Why I Quit Print-on-Demand After 3 Months (And When I Might Try Again)

I spent three months trying to build a print-on-demand t-shirt business. The tools were easy, the designs were fun, but the numbers never made sense.

Here's what happened, what I learned, and why I'm not writing off POD forever—just shelving it until the timing is right.

The Setup: Tools I Used

My POD stack was straightforward:

Printify for production and fulfillment. They handle printing and shipping, connecting to multiple print providers. The product catalog is huge, and the base costs seemed reasonable at first.

Placeit for mockups. Clean product photos without actually printing samples. Worth the subscription if you're doing a lot of designs.

Canva for design work. I'm not a designer, so Canva's templates let me create decent-looking designs quickly. Pro subscription unlocked better fonts and graphics.

Etsy as my storefront. Built-in traffic, established marketplace, reasonable fees. Seemed like the obvious choice to start.

Total monthly overhead before selling a single shirt: around $45-60 depending on which tools I was actively using.

The Problem: Math That Doesn't Math

The numbers killed this experiment fast.

A basic t-shirt cost me about $12-15 in production and shipping through Printify. Etsy takes a 6.5% transaction fee plus $0.20 listing fee. Payment processing adds another 3% + $0.25.

To make any profit, I needed to price shirts at $25-30 minimum.

But the competition was brutal.

Search Etsy for "funny t-shirt" or any popular niche. You'll find thousands of sellers pricing at $18-22. Many have hundreds of reviews. Some are clearly running on razor-thin margins or treating POD as a marketing channel for other products.

I had two choices:

Price competitively at $20-22 and make $2-3 per shirt (before overhead)
Price for profit at $28-30 and get buried in search results

Neither option worked without traffic I could control.

What Actually Worked: The Creative Part

Here's what I did enjoy:

Design iteration was fast. Canva + Printify made it easy to test ideas. I could go from concept to listed product in under an hour.

Learning color theory and typography. Even basic design principles improved my marketing materials for other projects.

Understanding production constraints. Knowing what actually prints well matters for any product business, not just apparel.

The creative process was genuinely fun. If I'd had an audience to sell to, this would have been a great side revenue stream.

The Real Issue: No Audience

This is the core problem with starting POD from scratch.

Without an existing audience:

You're 100% dependent on Etsy's search algorithm
You're competing with established sellers who have reviews and history
You can't price for profit because you need volume first
Every sale requires fighting through massive competition

POD works best as a monetization channel for an audience you already have.

If I had:

A YouTube channel with 10K subscribers
An active Twitter following interested in my niche
An email list of engaged readers
A community that already knew and trusted me

Then POD makes total sense. You're selling to people who already want to support you. The competition doesn't matter because they're buying from you, not just buying a t-shirt.

The Tools Were Fine, The Timing Was Wrong

None of my tools were the problem:

Printify worked exactly as advertised. Product quality was good, shipping was reliable, the platform was easy to use.

Etsy gave me access to buyers I couldn't reach on my own. Their fees were fair for the traffic.

Canva and Placeit made me look more professional than I actually am.

The issue wasn't the tools. It was starting a competitive retail business with no built-in advantage.

When I'll Try POD Again

I'm not done with print-on-demand. I'm just pausing until the conditions are right.

I'll revisit POD when:

I have an audience. Once I hit 1,000+ engaged followers on Twitter or YouTube, POD becomes a no-brainer way to monetize. Design shirts my audience actually wants, announce on social, skip the Etsy grind entirely.

I have a strong brand identity. Generic funny t-shirts are a race to the bottom. Designs that reflect a specific brand, inside jokes from content, or visual identity from an existing project—those have pricing power.

I can drive my own traffic. Whether that's from a blog (like this one), a podcast, social media, or another project—I need traffic I control. Relying on marketplace search is a losing game for new sellers.

Lessons for Other Creative Side Hustles

This experiment taught me something bigger than just POD:

Tools are cheap and accessible. Attention is expensive.

You can spin up almost any online business for under $100/month now. POD, digital products, SaaS, content sites—the barriers are gone.

The hard part isn't building. It's getting people to care.

I'd rather spend my time building an audience first, then monetize with products that audience wants. Not build products and hope to find buyers.

What I'm Doing Instead

Right now I'm focused on:

Building software products that solve my own problems (offer.guide for house hunting, Mory for accountability via SMS)

Writing consistently to build trust and demonstrate expertise (you're reading it)

Shipping quickly to validate ideas before overinvesting

These activities build an audience while solving real problems. Once I have that audience, I'll have options—including bringing POD back as one monetization channel among many.

Should You Try Print-on-Demand?

Try it if:

You already have an audience who asks for merch
You create content regularly and want another revenue stream
You have a distinctive brand or visual style
You enjoy the design/creative process

Skip it if:

You're starting with zero audience
You need quick profits to justify the time
You don't want to compete on price
You're looking for passive income (it's not)

POD isn't a bad business model. It's just not a great first business if you're starting from nothing.

What I'm building now: I'm focused on SelfCEO Labs, creating software tools that solve problems I've personally experienced. Follow along at @SelfCEOstrategy or check out my current projects at selfceostrategy.com.