How does the Printful billing system work?
Printful bills you for fulfillment, not your end customers. When an order comes in, we charge the cost of production and shipping to your Printful Wallet, and you keep the difference between that cost and what your end customer paid you. How and when you're charged depends on whether you placed the order manually or it came through a connected store.
In this article:
- How am I billed for manual and store orders?
- Why don't my end customers pay Printful directly?
- What is the Printful Wallet?
- How does currency work in Printful billing?
- What happens if a payment fails?
How am I billed for manual and store orders?
Manual orders: you pay at checkout, and the order goes into production right away.
Connected store orders:
- Your end customer places an order and pays you through your store's payment platform, such as Shopify, Etsy, or WooCommerce.
- If the product is synced on Printful and automatic order confirmation is enabled, the order is sent to us automatically, and we bill you for fulfillment.
You keep the profit from the difference between what your end customer paid and what Printful charges you. For a fuller breakdown of costs and margins, see our Payments and pricing guide.
Why don't my end customers pay Printful directly?
Printful is a white-label printing partner, so we fulfill orders under your brand. Your end customers buy from your store and never see us. Since your store handles the sale, you collect the payment, and we charge you for fulfilling the order.
Quick Stores works differently. You're onboarded with Stripe and provide your bank details, then Printful collects payments from your end customers and transfers your profit to your bank account once a month, provided the payout is over USD 25. Payouts under USD 25 stay in your balance and are included in the next month that clears the threshold.
What is the Printful Wallet?
The Printful Wallet is an internal payment system that all Printful transactions run through, including order charges and refunds. You can manage it in your Dashboard with two funding options:
- Manual top-up: add funds yourself whenever needed.
- Auto-recharge: set a minimum balance, and funds are added automatically from your primary billing method, either a credit card or PayPal, when the balance runs low.
When your Wallet balance is lower than the cost of fulfilling an order, the amount you set for auto-recharge is deposited automatically from your primary billing method.
Refunds from Printful are added back to your Printful Wallet. If you placed an order without a Printful account, refunds go back to the payment method you used at checkout instead.
How does currency work in Printful billing?
Printful charges you in the currency you’ve set for your store. It doesn’t matter where the order is fulfilled or shipped, since billing always follows your store's currency. For manual orders, we use your display currency.
What happens if a payment fails?
If a charge or auto-recharge fails, the order gets the “Failed” status. It won't be sent to fulfillment on its own, so once you've resolved the cause you'll need to submit the order again manually.
Two common causes:
- PayPal returns an “Address Verification Failure.” This means the delivery address submitted to Printful doesn't match the address your end customer submitted to PayPal at checkout. See why PayPal address verification fails for how to resolve it.
- A card issued outside the US is declined. Check with your bank that international and online payments are enabled on the card.
If you've updated your billing method and the charge still fails, contact our Support Team with the order number. We can't see why an individual card was declined, since that information stays with your bank or PayPal, but we can confirm what we attempted and when.
For more depth, see the Printful Academy lesson on billing or the Payments and pricing guide.
Still need help? Our Support Team is here for you—reach out anytime through our contact form or start a chat with us.