Best Free Print-on-Demand Design Software

Are you looking to start a print-on-demand business? It is a very profitable business, and many people are hopping on the print-on-demand train, so it is a great decision you ought to make. However, you will need quite a lot of things, starting with designs. 

The most significant advantage of print-on-demand software is that you don’t have to be a master to profit from it. Also, if you are wondering, yes, there are many free design software and tools for print-on-demand work. Use today’s blog to make the right choice about design tools, platforms, and ideas. 

With print-on-demand, you can create several items, including custom t-shirts, hoodies, wall art, and beanies. Although you can make some in advance with designs on the website, most people create items when a customer places an order. 

However, the main question that pops up in most people’s minds is how much all the design tools and resources are going to cost me. Well, worry not; you have landed on the right blog today. We have put together some of the best free tools and resource platforms. 

10 Best Tools and Software 

After thorough research, analysis, and understanding, we have picked today’s ten best tools to review. These tools will help you successfully start your print-on-demand business and grow your brand with returning customers.

Best for Design

Creating visually stunning designs is the most significant part of running a print-on-demand business. These designs will then help make custom products that engage the audience and potentially turn them into returning customers. Here are the best design tools.

Canva

If you know a thing or two about designs, you probably must have heard about one of the best web-based free design tools, Canva. It offers thousands of templates, graphic elements, and design ideas to help you kick-start your print-on-demand business.

The free version of Canva offers everything you need for a startup. However, if you want an even larger library of assets and templates, you can purchase the Pro version. Another great thing about Canva is that it has set blank projects for multiple platforms, including presentations, Instagram posts, Facebook posts, posters, and others. 

✔ Pros	❌Cons
User-friendly interface. A large library of templates and design elements. Offers a free version. Includes collaboration features.	No advanced design features. Premium can be costly. Less file export options.

Printful

Printful is another web-based design tool to create engaging designs and mockups for your print-on-demand business. It offers over 700 fonts, 20,000 clipart, hundreds of colors, patterns, and high-quality prints. It is a fairly easy-to-use tool; you can easily learn it online with several guides and information.

Moreover, Printful offers clipart, text, quick design tools, etc. Also, it has several blogs and resources to help you understand how you can create several things and prints using Printful. 

✔ Pros	❌Cons
It is pretty easy to navigate, learn, and use. Does not charge any monthly fees. Provides great high-quality prints.  Offers a wide range of custom branding options.	It has a small product catalog. You cannot really select the print location.

Photopea

Photopea is another popular web-based design tool for print-on-demand working. It offers advanced photo editing tools and the ability to work with vector graphics. It is a free platform that supports PSD and Sketch files and is also supported by popular editing tools like Photoshop, Gimp, etc.

It is very similar to Photoshop and is highly useful for designing, image adjustments, web designing, and editing. Finally, it is free to use and work with for print-on-demand needs. 

✔ Pros	❌Cons
It is easy to use and has a friendly interface.  It helps quickly navigate your workplace and fix or add resources. One of the best editing tools. It offers a range of unique features.	Photopea may seem slow to some people.  It may seem complicated and limited for amateurs and beginners.

Inkscape

If you are familiar with Adobe Illustrator, you will find Inkscape a convenient and accessible tool. It is also a vector-based graphics tool with fewer options and limited file format options. Nonetheless, it is an excellent platform to design images you can later custom print on your product choice.

The native format of the app is SVG and is ideal to use for designing graphics on screens and not printing. You can still import and export designs in formats like PDF, EPS, and PNG. Other than this, it may seem to have a learning curve, but it is relatively easier than Adobe products. It is a powerful option for print-on-demand work, and you should try it. 

✔ Pros	❌Cons
It is a free and fully-featured platform. It offers a robust community and ecosystem. Contains good placement and path tools.  It has a handy website.	It may cause issues on Mac. It may seem difficult for some users to learn and work with. The text formatting could be stronger.

• Placeit

Powered by Envato, Placeit is another excellent design platform that offers over 90,000 templates and mockups. The mockups include various products, such as masks, sportswear, t-shirts, smartphones, laptops, magazines, stationery, cups, bags, Facebook ads, banners, etc.

Besides this, Placeit has a logo creator, video maker, gaming template category, and additional tools like image cropper, video converter, etc. It is available for commercial use, and there is no limit to the number of downloads. 

✔ Pros	❌Cons
The pro version has a reasonable price.  It is easy to learn and use. Provides a great overall experience. Extensive library of assets and templates.	Software may seem slow sometimes and show errors. The content library is not updated too often.

Best for Stocks

Stocks are images, videos, and design files that can help you create the print of your dreams. Many sellers and people working with print-on-demand use stock. Even if you do not want to work with any image, these platforms are still helpful for researching ideas. Below, we have mentioned some of the free, most popular stock file platforms. 

FreePik

Freepik is a free online library of thousands of photos you will find handy when designing. It comes in two versions: free and premium. Although the free version has many great assets, all the high-quality elements, exclusive assets, and easy-to-edit files are available in the premium version. Still, finding good images and assets for your next print-on-demand design is a wonderful tool.

✔ Pros	❌Cons
Wide selection of free assets and resources. The premium version also gives access to Flaticons. The premium version has decently affordable pricing. It is best for beginners or occasional users.	The collection of resources is limited as compared to competitors. The free version has a download limit. There are less diverse ranges of resources for a niche or exact requirement.

Unsplash

Unsplash offers high-quality photos and resources to create wonderful designs. It is a trendy option to search through a wide range of high-quality images taken by photographers worldwide. It has some of the best portraits and landscape photos. The incredible thing is that the whole library is available for free. 

✔ Pros	❌Cons
Huge collection of images from various categories.  You can connect multiple devices, All the high-quality images and photo collections are free to use.  One of the best royalty-free libraries of assets for commercial use.	The collection is still limited compared to most other sites. Many images are very generic and not usable in any way. Sometimes, you may find it hard to get an exact photo.

Pixabay

Pixabay is a popular platform for searching a wide range of design assets, such as illustrations, graphics, and images. The powerful search bar allows you to find what you want from a library of over a million images.

However, you cannot use the images directly for print-on-demand purposes, but you can indeed collect ideas and inspirations. And if you want to use photographs, you must iterate for commercial uses. 

✔ Pros	❌Cons
It is free and easy to use.  It offers a vast library. The collection is impressive. The quality of the images is excellent.	The quality of some resources could be better.  The mobile version could be better.

Stockvault

StockVault is another amazing free stock image platform. You can use the website’s images, graphics, and vectors to create stunning designs for your print-on-demand products. You can even share your ideas and advertise. However, you cannot sell, buy, sublease, rent, or distribute any image of the original creator from the website.

Still, you can use the image by making alterations and adjustments. You can also use it for research purposes. The choice is yours, but at least explore StockVault; it will not disappoint you. 

✔ Pros	❌Cons
It offers a vast library of photos.  Also offers textures and illustrations. The overall quality of the images is excellent.  You can use images after making iterations.	It has three different licenses. You cannot make any image your own in its original state.

Pexels

Lastly, Pexels is our last pick for the stock images website. It is a great platform to find free stock photos, royalty-free images, and videos shared by creators. You can also find assets via hashtags, which makes it easy to find the required content. You can find some of the best images for your products and print-on-demand design ideas.

The best part is that all the images are free to download and use, but you must iterate the photos to use them for commercial purposes.

✔ Pros	❌Cons
Extensive library of stock images spanning more than 40,000. More than 3000 new images every week. A large amount of assets are available for personal and commercial use.  The images are of high quality.	Pexel often edits photos with Photoshop, which makes it difficult for some users to re-edit them. The overall usability of the platform may not be ideal for some users.

Other Great Tools

Any type of extra help is excellent when working with design and print-on-demand. So, in addition to the tools mentioned above for design and resources, we have some extra tools below that will surely come in handy throughout your journey. 

Think With Google

Think With Google is an amazing and free market research tool. It also comes with Google Trends which gives you information about the currently trending topics, user search behavior, and details about topics and keywords according to a particular region.

It is a great keyword research tool, SEO booster, strategy builder, and more. Along with that, Think With Google also includes:

Find My Audience or Google Insights is a fantastic tool for exploring the audience’s likes and dislikes and maximizing reach for print-on-demand businesses.

Grow My Store: It helps you score your store or site, gives you a rating, and provides in-depth evaluation and recommendations for better reach and growth. 

Market Finder: It is a great tool for finding new potential markets to tap into, learning how to operate, and approaching local and international customers. 

WooCommerce

WooCommerce, with WordPress, is the top e-commerce platform. Although it is ideal for large retailers and developers, you can use it too (but it is optional). It does have a steep learning curve, so it is better to get in touch with a reliable developer to help you get your store up and running on WooCommerce by:

Selecting a Hosting Account: Your website will need an active hosting service. Ensure it is a good provider of speed, safety, and reliability.

Setting Up WordPress: It is not hard, but since the developer is setting up everything, they will properly install and set up WordPress for content management. 

Setting Up WooCommerce: The WordPress plugin turns it into an online store. 

Installing Necessary Plugins: Many WordPress plugins are available according to users’ needs and demands. These include, but are not limited to, payment processors, page builders, etc. 

Install a Theme: The look of your website or store is the first impression. It can make or break a deal with a potential customer. So, find inspiration and select the best theme according to your product and needs. 

Maintenance and Updates: A website requires constant monitoring and analysis to ensure it works properly and is reliable and engaging for customers.

Figma Mockup Plugins

Figma is one of the amazing vector-based design, project management, and collaboration tools that offer free mockup plugins. It is perfect for creating high-quality product photos in a short amount of time. Moreover, you can easily collaborate with your peers on the products or share your work with your team and management. 

HubSpot

HubSpot is a CRM or Customer Relationship Management platform that helps you grow your business. It offers marketing, sales, customer service, operations, and content management services for every size, niche, and form of business. 

It also comes with a free email marketing tool along with CRM. It is highly beneficial in creating and converting emails with AI help, sending custom-tailored emails, creating powerful and targeted campaigns, and improving your click-through rate and overall engagement.

Buffer

Buffer is an excellent social media management tool that supports Facebook, Instagram, Google My Business Profile, YouTube, LinkedIn, Mastodon, Shopify, Twitter, TikTok, and Pinterest. It has several tools that help you publish posts, increase engagement, track analytics, and create your business landing page. 

Buffer integrates some of the most popular tools, including Canva, Unsplash, Dropbox, and Google Drive, enabling you to stay connected from anywhere. Using these tools, you can easily organize and manage your content and share files across the team. It also has a built-in AI assistant to help you get things done quickly and easily. 

The best part of Buffer is that it offers a free plan, and the premium is not expensive. 

Conclusion

Now that you have a list of the best tools and platforms to pursue your print-on-demand business dream, get started immediately. Running a dropshipping print-on-demand business is not hard if you know how to navigate the market and sell your products. 

After creating designs and products, you will need a reliable supplier. You can either choose a local one or search for suppliers online. Suppliers offer a wide range of amazing products that will help you grow your business easily. 

Finally, when everything is set and done, you can visit our blog’s “other great tools” section. It has the tools to research the market, start your store, approach potential customers via email, and promote your store and business on social media. 

With so many resources and tools available online for free, starting your own print-on-demand business has never been easier. However, we advise you to start with a single type of item, like t-shirts. Create beautiful, unique, and different designs and check the response. After that, gradually increase your arsenal and merchandise.

It will not become a burden in the start and eventually grow up to become an amazing store.

So, explore our tools, find the one that suits your needs best, channel your creativity, and build print-on-demand designs today!