Gelato has been one of the fastest-rising players in the POD game. The enterprise is certainly making all the right noise, and this is what caught our attention.
In this Gelato review, we’ll look at the custom products they offer, pricing, features, printing technologies, and more.
What is Gelato Print on Demand?
Gelato offers the broadest and deepest portfolio of high-quality products amongst any Print on Demand company when it comes to wall art (posters, framed posters, canvases, acrylic, aluminum, wood print), calendars, and cards. In the apparel segment, they offer all the base products (t-shirts, hoodies, long sleeves, tank tops, long sleeves, sportswear, sweatshirts + more).
Though its catalog is ever-expanding, products never fail to feel premium and hand-selected.
Gelato’s shop has apparel for men, women, and kids (premium and organic options available), an extensive selection of wall art, tote bags, stationery items, mugs, calendars, mobile cases, photo books, cards, and more.
Whether you are a beginner or a pro, Gelato makes establishing your POD business absolutely seamless and stress-free.
Company
You can unlock your business’s true potential by expanding it globally, but it’s easier said than done, isn’t it? This is where Gelato shines the most. With 130+ production partners across 33 countries, the company brings you access to a global network and allows you to utilize its resources to sell worldwide. By producing your items locally, this software company helps to reduce carbon emissions and drive down costs and shipping times.
Printing Technologies
Gelato offers a variety of printing technologies. Some printing technologies may not be available for all products.
Printing Technologies
Direct to Garment (DTG)
This is the most common method for apparel. It is a digital printing method that uses inkjet printers to deposit ink pixel by pixel. The ink soaks into the clothing fibers, which creates a quality final product. The image is not likely to be damaged with repeat washing.
The DTG is the standard process because it is the same as digital printing for paper. They also offer sublimation, and embroidery is coming soon.
Gelato doesn’t offer screen printing, but additional print areas and alternative techniques will be launched soon to offer customers more opportunities for branding and customization.
Pricing
Gelato is free to use – you only pay for the products your customers order. There’s a free plan available, so if you sell nothing, you owe nothing. Once your business grows, you can opt to purchase a subscription plan that offers a range of benefits for print-on-demand business owners.
Pricing
You’ll pay around $8 to $25 for each piece of clothing. For non-clothing print-on-demand products, you’ll pay anywhere from $4 to $88. Gelato prices do not include shipping. Since Gelato has an international network of printers, products will be fulfilled as close as possible to your customer. This helps cut down production and shipping time, so your customers get their products faster. Plus, you reduce your carbon footprint, which is good for the environment.
Gelato+ is available for $14.99/month or $139/year. With it, you can access:
- Premium apparel mockups
- Premium wall art mockups
- Product personalization
- Graphic images and image filters
- Access to over 1 million royalty-free Shutterstock files to use on your products
- Fulfillment automation with live shipping rates
- One-click product expansion
- Automatic file upload for personalized orders
- 30% off all standard shipping
The plan includes 5 users across 10 stores. It comes with a 30-day free trial.
With Gelato+ Gold, priced at $99/month or $999/year, you can get even deeper discounts, including up to a 50% discount on shipping rates. Purchasing the annual plan gives up 30 days of free shipping. You’ll also get:
- 25 connected ecommerce stores
- 20 account users
- 30% branded labels and packaging inserts
- dedicated Customer Success Manager.
Gelato also offers a Platinum plan with a customized pricing model suited to meet your business needs. You’ll get everything in Gold, plus:
- Fixed-rate shipping on all orders Gelato produces locally
- Dedicated implementation services
- Expert hours with Gelato’s solutions consulting team
Free shipping and shipping discounts are limited to the USA, Canada, Europe, Australia, New Zealand, Brazil, Singapore, and Japan.
Features
Gelato offers a product personalization tool that allows shoppers on all platforms to personalize their designs. They also have automation options that can help to automate the customization process.
Features
Gelato features a design tool and mockup generator. This way, you can see what your products will look like beforehand. You can use the images from the mockup generator as product images in your store, too.
Gelato doesn’t offer design services. If you’re not a designer or someone who is comfortable with Canva, you can hire a freelancer to create your designs for you.
Gelato doesn’t offer warehousing services like Printful does. This isn’t a deal-breaker for most since the point of POD is not to carry inventory.
Gelato supports personalization for all platforms, but Shopify is the only one that allows shoppers to do their own personalization during the purchase process. You can also use Gelato without an online store if you’re okay with manually entering all the order information every time a customer places an order.
Gelato now offers customized packaging inserts and personalized packaging labels for customers on the Gelato+ and Gelato+ Gold. Pricing starts at $0.49 each with Gelatlo+ Gold. Once you activate and configure the branding in your account, you can create or upload existing designs. If you have multiple ecommerce stores in your account, you can adjust the branding and have different designs for each. Unlike Printful, you don’t need to send your packaging to a warehouse – Gelato prints its packaging inserts and personalized packaging on-demand and adds it to your order.
As you receive qualifying orders, the packaging inserts and labels are automatically produced and delivered with your products.
Ecommerce Integrations
Integrating your website and shop with Gelato is easy. They support Shopify, Amazon, Etsy, WooCommerce, Wix.com, eBay, and many more.
Ecommerce Platform Integrations
Marketplace Integrations
Gelato has a marketplace integration for Etsy. Customers working on Amazon, eBay, or other unsupported ecommerce platform can use the Orderdesk integration. Of course, those using custom websites can design their own store freely with the Gelato API. Using the API requires a developer or tech team.
Marketplace Integrations
Customer Support
The Gelato customer support team offers support to its sellers only. You handle customer service with your customers, as with other POD suppliers. Because Gelato is a third-party drop shipper, your customers do not know that Gelato had anything to do with the order.
Customer Support
The company has a vast selection of resources written explicitly with customers’ queries in mind if there’s a problem or a hiccup. They also have 24/7 customer care with a dependable reputation for being friendly, fast turnaround, and incredibly helpful.
Alternatives
If Gelato doesn’t look like your ideal printing partner, consider these alternatives.
Printful
Printful is one of the top POD services we recommend to our readers. We like it because it goes above and beyond other companies. They offer a wide variety of products, along with design and branding services. If your brand grows to where you want to keep some stock on hand for faster fulfillment, you can use their warehousing services, too. Printful costs a bit more per item, but it’s worth the investment for consistency and quality.
Printify
Printify is another big name in the POD industry. It’s like both Printful and Gelato. The major difference is that Printify offers more products overall. You’ll get an international network of print providers to choose from. If you want more variety or you want to take advantage of embroidery, then Printify could be the right choice for your ecommerce business.
GearLaunch
GearLaunch is another solution if you want variety in products and printing technologies. Like Gelato, you can accept international orders – since both platforms ship to many countries across the world. The drawback to GearLaunch is that it only integrates with Shopify stores. If you use another platform, Printful or Printify will work better for you.
Is Gelato Right for Your POD Business?
Gelato is definitely a great option to either start your store or grow your existing one. Its unique approach to local production across the World – reducing costs, shipping times, and carbon emissions. Gelato has the highest average score in Trustpilot in the industry, so its customers are definitely happy with their choice.
Leave Your Gelato Review
Are you currently or have you ever been a Gelato Print on Demand customer? If so, please consider leaving a review of your experience here. The team here at EcommerceCEO puts a great deal of effort into each review here, but we add real value for our readers with reviews from people like you.
