise Rule, 16 CFR 435.2: https://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/16/435.2 Directive 2011/83/EU, Articles 9, 13 and 16(c): https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=CELEX:32011L0083 UK Consumer Contracts Regulations 2013, regulation 28: https://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2013/3134/regulation/28 GOV.UK, consumer contracts regulations for businesses: https://www.gov.uk/online-and-distance-selling-for-businesses/consumer-contracts-regulations Stripe, responding to disputes: https://docs.stripe.com/disputes/responding Stripe, dispute monitoring programs: https://docs.stripe.com/disputes/monitoring-programs Stripe, June 2025 dispute pricing update: https://support.stripe.com/questions/june-2025-pricing-updates-for-disputes Printful help center, how returns differ for quality issues and change of mind (archived): https://help.printful.com/hc/en-us/articles/360014006840 Printful help center, how long to submit a claim (archived 2020 copy, says 4 weeks; current help center states 30 days): https://help.printful.com/hc/en-us/articles/360014007180 Printify help center, when is a product eligible for replacement (archived 2023 copy): https://help.printify.com/hc/en-us/articles/4483625769105 Etsy, Purchase Protection program for sellers: https://www.etsy.com/legal/policy/purchase-protection-program-for-sellers/1490256729373 FAQ Who pays for a returned print on demand order? For change of mind on a made-to-order item, the provider does not take it back, so you either refuse the return (where the law allows) or refund the buyer and absorb the base cost. For defects and misprints, Printful and Printify both say they reprint or refund when you report within their window (30 days of delivery at the time of checking). Printful says you do not need to send the faulty product back. Do I have to accept returns on personalised print on demand items in the EU or UK? Both the EU Consumer Rights Directive (Article 16(c)) and the UK Consumer Contracts Regulations (regulation 28(1)(b)) exempt goods made to the consumer's specifications or clearly personalised from the 14 day cancellation right. A standard catalogue design printed on a stock shirt is a grey area, so state your policy in the listing and treat defects as always refundable. How much does a Stripe chargeback cost a seller? In the US, Stripe charges $15 when a dispute is received and, for disputes started after June 17, 2025, another $15 if you counter it. The countering fee is returned if you win. The received fee is not. You also lose the disputed amount unless you win. What shipping time can I promise on a print on demand store? Promise production time plus the slowest carrier estimate for the buyer's region, taken from your provider's current figures, and state it before checkout. Under the US FTC rule, if you state a time you need a reasonable basis to meet it, and if you state none you have 30 days. Should I pause a product with a high refund rate? Pause or fix it when refunds cluster on one product or one fulfilment problem, because the cause is usually the file, the size chart or the shipping promise. Card network monitoring programs count disputes, not refunds, but every unresolved complaint is a possible dispute.