Print on demand

The research was done by AI agents that open web pages. Some sites refuse them; where that happened we say so. The small numbers point to the source list at the end. Where a figure is our own sum or guess, it is marked “our estimate” and the basis is given.

The claim

These are examples of the claim, copied from our collection of 19 tweets on this scheme¹. View counts are as collected. Dates are worked out from each tweet’s ID number. The page judges the scheme, not the people who tweeted.

“Here are 3 Passive Income Streams you can start RIGHT AWAY with MIDJOURNEY AI 1) Coloring Books Top Platform - Amazon KDP 2) Print on Demand Business Top Platform - Red Bubble 3) Sell Artwork Top Platform - Adobe Stock Images”

@KanikaBK, 29 August 2023, 126,818 views¹. The tweet goes on to point to a tutorial video; the text is cut off after that in our copy.

“This girl is using a genius Etsy trick to consistently print $1k+ per day. It’s incredibly challenging to succeed on Etsy by just selling t-shirts or necklaces. The real strategy? Leverage successful designs and feature them on unique, high-margin print-on-demand items.”

@grayfuego, 16 May 2023, 100,094 views¹. The text is cut off after this in our copy.

“Print on demand is huge, so get designing t-shirts, mugs, or anything else with the ChainGPT AI NFT Generator.”

@Chain_GPT, 5 February 2025, 50,168 views¹

“Turn $0 into $1,000 in 30 days with my Print on Demand guide (Worth $500 but free today!)”

@JafarNajafov, 29 January 2024, 23,794 views¹

The collection is small. The 19 tweets have about 360,000 views between them, and the five most-viewed hold 99% of those (our sum)¹. Smaller accounts in the set describe a shop run “on autopilot” with no inventory, or a “hands-off” business built from AI tools¹. We paraphrase those and do not name them.

What the scheme is

Print on demand means selling a product that does not exist until someone orders it. You make a design, or have an AI image tool make one. You upload it to a print provider such as Printify or Printful. You list the product (a t-shirt, mug, poster, tote bag) on a marketplace such as Etsy or in your own Shopify store. Each product page is called a “listing”. When a buyer orders, the print provider prints one item and posts it to the buyer. You keep the difference between the price the buyer paid and what the printer and the marketplace charge.

There is a second version. On Redbubble, TeePublic or Amazon Merch on Demand, you only upload the design. The site sets up the product, finds the buyer, prints and ships, and pays you a small amount per sale (a “royalty” or “artist margin”).

The mechanism is real and the cash needed is small. The question is how many orders the claimed income needs, and where the buyers come from.

The arithmetic

Step 1: what Etsy takes from each order

Etsy’s fee pages refused our tools, directly and through a reader service. We read them as copies saved by the Internet Archive in August and September 2026²³.

• Listing fee: $0.20 per listing. It is charged again every four months and each time the item sells, whether or not anything sells²⁵.
• Transaction fee: 6.5% of the price plus whatever you charge for shipping².
• Payment processing: for a US seller, 3% plus $0.25 per order³. Etsy’s annual report gives a range of 3.0% to 6.5% plus a flat fee across countries⁴.
• Offsite Ads: Etsy advertises listings on other sites. If an order comes from one of those adverts, Etsy takes a further 15%: “The standard fee you will pay is 15% on Attributed Orders”. A shop with under $10,000 of sales in the past 365 days can opt out. Above $10,000 the fee is 12% and the shop cannot opt out, for the life of the shop². This is separate from “Etsy Ads”, which are adverts inside Etsy that the seller chooses to buy and pays for per click.
• Set-up fee: Etsy’s policy says a new shop “may be required to pay a one-time set-up fee” that is not refundable. It does not state the amount². One seller profiled by CNBC gave $15³⁹. A third-party guide also says “typically around $15”⁷⁵.

Step 2: what the printer charges

Printify lists its best-selling t-shirt (a Bella+Canvas unisex tee) from $11.29, or $9.04 on its paid Premium plan, with shipping from $3.99⁶. That is $15.28 delivered on the free plan (our sum). Printful lists the same shirt model at $12.25 before shipping⁷.

Step 3: what is left per shirt

Printify publishes its own worked example for a t-shirt sold on Etsy⁸:

That is 24.7% of the price⁸. It is before adverts, refunds, sample orders and tool subscriptions.

The one tweet in our collection that gives unit figures, from a smaller account, lands in the same place. It uses a $24 price and a $16 cost, leaving $8 “before fees and marketing”¹. Etsy’s fees on $24 are $0.20 + $1.56 + $0.72 + $0.25 = $2.73, so the $8 becomes about $5.27 (our estimate from²³).

If the order came through Etsy’s Offsite Ads, more comes off the $21.70 example. For a new shop that has not opted out, the fee is 15%: about $3.26 off, leaving about $2.11. For a shop above $10,000 a year it is 12%: $2.60 off, leaving about $2.77 (our estimates from²⁸).

Printify publishes a second example that disagrees with the first. Its earnings guide describes a $30 shirt with a $12 production cost, a profit of $14.70 and “a 49% margin”⁹. That example uses a cost below Printify’s own catalogue price plus shipping ($15.28) and a price $8 higher⁶⁹. We use the first as the base and the second as the high case. The gap shows that price is the lever that matters most.

Step 4: the orders needed

Orders needed each month = income wanted ÷ profit per order. These are our sums, rounded to the nearest whole order.

So $1,000 a month takes roughly 55 to 190 orders on Etsy, depending on what is left per order. At $5.37 a shirt, $10,000 a month means about $40,400 of sales a month, or about $485,000 a year (our sum).

The “about $18” row is one seller’s November 2024: $9,337.22 of stated profit on 510 orders, in the peak season⁴³. She says her margin is “typically 45%”⁴⁴. Treat it as the top of the range.

“$1k+ per day” in the @grayfuego tweet above does not say whether it means sales or profit¹. As sales at $21.70, it is about 46 shirts a day and about $247 a day of profit before adverts. As profit, it is about 186 shirts a day (our sums from⁸). We did not open the link in that tweet.

“$1,000 in 30 days” from a standing start needs those 186 orders in the first month. Printify itself says most newer Etsy shops “make their first sale within 30 to 60 days”, and that steady income takes three to six months⁹.

Amazon Merch on Demand. Amazon’s royalty page, read through a reader service, shows a “Creator Tier Royalty” of $2.44 on a standard US t-shirt priced at $19.99. The seller sets the price, and the royalty rises with it: $4.66 at $25.99, where $1,000 a month takes about 215 orders (our sum)⁷⁶. Two higher groups, Plus and Premium, “will receive 2x and 2.16x” those rates. To qualify, a seller must bring at least 15% or 35% of unit sales through their own adverts or social media, and “must sell a minimum of 10 units per month in the US store”⁷⁶. A third-party guide says these groups began in June 2026; Amazon’s page gives no date²⁴.

Step 5: the visits needed

Orders come from visits. The share of visits that end in a purchase is the “conversion rate”. Etsy does not publish one. Shopify’s benchmark article cites 1.4% for global online shops (Statista, first quarter of 2026), 2.66% (Dynamic Yield) and 2.77% for fashion and clothing¹⁶. One established Etsy print-on-demand shop that publishes its numbers had 172 orders from 9,207 visits in April 2025, which is 1.9%, and 510 orders from about 20,700 visits in November 2024, which is 2.5%⁴³⁴⁴.

So one order takes roughly 35 to 70 visits. At those rates (our sums):

• $1,000 a month at $5.37 a shirt needs about 6,700 to 13,300 shop visits a month.
• $10,000 a month needs about 67,000 to 133,000.

None of the 19 tweet texts mentions visits, conversion or advert cost¹. We did not view the images, videos, threads or guides attached to them. One small tweet does say that production is easy and “distribution is the real bottleneck”¹.

Step 6: buying the visits

Can you pay for the traffic? We have no measured click prices. The one example we found is a tool vendor’s blog, which cites no data. It puts Etsy Ads clicks at $0.15 to $1.50 and works an example: $0.40 a click at 2% conversion is 50 clicks, or $20 of adverts, per sale¹⁷. Against $5.37 of profit, the click price that breaks even at 2% conversion is about $0.11 (our estimate). So at $5 a shirt, on that one example, adverts would not pay. At $15 to $18 an order the sum is closer. Etsy’s annual report says its advertising revenue rose $62.2 million in 2025, “largely driven by an increase in average price per click on Etsy Ads”⁴. Printify’s guide lists “optimizing ads” as a task for stores earning $1,000 to $3,000 a month, so the printer expects growing shops to use them¹⁰.

Step 7: the running costs

On the vendors’ own price pages: Printify is free, or $39 a month for Premium ($24.99 billed yearly) with up to 20% off products¹¹. Printful’s Growth plan is $24.99 a month, free above $12,000 a year of sales¹². Shopify Basic, for your own store, is $39 a month ($29 billed yearly) plus card fees from 2.9% + 30 cents¹³. Midjourney is $10 or $30 a month and Canva Pro US$144 a year¹⁴¹⁵. Keeping 100 designs listed on Etsy costs about $60 a year (our sum: 100 × $0.20 × 3)².

A typical set of tools is roughly $50 to $120 a month (our estimate), and near zero is possible on free plans. On this point the tweets are right: there is no stock to buy and the money at risk is small. The cost is time and, if used, adverts.

Step 8: how the average seller compares

Etsy does not separate print-on-demand shops, so these figures cover all Etsy sellers.

Etsy’s annual report says the Etsy marketplace had $10,460.7 million of sales in 2025 and 5.6 million active sellers⁴. Divided evenly, that is about $1,868 of sales per seller per year, or $156 a month, before any costs (our division). This is the “mean”: the total divided by the number of sellers. An aggregator gives a slightly lower total⁷⁴.

A shirt shop making $1,000 a month in profit at a 24.7% margin needs about $48,600 of sales a year. That is roughly 25 times the mean. $10,000 a month is roughly 250 times (our sums). The comparison is rough: Etsy’s figure leaves out shipping charges and refunds, and Printify’s price includes shipping⁴⁸.

Two cautions. “Active seller” means anyone with a charge or a sale in the past 12 months, so it includes shops that paid fees and sold nothing⁴. And a mean is pulled up by large shops, so the seller in the middle (the “median”) is lower. Etsy publishes no median.

Printify repeats a figure that the median Etsy seller makes about $574 a month⁹. Its link goes to a blog, customcy.com, not to Etsy data, and the figure is far above the mean from Etsy’s filing, so we do not use it.

What the tweet text does not say

Of the 19 tweets, one gives a price and a cost. Four give an income figure, and one of those is a goal¹. A small account relays a founder’s report of over $20,000 in revenue in a month from three shops run by AI agents¹. Revenue is not profit: at the ratios in Printify’s example, about $4,900 of $20,000 would remain before adverts (our estimate from⁸). We did not look into that report.

What people who tried it report

We found no study or platform figure that says what share of print-on-demand sellers earn anything, what the middle seller earns, or how many stop. What exists is platform totals, vendor statements and individual accounts.

Redbubble’s totals are small per artist. Redbubble is named in three of the 19 tweets, including the most-viewed one¹. Its parent company, Articore, told investors that over 0.5 million artists sold a product on Redbubble in the year, and 167,000 on TeePublic¹⁹. Its annual report for the year to June 2025 (“FY25”) shows, in Australian dollars (A$):

• Redbubble: 542,000 selling artists and net artist earnings of A$30.2 million, down from A$39.7 million a year before. That is about A$56 per selling artist for the year, after Redbubble’s fees (our division)¹⁸.
• TeePublic: 167,000 selling artists and A$18.5 million, about A$111 each (our division)¹⁸.
• Both sites together, before platform fees: “Creators’ revenue” of A$59.6 million, about A$84 per selling artist (our division)¹⁸.

The half-year to December 2024 alone shows A$36.2 million of creators’ revenue, because that half includes Christmas²⁰. Which figures belong to Redbubble and which to TeePublic is our reading of the report’s layout. Artists who sold nothing are not counted.

Redbubble keeps half the earnings of accounts it classes as Standard. Its help pages say: “Standard artists are charged a 50% platform fee on monthly earnings.” Premium accounts pay 20% and Pro accounts nothing, with a cap of $150 a month²¹²². Redbubble says the tier does not depend on size: “Standard is not based on the amount of sales an account generates.” The factors it lists include “Uploading high volumes of low-effort or repetitive designs”, unmodified clip art, file quality and tag spamming⁷⁷. Pro is “An invite-only program for artists within the top 1% of performance and engagement”⁷⁷. We did not establish which tier a new account starts in. A press report on Articore’s results for the year to June 2026 says marketplace revenue fell 6.5% and lists “changes to artist account fees” among the reasons for a record margin²³.

The print provider’s own expectation is far below the tweets. Printify writes: “Based on what we see across Printify stores, print-on-demand sellers earn between $0 and $3,000 per month during their first 18 months”¹⁰. Its tiers are $0 to $100+ a month in the first six months, $1,000 to $3,000+ for “growing stores” at 6 to 18 months, and $10,000 to $80,000+ for “top sellers” after 18 months¹⁰. It gives no sample and no share of stores in each tier.

The only survey is a vendor’s. Printful polled more than 1,400 of its customers in 2020. 20% ran their print-on-demand business full-time. 69% spent five or more hours a week on it⁵¹. It reports no income, and people who had quit were not asked.

Sellers’ own accounts on Reddit. These are from the forum r/printondemand, read through its RSS feeds (a plain-text version of each post) because the normal pages refused us. All are self-reported and unchecked. We paraphrase and do not name the authors.

• Two sellers each reported about $12,000 of sales in a year. One runs an outdoor brand on his own Shopify store. He wrote that it took about ten months of posting to reach 1,000 Instagram followers, that he also paid for adverts, and that 80% of the sales came in the last five months. He says margins are “so narrow”, that his profit came from moving proven designs to stock bought from a local supplier, and that the odds of a profitable business on print on demand alone “are slim to none”. The other said two or three simple designs carried almost all sales and gave no profit figure⁵³.
• A seller using Midjourney designs on Etsy reported $400 to $600 a month net of all costs, on shirts priced at $40 to $42, after two or three loss-making months with adverts. He said the AI output needed Photoshop work and that five t-shirts became the best sellers. The shop is now paused⁵⁴.
• A former engineer at a print company wrote his own software to list puzzles automatically. He reported no sales to speak of for six months of weekly uploads (5 to 20 listings a week), then about $900 to $1,200 a month (he does not say whether this is sales or profit) against about $200 of overhead. Most sales came through Amazon, not Etsy, and the designs were public-domain art⁵⁵. This is the closest real match we found to the “autopilot” shop. He says he also supplies the software to others.
• A long-standing Redbubble seller with over 1,400 designs reported 146 items sold in 12 months and $221 received⁵².
• One seller reported no first sale after six months of regular uploads. Another reported no sales after a year on a stand-alone store with no social media following⁵⁶.
• One seller reported a mug design that made $18,000 in a few months, then lost its sales when others copied it more cheaply⁵⁷.

An informal count of abandoned shops. A Reddit user looked at 50 Etsy print-on-demand shops with 0 to 10 lifetime sales. 38 priced at a median $17.99 on items costing $12 to $14 to make and ship. 45 listed about 23 products in two weeks and then stopped. The 20 shops with 500 to 5,000 sales he compared priced at a median of $26 to $32⁵⁸. It is one person’s count with no list of shops: an illustration, not data.

Printing for other sellers is a different, thinner business. A long-time Amazon seller also ran a print shop with 10 staff that printed and shipped orders for other people’s print-on-demand businesses. He wrote that in early 2023 it went to “losing money every month” because “Wholesale margins are slim compared to retail”, and he closed it. He kept his own selling business, now printed by an outside provider, and reports over 750,000 listings⁶⁰. This is about running a print shop, not about selling designs.

Figures we do not use. Blogs repeat a median of £300 to £700 a month and “76% quit within three years” with no sample or source. One index shows a $750 median and says: “These numbers come from just 1 review”⁵⁹.

What the rules allow now

Print on demand is allowed on Etsy, with disclosure. Etsy’s Creativity Standards permit “Original designs created by a seller and produced with the assistance of a production partner”, and add: “Sellers must disclose that an item is made by a production partner, and provide accurate information about where the item will ship from.” AI designs “based on a seller’s original prompts” are accepted, and “Sellers must disclose within their listing description if an item is created with the use of AI.”²⁶

Reselling is not allowed. Etsy’s Seller Policy says: “Dropshipping and reselling are not allowed on Etsy”, with narrow exceptions²⁷.

The automatic route leaves a shop out of line. Printify’s help centre says the most common reason its sellers’ Etsy shops are suspended is “not adding Printify as a production partner and not describing your own role in your listings”. It adds: “Printify can’t add this information automatically during publishing, so you’ll need to add it by manually editing the product in Etsy.”³⁰

Copying what already sells draws takedowns. Etsy removes a listing when it receives a valid complaint, without judging who is right. Sellers can file a counter-notice (a formal objection) only for US copyright complaints, not trademark ones. Repeat notices end the right to sell, including on a new shop²⁸. In 2024 Etsy removed about 832,000 listings on such reports and closed 26,754 shops “for repeat infringement and/or counterfeiting violations”²⁹. Against about 5.6 million sellers that is under 0.5% a year (our estimate), and the report does not separate print-on-demand shops.

Three of the 19 tweets describe building on designs or products that already sell¹. Two of the three are cut off in our copy, so we do not know the full method. Using a design idea that sells is not in itself copying, and none of the three says to reproduce someone else’s artwork. We cannot say whether any of these methods would break the rules.

The legal risk sits with the seller. Printify’s terms make the seller promise (“warrant”) that they own every design, and say: “You assume sole responsibility and accept all risk arising from Your use of any AI-Generated Content.”³¹ Printful’s terms require the seller to indemnify Printful, which means paying Printful’s costs if a third party makes a claim³². US law lets a court award “statutory damages”, a sum that needs no proof of loss, of $750 to $30,000 per copyrighted work copied, and up to $150,000 if the copying was wilful³⁴. We found no recent court ruling against an individual print-on-demand seller; takedowns and closures are the usual outcome.

A purely AI-made design cannot be protected. The US Copyright Office concluded in January 2025 that AI output can be protected only where a human author determined enough of the expression, and not through “the mere provision of prompts”. The Supreme Court declined to hear the leading challenge on 2 March 2026³³. So a seller cannot stop others copying a design made by prompts alone.

Returns are the seller’s cost. Printful says: “we do not refund orders for buyer’s remorse”, and that returns and size exchanges “are to be offered at your expense”³². Printify calls its products “non-refundable”³¹. One returned shirt costing about $16 cancels the profit on about three sales (our estimate).

Cash can be held back. The seller pays the printer for each order up front³¹. Etsy may hold part of a shop’s sales as a “Reserve” where it sees risk. The factors it lists include how long the shop has been selling and whether goods are “made to order”³. The policy sets no fixed rate. Its own example, which it calls illustrative, is that “your Reserve could be set at 30% and held for a 45-day rolling period”. A variable reserve can delay funds “for a period of up to 180 days” or be deducted “for a period of up to 90 days”³.

Other platforms. Amazon Merch on Demand’s content policy lists “permanently withholding payments” among the actions it may take for breaches²⁵. Shopify’s policy says “you’re responsible for following the rules of your platform, your partners, and the law”, and Shopify brings no buyers of its own³⁷. Society6, named in one tweet, “stopped accepting new artists on March 18, 2025”, according to a blog by Printify, a competitor; Society6’s own page did not open³⁸.

Tax and customs. Etsy collects and pays US sales tax for the seller². On your own Shopify store you file it yourself³⁵. Marketplaces report sellers to the US tax authority above $20,000 and 200 transactions; income below that is still taxable³⁵. Since 29 August 2025, low-value parcels into the US are no longer duty-free, which matters if your printer ships from abroad³⁶. Etsy now requires orders to the US to ship with duty paid²⁷.

Who makes money from it

The marketplace. Etsy is paid on every listing and every sale, whatever the seller’s margin²⁴. Across its marketplaces it kept 24.2% of the value of goods sold in 2025, up from 22.3% in 2024, while the value of goods sold fell 5.3%⁴. These are group figures. Part of the fall comes from selling its Reverb marketplace in June 2025; sales on Etsy.com itself “declined 4% in 2025 to $10.5 billion”⁴. Etsy’s income from set-up fees rose $18.4 million in 2025⁴. Etsy says the number of active sellers fell that year, and calls this “the anticipated and intentional impact of the seller set-up fee introduced in 2024”⁴.

The printers. Printify and Printful earn the production price on every order, plus subscriptions¹¹¹². The two announced a merger on 5 November 2024 and said later that month that it was complete; both brands continue⁶⁶. Printify’s About page shows “10M+ Merchants” and “60M+ Products delivered”⁶³. That is about 6 products per merchant account over the company’s life (our estimate from two rounded marketing figures; “merchant” is not defined and may count every sign-up).

People who refer newcomers. An “affiliate” is someone paid for sending a company new customers through a tracked link. Printify pays affiliates 5% of a referred seller’s sales for 12 months and says: “Our active affiliate partners earn an average of $1,000 every month.”⁶⁴ Printful pays 10% of each referred order for 12 months, plus $25 when the referral takes its paid plan⁶⁵. Shopify’s page says “Earn up to $150 USD per qualified referral” who signs up to a paid plan, and that the amount varies by the merchant’s location⁶⁷. So a free tutorial or free guide can pay its author through the sign-up link alone. We did not open the links in the tweets and do not know whether any is a referral link.

In our 19 tweets. By the labels in our collection, which are approximate, 12 point the reader somewhere and 7 show nothing on offer. Five are from or for a print platform or tool, one promotes a paid community, one offers a guide for a like and reply, and the rest link to a video, an article or a page we did not identify¹.

• @detourshirts writes: “Learn more about creating t-shirt designs that sell in my Skool community The Shirteads.”¹ Skool is a site for paid communities. A community there called “The Shirtheads” is listed at $27 a month with 367 members, a free trial and a discounted annual price. It says: “Make Better Print on Demand Designs that have a chance to actually SELL.” Its owner’s profile on Skool links to the @detourshirts X account⁶¹. The page makes no income promise. Skool charges a community owner $9 a month plus 10% of payments, or $99 plus 2.9%⁶².
• For the three individual accounts quoted at the top, this is what we saw on Gumroad, a site for selling digital files. A Gumroad page that carries the @KanikaBK handle lists more than 20 digital guides, prompt packs and tutorials priced from free to $39; we saw no print-on-demand product among them. A Gumroad page that carries the @grayfuego handle lists one product, “Digital Dropshipping Level 1”, at $47⁷³. For @JafarNajafov we found a personal website and no print-on-demand guide, and we did not see the guide offered in the “$1,000 in 30 days” tweet⁷³.
• Listybox, which posted one tweet, has a free plan and a Pro plan at $99 a month. It says: “We don’t offer refunds; instead, there’s no lock-in. You can cancel anytime”. Its own pricing page says a shop that is not yet selling should stay on the free plan⁶⁸. A product-research tool, EverBee, runs from free to $69 a month billed yearly, which is about $99 paid monthly (our sum from the saving it states)⁶⁸.

Courses. The paid courses we found on sellers’ own pages cost about $297. Gold City Ventures’ print-on-demand course is $297, with a refund “for up to 7 days” and only “as long as you do not proceed past Module 1”. Taylor Posada’s “Plan, Scale, Profit” is $297 with all sales final⁶⁹. Both pages say results are not guaranteed.

Regulators. We found no regulator or court action about print on demand itself. The nearest are US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) cases against companies that sold ready-made online stores, which is a different product. In the one that names Etsy, the FTC said its complaint against Ascend Ecom alleges that the operation “defrauded consumers of at least $25 million” by selling stores on Amazon, Walmart, Etsy and TikTok with promises of five-figure monthly income⁷⁰. A proposed order announced on 23 June 2025 bans the owners from selling business opportunities; the FTC’s case page still listed the case as pending when we read it⁷⁰. A separate FTC case about Amazon and Walmart stores, whose outcome was announced in July 2025, ended in bans and a judgment of nearly $14 million, partly suspended⁷¹. These cases concern only the companies named in them. They bear on paying someone to build and run a store for you, not on running your own shop. We found no regulator action against any account quoted or named on this page.

US rules require sellers of certain “business opportunities” to back up earnings claims in writing; courses and coaching are generally outside that rule, and we found no final rule extending it⁷².

The upside

Some print-on-demand shops do pay well. These are the best documented cases, each marked by who checked it. They are the shops that worked, so they do not change how most sellers do.

Two shops whose records a news outlet reviewed

Emily Odio-Sutton. CNBC Make It reported that her Etsy shop, started in December 2022 and printed through Printify, “brought in $220,300 last year, according to documents reviewed by CNBC Make It”³⁹. It then took “at least $236,000 in revenue” in the first nine months of 2024, with a best month of $54,900⁴⁰. She estimates that 30% of sales is profit, which would be about $66,000 for 2023 (our sum), and that she works about 10 hours a week on it beside a job³⁹. Revenue was checked by the outlet; profit and hours are her own estimates. Her first attempts, holiday t-shirts, “fell flat”; switching to “gift-friendly products like mugs, candles, tote bags and journals” for specific jobs and hobbies helped, she says⁴⁰. About ten months passed before monthly profit reached about $5,000⁴⁰. Her start-up cost was under $40 by her account³⁹. The article says she “works as a coach for Gold City Ventures, which teaches aspiring Etsy sellers how to open their own shops”⁴⁰. We read both articles in a syndicated copy, meaning the same article republished by another news site.

Cassiy Johnson. CNBC reported that her Etsy print-on-demand shop “has brought in more than $766,400 in lifetime revenue, according to documents reviewed by CNBC Make It”⁴¹. The shop opened in May 2020, during that year’s surge in online shopping, and sold t-shirts and mugs. By her account it brought in $30,000 in two months that autumn, on less than 30 minutes of work a day⁴¹. She estimates about a third of revenue was profit and that she kept $26,100 from her best month of $100,900, which is about 26% (our sum)⁴¹⁴². CNBC also reported that she sometimes bought illustrations that parody popular characters or songs, “carefully walking a ‘gray line’ to avoid copyright infringement, she says”⁴¹. She closed the shop in September 2023, after publicity lowered its conversion rate, and told CNBC she had already started a new print-on-demand shop. She says her YouTube channel about print on demand was by then her most lucrative income⁴².

Neither shop is named (one seller told CNBC this was “to prevent copycats”), so nobody else can check the figures⁴⁰.

One seller who publishes her statements

A blogger who opened her Etsy shop in 2022 posts monthly reports. For November 2024 her Etsy statistics screenshot shows 510 orders and revenue of $21,398.04, and her Etsy monthly statement shows a net figure of $20,645.00. From that she takes $11,307.78 for Printify costs and tools, leaving $9,337.22, which she calls a 45% margin⁴³. We viewed those two screenshots. Her monthly revenue then ran from $28,000 in December 2024 to about $10,100 in January 2025 and $6,874 in April 2025⁴⁴⁴⁵. April was 172 orders, an average order of about $40⁴⁴. She writes: “Don’t believe anyone that says they get a certain reliable and consistent amount each month.”⁴⁵ These are her own figures. Her site sells a $9-a-month report and a course with coaching, and carries affiliate links⁴³.

Other accounts

• A seller interviewed by Side Hustle Nation said she turned over $250,000 in 2021, with no month under $15,000 since May 2021. The article puts her profit at $4,000 to $5,000 a month. She added 3 to 5 listings a day through January and February 2021 and brought early visitors from Facebook groups. Revenue went from about $1,000 in February to $19,000 in April and $22,700 in May, by which time the buyers came from Etsy’s own search. She sells t-shirts listed at about $18 and keeps “$8-9 per shirt”. About a month before the interview she had released a course and said course creation was her focus⁴⁶. Her own statement; no documents shown.
• A Merch by Amazon account with about 400 designs, averaging $3,324 a month net on two to three hours of work a day, was sold through Empire Flippers, a broker (a firm that sells online businesses), for $93,077, which is 28 times monthly profit⁴⁷. The broker says the buyer verified the earnings, which makes this the nearest thing to an independent check. The sale is undated and probably predates later changes to Amazon’s royalties.
• A Flippa listing marked sold shows an Etsy print-on-demand store with $2,236 a month profit at a 31% margin and over 1,700 designs, made by a hired graphic artist. It says “98% of sales are organic”, meaning not from adverts, “while the remainder is boosted through Etsy’s promoted listings”⁴⁸. The figures are the seller’s. The listing shows a profit multiple of 0.8. If that is a multiple of yearly profit, the asking price was about $21,000, less than a year of the stated profit (our estimate; the sold price is not shown).
• Printify’s own showcased story describes a seller who launched in 2021, “spent nearly two years seeing limited results”, reached about 300 sales by the end of 2023, closed the shop and started again in a narrower niche. Printify says the second shop then sold through the year; it gives no sales or income figure for it⁴⁹. A second Printify case study, seen only in a summary, reports $30,000 and over 1,000 sales in a first year from 3,500 listings, with no costs given⁵⁰.

A note on who tells these stories. All four individual sellers above whose numbers we could open also earn from coaching, a course, a membership or a video channel about the method^40424346. The other success stories were published by the printers. This does not show that their shop figures are wrong. It does mean we found no documented success from someone with nothing to sell, apart from anonymous forum posts.

A note on when they started. Every success at these levels that we could date began between 2020 and 2022^39414346. We found no documented case of a shop opened in 2024 or later reaching them. That may mean it is harder now, or only that such cases are not yet written up. Since then Etsy has added a set-up fee, raised the share it keeps and seen its sales fall⁴. Reviewed records for shops opened from 2024 on would settle it.

What the top tenth and top hundredth earn

No data exists. Printify’s “top sellers” tier is $10,000 to $80,000+ a month after 18 months, with no share given¹⁰. Redbubble describes its fee-free Pro tier as the top 1% of artists, by invitation, and gives no earnings for it⁷⁷. Etsy publishes no distribution.

A realistic good result (our estimate)

No dataset of newcomer outcomes was found, so this is our reading of the sources above.

• First six months: from nothing to about $100 a month, which is Printify’s own range¹⁰. A first sale within one to two months is normal by Printify’s account⁹.
• First year, going well: around $12,000 of sales, as two Reddit sellers reported⁵³. Neither gives a profit figure. At the 24.7% of Printify’s example that would be about $3,000 before adverts and tools (our assumption, not supported by either post).
• After two to three years, if a niche works: roughly $2,000 to $4,500 a month of profit, on the level of the Flippa listing and the blogger’s ordinary months⁴⁴⁴⁵⁴⁸.
• The outliers: $66,000 or more a year in profit³⁹⁴¹.

On Redbubble and TeePublic the average selling artist received tens of dollars a year¹⁸. We found no per-seller figure for Amazon Merch on Demand.

What it takes to compete

What the shops that succeed have

1. More left per order, by one of two routes. Some raise the price: about $40 an order, on gifts such as mugs and candles for specific jobs and hobbies⁴⁰⁴⁴. Others sell t-shirts in volume and keep $8 to $10 a shirt, or about a quarter to a third of the price⁴¹⁴⁶. Either way it is more than $5. That cuts the orders needed for $1,000 a month from about 186 to between 56 and 125 (our sums).
2. Hundreds of listings, most of them discarded. One CNBC-profiled seller said: “I have like 1,500 designs that I retired, because they never sold.”³⁹ The shops sold through brokers list 400 to 1,700 designs⁴⁷⁴⁸. A few designs then carry nearly all the sales⁵³⁵⁴.
3. Visitors from marketplace search. Where the sources say, sales came mainly from Etsy’s own search⁴⁵⁴⁶⁴⁸. The blogger writes that she does not buy Facebook or Instagram adverts for her Etsy shop⁴⁵. The two CNBC articles do not say whether those shops bought adverts. Relying on search means learning what buyers type into it. It also means one company’s search ranking controls the income.
4. Time without income, though how long varies. In the fast cases, one seller reported $19,000 of sales in her fourth month (2021) and another $30,000 in two months about half a year after opening (2020)⁴¹⁴⁶. The slower ones took about ten months to a salary-sized profit⁴⁰, six months of weekly listing before any sales⁵⁵, or nearly two years⁴⁹.
5. Steady weekly work. 69% of Printful’s surveyed customers spent five or more hours a week⁵¹. The winners report 10 hours a week, or 2 to 3 hours a day³⁹⁴⁷.
6. A plan for the quiet months. November and December run at two to three times an ordinary month⁴³⁴⁵.
7. Original work, disclosed. This is what Etsy’s rules require and what copyright can protect²⁶³³. It is not something every documented winner describes: one said she sometimes worked close to the line⁴¹.
8. Or an audience of your own. The stand-alone Shopify route has no built-in buyers. The Reddit seller on that route reached $12,000 of sales after about ten months of posting to reach 1,000 followers, plus paid adverts⁵³. We found no checked success on this route.

What it costs

• Cash: under $40 to start by one seller’s account³⁹. Then roughly $50 to $120 a month if you use paid tools (Step 7). Keeping 500 listings live costs about $300 a year in listing fees (our sum: 500 × $0.20 × 3)². A reserve can hold back part of early sales³.
• Time: five to ten hours a week or more for a year or longer, with no measured figure for hours per listing⁵¹.
• Adverts: optional. At $5 a shirt they are unlikely to pay (Step 6). Two of the Reddit sellers paid for adverts to get started, and one says his first two or three months ran at a loss⁵³⁵⁴.

How to tell early which side you are on

These checks are our judgement, built from the figures above.

• Is there a first sale within about 60 days of listing regularly? That is the printer’s own yardstick⁹.
• What is left per sale? Under $2 to $5 a sale needs hundreds of orders a month. $8 to $10 or more is where the working shops sit⁴⁶⁵⁸.
• Are visits rising? Etsy shows shop visits. Expect roughly one order per 35 to 70 visits (Step 5). A few hundred visits a month cannot produce 186 orders.
• Are you still adding listings after the first batch? In the informal count, 45 of 50 abandoned shops stopped after about 23 products⁵⁸.
• Is any design selling more than once? Income comes from a handful of repeat sellers⁵³⁵⁴.
• Does each listing name the printer and your own role? The automatic publishing route does not add it³⁰.
• Does the plan need you to buy something first? The arithmetic above is free to check. No course or tool seller we found publishes what share of its customers reach any income level.

What we did not verify

• How many people who try this succeed. No dataset or platform figure gives the share of print-on-demand sellers who earn anything, a median, a time to first sale or a survival rate. “A minority” in the verdict is our inference from the averages above, not a measured share.
• Whether it still works for a new shop. Every large success we could date began in 2020 to 2022. We found no documented case from a shop opened in 2024 or later.
• Etsy’s live pages. etsy.com refused our tools. Policy text comes from Internet Archive copies dated 27 August to 24 September 2026; later changes would be missed. The set-up fee amount, Etsy Ads minimum budgets, conversion rates and click prices were not found at Etsy.
• Amazon Merch on Demand. The royalty figures are from Amazon’s page, read through a reader service. The June 2026 start date rests on one third-party guide. We did not read the application process or upload limits, and found no per-seller earnings.
• Redbubble. The FY25 report was read in an archived copy, and the split of figures between Redbubble and TeePublic is our reading of the layout. The transcript says “FY26” for the artist counts, which looks like a slip for FY25. Articore’s own FY26 report, Redbubble’s user agreement and its AI rules were not read.
• The success stories. The CNBC shops are unnamed; profit shares, hours and early sales are the sellers’ statements, and one headline says $54,000 where the text says $54,900. We viewed two of the blogger’s screenshots (November 2024) and read the text of her other months; her 45% is a share of the statement figure she uses, not exactly of the buyer’s price. We do not know what any of these sellers earns from teaching.
• Reddit. Read through RSS feeds, which give the post and not the replies. All figures are self-reported and attached screenshots were not viewed. On the final check Reddit refused repeat requests for the second $12,000 seller in⁵³ and for⁵⁶ and⁵⁸, so those rest on the first reading.
• Broker listings. The Empire Flippers sale is undated. The Flippa figures are the seller’s, the sold price is hidden, the asking price is our estimate, and the listing’s stated age is inconsistent.
• The printers’ figures. Printify’s pricing page mentions a base tee at $8.77, its example uses $9.82 and its catalogue shows $11.29; we did not reconcile these. Its “10M+ merchants” and affiliate average are undefined marketing figures. Printful’s returns policy is dated 2022. Refund and return rates were not found.
• The tweets. We read our collected copy of the tweet text, several of which are cut off. We did not open the tweets’ links, images, videos or threads, or look up any shop or income claim behind them. The Gumroad pages carry the X handles in their own page data; we did not confirm ownership any other way.
• Regulators and law. We read the FTC’s press releases and case page, not the complaint or order, and did not confirm whether the court has entered the Ascend order. Regulators outside the US federal level, private lawsuits, and tax, VAT and product-safety rules outside the US were not researched.
• Tools and hours. eRank, Kittl, Placeit, Merchize, RiseFuel, Gelato and TikTok Shop’s rules were not read. No source measures the time a listing or an order takes, so the “autopilot” claim is untested here.
• Contact. The people and companies named here were not contacted before publication.

Sources

“Read at source” means we opened the page itself on 10 October 2026. “Secondary” means we read an article or summary about the source, not the source itself. “Estimate” means our own sum. “Through a reader service” means a service fetched the page for us because the site refused our tools directly. “Archived copy” means a copy saved by the Internet Archive.

1. Does It Pay collection of 19 tweets on this scheme, collected 2026-10-06; individual tweets linked above. Read from our collected copy on 2026-10-10, not from the live tweets. Counts by label are estimates.
2. Etsy, Fees & Payments Policy. https://web.archive.org/web/20260919164638/https://www.etsy.com/legal/fees/ . Last updated 2026-02-13; archived copy of 2026-09-19. Read at source on 2026-10-10 (archived copy; etsy.com refused us).
3. Etsy, Etsy Payments Policy. https://web.archive.org/web/20260827024614/https://www.etsy.com/legal/etsy-payments/ . Last updated 2026-07-31; archived copy of 2026-08-27. Read at source on 2026-10-10 (archived copy).
4. Etsy, Inc., Form 10-K for 2025. https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1370637/000137063726000019/etsy-20251231.htm . Filed 2026-02-19. Read at source on 2026-10-10. Per-seller figures are estimates.
5. Etsy Help, “Etsy Fee Basics”. https://help.etsy.com/hc/en-us/articles/360035902374-Etsy-Fee-Basics . Undated page. Read at source on 2026-10-10 through a reader service.
6. Printify catalogue, Bella+Canvas unisex jersey short sleeve tee. https://printify.com/app/products/12/bella-canvas/unisex-jersey-short-sleeve-tee . Undated page. Read at source on 2026-10-10 through a reader service.
7. Printful catalogue, Unisex Staple T-Shirt, Bella+Canvas 3001. https://www.printful.com/custom/mens/t-shirts/unisex-staple-t-shirt-bella-canvas-3001 . Undated page. Read at source on 2026-10-10.
8. Printify blog, “How much does Etsy take per sale”. https://printify.com/blog/how-much-does-etsy-take-per-sale/ . Published 2026-03-12, modified 2026-09-29. Read at source on 2026-10-10.
9. Printify blog, “How much can you make on Etsy”. https://printify.com/blog/how-much-can-you-make-on-etsy/ . Published 2026-03-12, modified 2026-09-29. Read at source on 2026-10-10. Its median figure links to customcy.com and is secondary.
10. Printify blog, “Is print on demand profitable”. https://printify.com/blog/is-print-on-demand-profitable/ . Published 2026-03-12, modified 2026-09-14. Read at source on 2026-10-10.
11. Printify, pricing. https://printify.com/pricing/ . Modified 2026-09-26. Read at source on 2026-10-10 through a reader service.
12. Printful, pricing. https://www.printful.com/pricing . Undated page. Read at source on 2026-10-10.
13. Shopify, pricing (US). https://www.shopify.com/pricing . Undated page. Read at source on 2026-10-10 through a reader service.
14. Midjourney, “Comparing Midjourney Plans”. https://docs.midjourney.com/hc/en-us/articles/27870484040333-Comparing-Midjourney-Plans . Undated page. Read at source on 2026-10-10.
15. Canva, pricing. https://www.canva.com/pricing/ . Undated page. Read at source on 2026-10-10.
16. Shopify blog, e-commerce conversion rate benchmarks. https://www.shopify.com/blog/ecommerce-conversion-rate . 2026 edition. Read at source on 2026-10-10 through a reader service. Visit counts are estimates.
17. ListifyAI blog, “Etsy Ads worth it 2026”. https://www.listifyai.net/blog/etsy-ads-worth-it-2026 . 2026-04-15. Secondary: a tool vendor’s blog with no data cited.
18. Articore Group, FY25 Annual Report. https://web.archive.org/web/20251011164135/https://www.articore.com/FormBuilder/_Resource/_module/VFV_6YfHZ0qKveaD4XGZZA/files/presentations/Articore-FY25-Annual-Report.pdf . Year ended 2025-06-30, signed 2025-08-14. Read at source on 2026-10-10 (archived copy). Per-artist figures are estimates.
19. Articore Group, FY25 results webcast transcript. https://announcements.asx.com.au/asxpdf/20250815/pdf/06mxp2802r3t9b.pdf . 2025-08-15. Read at source on 2026-10-10.
20. Articore Group, half-year results to 31 December 2024. https://announcements.asx.com.au/asxpdf/20250227/pdf/06g0mlbj4f6p5j.pdf . 2025-02-27. Read at source on 2026-10-10. Per-artist figure is an estimate.
21. Redbubble Help, “How does the platform fee get calculated”. https://help.redbubble.com/hc/en-us/articles/50959494599060-How-does-the-platform-fee-get-calculated . Updated 2026-07-31. Read at source on 2026-10-10 through a reader service.
22. Redbubble Help, “How does my Account Tier determine my account fees”. https://help.redbubble.com/hc/en-us/articles/50959863016724-How-does-my-Account-Tier-determine-my-account-fees . Updated 2026-07-31. Read at source on 2026-10-10 through the help centre’s search interface.
23. Small Caps, report on Articore’s FY26 results. https://smallcaps.com.au/article/articore-group-returns-to-profitability-in-fy26-as-gross-margin-hits-record . August 2026. Read at source on 2026-10-10; secondary for Articore’s results (a press report, not the company’s own report).
24. AMZ Prep, guide to Amazon Merch on Demand. https://amzprep.com/amazon-merch-on-demand/ . 2026. Secondary: a third-party guide read through a reader service; used only for the June 2026 start date.
25. Amazon Merch on Demand, content policy. https://merch.amazon.com/resource/201858630 . Undated page. Read at source on 2026-10-10 through a reader service.
26. Etsy, Creativity Standards. https://web.archive.org/web/20260828105429/https://www.etsy.com/legal/creativity . Last updated 2025-06-10; archived copy of 2026-08-28. Read at source on 2026-10-10 (archived copy).
27. Etsy, Seller Policy. https://web.archive.org/web/20260924185745/https://www.etsy.com/legal/sellers/ . Last updated 2026-09-10; archived copy of 2026-09-24. Read at source on 2026-10-10 (archived copy).
28. Etsy, Intellectual Property Policy. https://web.archive.org/web/20260924083452/https://www.etsy.com/legal/ip . Last updated 2023-06-15; archived copy of 2026-09-24. Read at source on 2026-10-10 (archived copy).
29. Etsy, 2024 Transparency Report. https://investors.etsy.com/_assets/_d7ee8700714b0f6cfcd5c437caf5f524/etsy/db/1016/9831/pdf/2024_Transparency_Report_Digital.pdf . 2025-05-15, covers 2024. Read at source on 2026-10-10. The share of sellers is an estimate.
30. Printify Help, “What should I do if my Etsy store is suspended”. https://help.printify.com/hc/en-us/articles/4578966175505-What-should-I-do-if-my-Etsy-store-is-suspended . Updated 2026-10-08. Read at source on 2026-10-10.
31. Printify, Terms of Service. https://printify.com/terms-of-service/ . Last updated 2026-09-17. Read at source on 2026-10-10.
32. Printful, returns policy, https://www.printful.com/policies/returns , last updated 2022-06-03; and Printful terms of service, last updated 2026-09-15. Read at source on 2026-10-10 through a reader service.
33. US Copyright Office, announcement of its report on copyrightability of AI output. https://www.copyright.gov/newsnet/2025/1060.html . 2025-01-29. Supreme Court docket 25-449, Thaler v. Perlmutter, petition denied 2026-03-02: https://www.supremecourt.gov/search.aspx?filename=/docket/docketfiles/html/public/25-449.html . Read at source on 2026-10-10.
34. 17 U.S.C. § 504(c), statutory damages. https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/17/504 . Current text. Read at source on 2026-10-10.
35. Shopify Help, US taxes, https://help.shopify.com/en/manual/taxes/us/us-taxes , undated; and IRS, “Understanding your Form 1099-K”, https://www.irs.gov/businesses/understanding-your-form-1099-k , last reviewed 2026-06-28. Read at source on 2026-10-10.
36. The White House, Executive Order 14324, “Suspending duty-free de minimis treatment for all countries”. https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/07/suspending-duty-free-de-minimis-treatment-for-all-countries/ . 2025-07-30, in force 2025-08-29. Read at source on 2026-10-10.
37. Shopify, Acceptable Use Policy. https://www.shopify.com/legal/aup . Undated page. Read at source on 2026-10-10.
38. Printify blog, “Redbubble vs Society6”. https://printify.com/blog/redbubble-vs-society6/ . Published 2026-07-16, modified 2026-09-11. Read at source on 2026-10-10; secondary for Society6 (a competitor’s blog).
39. CNBC Make It, profile of an Etsy seller ($220,300 in 2023), syndicated by NBC Connecticut. https://www.nbcconnecticut.com/news/business/money-report/36-year-olds-etsy-side-hustle-brings-in-220000-a-year-and-costs-under-40-to-start-you-really-can-make-a-very-good-living/3395977/ . 2024-09-27. Read at source on 2026-10-10 (syndicated copy, through a reader service).
40. CNBC Make It, second article on the same seller, syndicated by NBC Connecticut. https://www.nbcconnecticut.com/news/business/money-report/36-year-olds-etsy-side-hustle-brings-in-26000-a-month-takes-10-hours-a-week-it-paid-off-her-student-loan-debt/3397933/ . 2024-09-30, updated 2024-10-17. Read at source on 2026-10-10 (syndicated copy).
41. CNBC Make It, profile of Cassiy Johnson. https://www.cnbc.com/2023/09/13/cassiy-johnson-how-i-built-my-easy-30-mins-a-day-etsy-side-hustle.html . 2023-09-13. Read at source on 2026-10-10 through a reader service.
42. CNBC Make It, second article on Cassiy Johnson. https://www.cnbc.com/2023/09/25/cassiy-johnson-how-i-built-lucrative-revenue-streams-without-a-degree.html . 2023-09-25. Read at source on 2026-10-10 through a reader service.
43. Love Eat Travel Repeat, “Etsy print on demand income report November 2024”. https://loveeattravelrepeat.com/etsy-print-on-demand-income-report-november-2024/ . 2024-12-02. Read at source on 2026-10-10 through a reader service; its two Etsy screenshots (statistics and monthly statement) were viewed. Self-reported. Profit per order is an estimate.
44. Love Eat Travel Repeat, income report April 2025. https://loveeattravelrepeat.com/print-on-demand-income-report-april-2025-6k/ . Updated 2025-08-04. Read at source on 2026-10-10 through a reader service. Self-reported.
45. Love Eat Travel Repeat, income report January 2025. https://loveeattravelrepeat.com/etsy-print-on-demand-income-report-january-2025/ . 2025-02-06. Read at source on 2026-10-10 through a reader service. Self-reported.
46. Side Hustle Nation, “Print on demand on Etsy”. https://www.sidehustlenation.com/print-on-demand-on-etsy/ . 2023-07-14. Read at source on 2026-10-10 through a reader service. Self-reported in an interview.
47. Empire Flippers, “Sell a Merch by Amazon business”. https://empireflippers.com/sell-merch-by-amazon-business/ . Updated 2026-09-02; date of the sale not shown. Read at source on 2026-10-10.
48. Flippa, listing 11229181. https://flippa.com/11229181 . Undated listing. Read at source on 2026-10-10 through a reader service. Seller-provided figures; the asking price is an estimate.
49. Printify blog, a seller’s success story. https://printify.com/blog/annie-keller-success-story/ . Published 2026-05-12, modified 2026-09-11. Read at source on 2026-10-10. Vendor marketing.
50. CaseStudies.com, Printify case study of a first year. https://www.casestudies.com/company/printify-2535/case-study/rileigh-earns-30000-in-her-first-year-with-printify . Undated. Secondary: vendor case study, not checked.
51. Printful, “20% of solo print-on-demand businesses turn into full-time gigs”. https://www.printful.com/news/20-of-solo-print-on-demand-businesses-turn-into-full-time-gigs . 2020-04-21. Read at source on 2026-10-10. Vendor survey of its own customers.
52. Reddit, r/printondemand, a seller’s 12 months on Redbubble. https://www.reddit.com/r/printondemand/comments/1ow463i/in_12_months_i_sold_over_146_items_on_redbubble/ . 2025-11-13. Read at source on 2026-10-10 through the RSS feed. Self-reported.
53. Reddit, r/printondemand, “Thoughts on POD 1 year in”, https://www.reddit.com/r/printondemand/comments/1b76kzc/thoughts_on_pod_1_year_in/ , 2024-03-05; and a second seller’s year, https://www.reddit.com/r/printondemand/comments/1mpyffh/i_finally_hit_12k_in_sales_this_year_what_i_didnt/ , 2025-08-14. Read at source on 2026-10-10 through the RSS feed. Self-reported.
54. Reddit, r/printondemand, a seller using AI designs. https://www.reddit.com/r/printondemand/comments/1g0mom6/heres_how_i_managed_to_generate_400_to_600_per/ . 2024-10-10. Read at source on 2026-10-10 through the RSS feed. Self-reported.
55. Reddit, r/printondemand, an automated puzzle shop. https://www.reddit.com/r/printondemand/comments/1keq9ao/it_takes_about_6_months_to_make_900_to_1200_a/ . 2025-05-04. Read at source on 2026-10-10 through the RSS feed. Self-reported.
56. Reddit, r/printondemand, two reports of no sales. https://www.reddit.com/r/printondemand/comments/1se994p/1_year_in_no_sales_on_my_own_store_hitting/ , 2026-04-06; https://www.reddit.com/r/printondemand/comments/1rvh75c/6_months_into_my_pod_shop_and_still_no_sales/ , 2026-03-16. Read at source on 2026-10-10 through the RSS feed. Self-reported.
57. Reddit, r/printondemand, a mug design that was copied. https://www.reddit.com/r/printondemand/comments/1k0xdvo/how_a_simple_mug_took_me_to_18k_in_printondemand/ . 2025-04-16. Read at source on 2026-10-10 through the RSS feed. Self-reported.
58. Reddit, r/printondemand, an informal count of 50 abandoned Etsy shops. https://www.reddit.com/r/printondemand/comments/1qfmsrb/i_spent_a_weekend_analyzing_50_abandoned_etsy_pod/ . 2026-01-17. Read at source on 2026-10-10 through the RSS feed. Anonymous; method cannot be repeated.
59. Keeper, side hustle index, print on demand, https://www.keepertax.com/side-hustle-index/print-on-demand , undated; and ListifyAI, “How much do Etsy sellers make 2026”, https://www.listifyai.net/blog/how-much-do-etsy-sellers-make-2026 , 2026-01-22. Read at source on 2026-10-10. Their figures are unsourced and not used.
60. Print & Promo Marketing, “Lessons learned from my failed print-on-demand fulfillment business”. https://printandpromomarketing.com/article/lessons-learned-from-my-failed-print-on-demand-fulfillment-business/ . 2024-03-06. Read at source on 2026-10-10.
61. Skool, “The Shirtheads” community page. https://www.skool.com/theshirtheads/about . Undated page. Read at source on 2026-10-10.
62. Skool, pricing. https://www.skool.com/pricing . Undated page. Read at source on 2026-10-10.
63. Printify, About. https://printify.com/about/ . Modified 2026-08-21. Read at source on 2026-10-10. Products per merchant is an estimate.
64. Printify, affiliate programme. https://printify.com/affiliate/ . Undated page. Read at source on 2026-10-10 through a reader service.
65. Printful, affiliates. https://www.printful.com/affiliates . Undated page. Read at source on 2026-10-10 through a reader service.
66. Printful news, merged company leadership team. https://www.printful.com/ca/news/merged+company+leadership+team . 2024-11-20. Read at source on 2026-10-10.
67. Shopify, affiliates. https://www.shopify.com/affiliates . Undated page. Read at source on 2026-10-10.
68. Listybox, pricing, https://listybox.com/pricing , page dated 2026-10-06, read through a reader service; and EverBee, pricing, https://everbee.io/pricing , undated. Read at source on 2026-10-10. EverBee’s pay-monthly price is an estimate.
69. Gold City Ventures, terms, https://www.goldcityventures.com/terms , and course order page, https://order.goldcityventures.com/the-gift-lab ; Taylor Posada, “Plan, Scale, Profit” order page, https://taylorpod.samcart.com/products/plan-scale-profit-lifetime . Undated pages. Read at source on 2026-10-10.
70. Federal Trade Commission, Ascend Ecom case page, https://www.ftc.gov/legal-library/browse/cases-proceedings/ascend-ecom ; press releases of 2024-09-25, https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/news/press-releases/2024/09/ftc-announces-crackdown-deceptive-ai-claims-schemes , and 2025-06-23, https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/news/press-releases/2025/06/ftc-case-leads-order-banning-ascend-ecom-its-owners-business-opportunity-marketing . Read at source on 2026-10-10 through a reader service and a summarising tool.
71. Federal Trade Commission, press release on Ecom Genie Consulting. https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/news/press-releases/2025/07/ftc-action-against-e-commerce-business-opportunity-scam-results-permanent-bans-owner-his-companies . 2025-07-17. Read at source on 2026-10-10 through a summarising tool.
72. Federal Trade Commission, guidance on the Business Opportunity Rule, https://www.ftc.gov/business-guidance/resources/selling-work-home-or-other-business-opportunity-revised-rule-may-apply-you , November 2011, read at source on 2026-10-10; and Lathrop GPM, article on the January 2025 proposal, https://www.lathropgpm.com/insights/ftc-proposes-changes-to-deter-deceptive-earnings-claims-by-multilevel-marketers-and-money-making-opportunity-sellers/ , 2025-02-06, secondary.
73. Gumroad pages that carry the X handles of two quoted accounts, https://passiveincomehabit.gumroad.com and https://grayfuego.gumroad.com ; and a personal website looked up for a third. Undated pages. Read at source on 2026-10-10. Ownership rests on the handle shown in each page’s own data.
74. Marketplace Pulse, Etsy gross merchandise sales. https://www.marketplacepulse.com/stats/etsy-gross-merchandise-sales-gms . Data to the first quarter of 2026. Secondary: an aggregator of Etsy’s filings.
75. Link My Books, article on Etsy’s set-up fee. https://linkmybooks.com/blog/how-to-avoid-the-etsy-setup-fee-and-what-it-means-for-your-accounts . 2026-07-13. Read at source on 2026-10-10; secondary for Etsy’s fee (a third-party guide).
76. Amazon Merch on Demand, royalties page. https://merch.amazon.com/resource/201858580 . Undated page. Read at source on 2026-10-10 through a reader service. Orders needed are estimates.
77. Redbubble Help, “What are Account Tiers?”. https://help.redbubble.com/hc/en-us/articles/50959744156948 . Updated 2026-07-31. Read at source on 2026-10-10 through the help centre’s data interface.

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