How to Connect Printify to Shopify and Sync Your Products

What Printify Does for a Shopify Store, and What Stays Yours

Print on demand on Shopify always runs through an app someone else built. Shopify's own checklist for setting up a print on demand store says so:

So the work splits between Printify, Shopify and you, and the table shows who handles each job. If your question is only whether Shopify can print and ship for you, that has its own short answer.

This guide assumes you have already picked Printify. If you are still choosing an app, our Printful, Printify and Gelato comparison covers plans, production models and landed cost; everything below is about making Printify work once it is installed.

What Can Block the Connection, Publishing or Orders

Printify's help center documents all four conditions, and Shopify's help center explains how a store goes live.

• The store has to be live. Printify's list of integration errors says a store that's "still in draft mode, password-protected, or otherwise unpublished can't be accessed by Printify." Shopify keeps a store on a free trial in private mode until you launch it, and launching requires a selected plan, a store address and a payment method with test mode off. Picking a plan during a trial adds no subscription fee until the trial expires.
• One store, one Printify account. A store can be connected to only one Printify account at a time, so a store you once linked elsewhere has to be disconnected there first.
• A plan before the trial ends. Printify lists a store on a free trial that expired "without selecting a payment plan" among the reasons it can become unavailable and products fail to publish.
• A store name of 30 characters or fewer. Printify's store settings require it, and a longer name can cause orders to be delayed or not processed.

How to Connect Printify to Shopify: Two Starting Points

Printify's connection guide describes two routes that end in the same place: you can connect "from your Shopify app or from your Printify account." Find your row, then follow the matching steps.

Starting From the Shopify App Store

1. Open the Printify: Print on Demand listing on the Shopify App Store. It is free to install, and product and shipping costs "are billed only when a sale is made in your store." A search for printify also returns other apps with Printify in their names, so check that the listing says it is by Printify.
2. Install the app on your store.
3. When the app opens in your Shopify admin, choose Log in to existing Printify account if you already have one, or Sign up if you don't.

Shopify App Store search results for printify

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Sign up does more than its name suggests. Printify automatically creates an account "using the email address linked to your Shopify store," and after a short onboarding sends a password reset email.

In Shopify adminOpen in your store

1. Apps
2. Printify: Print on Demand

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Set that password straight away. You can open the Printify dashboard from the app inside Shopify, but you need the password to log in at Printify.com.

Starting From Your Printify Account

1. In your Printify account, click the drop-down menu in the upper-left corner and select Manage my stores.
2. Click Connect, choose Shopify, then click Get the app.
3. Install the Printify app on your Shopify store.
4. Log in to your Printify account when your Shopify admin prompts you, check that the Printify dashboard is embedded in your Shopify admin, then return to Printify and click Continue.

This is also the route for a second store. To add another Shopify store to the same Printify account, Printify says to "log out of your Shopify account and proceed to integrate from the Printify side by clicking Add a new store, then choose the Shopify option."

Printify's own channel walks through both routes in a short video from April 2025. The button names in this guide follow Printify's current help center, so a screen in the video may differ. One chapter shows editing a product in Shopify; Printify's help recommends making changes on the Printify side instead, as what not to edit in Shopify explains.

Your Printify Setup Checklist, in Order

Do the steps in this order; steps one and two recap the sections above, and the rest are expanded below. Steps one to four come before any product exists, and step seven is where your Shopify plan decides between flat-rate profiles and the Calculator. Progress is saved in this browser.

Publishing Printify Products to Shopify

Shopify's checklist describes the order of work for any print on demand app: you create the product in the service, then "use the app to sync the products with Shopify." In Printify that sync is called publishing, and four decisions surround it.

Pick the Print Provider Before You Publish

A Printify product starts with the provider you pick: "When you select a Print Provider and create a product, it will be fulfilled by that provider." Printify adds that Order Routing and Printify Choice features can change the provider, and that Upgrade to Printify Choice, for single-line item orders within the US, is enabled by default and can be disabled in Store settings. Location affects shipping, since Printify notes that "opting for a local Print Provider can result in reduced shipping costs and quicker delivery times for your customers."

Price is the other half of the choice. Printify warns that "different colors and sizes of the same product may have varying prices," so factor that into each variant's retail price rather than setting one price for the whole listing.

What the First Publish Sends to Shopify

On the first publish you don't choose which details to sync: "all mandatory product details will be published," and "the appropriate shipping rate will be automatically assigned to the product upon publishing." Plan the variant matrix before that, because the maximum number of product variants for one listing is 100.

Printify offers three variant visibility options, and two of them are available for Shopify stores:

• Show all variants as available for purchase. Printify says to choose it if you use Order Routing and your products have multiple Print Provider options.
• Only show in stock variants and hide any out of stock variants. Out-of-stock variants are removed from your listing when you republish.

The third option, which shows out-of-stock variants as sold out, is not offered for Shopify. Whichever you choose, keep an eye on stock: Printify states that "the product stock status in your store listing is not updated automatically," and you need to update the product after each out-of-stock notification unless you use Order Routing and the product has alternative Print Provider options.

Changing a Product After It Is Live

Once a product is live, each action in Printify has a different effect on the Shopify listing. The one to avoid by accident is Delete.

Printify's selective sync lets you update mockups, prices, descriptions, tags or shipping profiles on their own. The option in the table to keep a Shopify edit sits beside Printify's wider advice, in the next section, to make product changes on its side.

What Not to Edit in Shopify

Printify's advice is to "make all changes from the Printify side at all times (apart from adding/changing the product mockups)." Its reason: "Making changes to product information directly from your sales channel may interfere with the order import process and is therefore not recommended."

The risk its Shopify article names explicitly is bulk editing:

Shipping: How Printify Rates Reach Your Checkout

Printify's Shopify shipping guide lists "several shipping setup options," plus a separate section on estimated delivery times. Three of those options decide what your buyer pays.

Free shipping moves the cost; it doesn't remove it. With your own rates, Printify says "you will still be charged with shipping costs according to our Print Provider rates," and when shipping is built into the retail price, "you will need to adjust the retail price of the product based on the new shipping cost" whenever those rates change.

Whichever setup you pick, write your policy to match. Shopify's checklist asks that "your store's shipping policy takes into account the expectations set by the print on demand service that you're using."

Publishing Printify Flat Rates as Shipping Profiles

Printify calls this "the easiest option for Shopify sellers." Two limits apply. Shopify caps the shipping profiles in a store at 99 custom profiles alongside the general one, and Printify states a limit of 12 rates per profile or region, which limits an order to 12 units of the same product or 12 different products that share a shipping profile.

Watch the currency if your store doesn't sell in US dollars. Printify's Shopify shipping guide says its rates are in USD and "if your store's currency differs, no currency conversion is done," so the same number appears in your currency. Printify's general shipping article says Shopify converts the rates automatically, so check the amount your own checkout shows. For retail prices, enter a numeric value in Printify, since "only numeric values are published to your sales channel without conversion."

Shopify adds a fulfillment app to your shipping settings by itself only in the simplest setup: "If your shipping settings use only the general shipping profile and don't have different rates per location." Otherwise, Shopify says you need to manually add the app to your shipping settings, and our guide covers giving the app's location its own rates. Products you publish with Printify's Automatically assign and update profile if needed option get a Printify-created or reused shipping profile.

Shopify is moving shipping from profiles to shipping options by market, rolling out gradually, and all merchants will be on it by July 1, 2027. Until your store is upgraded, you keep using shipping profiles as usual; once it is, you manage shipping from Markets and split shipping is always on. Shopify says stores that use shipping apps might be upgraded later in the rollout, after those apps become compatible.

As of November 3, 2026, no Printify help center article we found covers shipping options by market, so ask Printify if your store has already moved. To see where your store stands, use the system check in our market-driven shipping guide.

Which Shopify Plan Does the Printify Shipping Calculator Need?

The Calculator lets buyers "choose between Standard, Economy and Priority Shipping options during checkout, as long as the chosen Print Provider offers these options." Two gates stand in front of it.

Gate one is your plan. Printify's Calculator guide lists Advanced and Plus, where "this feature is automatically enabled and does not require a separate request," and "a Shopify Growth plan (if you add the carrier-calculated shipping feature for a monthly fee or switch from monthly to yearly billing)." Printify's "Growth" is the plan Shopify calls Grow.

Shopify's third-party carrier-calculated shipping page sets the same either-or condition: "Shopify Grow stores can add CCS for an additional monthly fee or by switching to annual billing." Third-party carrier-calculated shipping isn't available on the Basic Shopify or Shopify Starter plans.

Printify's Shopify shipping guide words the Grow condition more strictly, as annual billing and a requested add-on together. On Shopify's side, a Grow store's monthly fee goes through Shopify Support, and yearly billing activates third-party carrier-calculated shipping automatically.

Gate two is your store setup. Printify's setup steps include turning on split shipping in Settings › Shipping and delivery if it is not already enabled; in the admin it sits in the Manage split shipping row below your shipping profiles. Shopify warns that "certain third-party fulfillment apps might not be compatible with split shipping in checkout," so test it by adding eligible items to the checkout on your storefront, or ask Printify, before you rely on it.

In Shopify adminOpen in your store

1. Settings
2. Shipping and delivery

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Other shipping and rate apps are the second risk. Printify's Shopify article says they "can conflict with the Printify Shipping Calculator and cause incorrect or missing shipping rates."

In return, the Calculator maintains itself: if you use it, "the shipping rates will be automatically updated if any changes occur." Its prices are always in USD, with no currency conversion.

An app that shows live rates through a carrier service meets a similar Shopify plan rule: Shopify's developer documentation says the app's request to create a carrier service will fail unless the store qualifies, and our guide to app rates at checkout covers it for label apps too.

Order Approval: When an Order Goes Into Production

By default, "your Shopify orders are automatically imported into Printify." What happens next depends on the order approval setting in your Printify store settings, which decides when an imported order is submitted to production. Check Settings › General › Order processing in Shopify too: Printify says that with Automatically fulfill the order's line items selected, orders go to production on import, ignoring your approval settings, and that to follow those settings you choose Don't fulfill any of the order's line items automatically.

Four rules sit on top of whichever option you choose:

• Per store. If more than one store is linked, "you'll need to configure these settings separately for each store."
• Set at order creation. Orders follow "the order approval settings that were active at the time of creating the order," so a change doesn't reach orders already waiting.
• Charged at production. "You'll only be charged once the order is sent to production."
• Automatic options need a way to pay. Keep a card or Balance funds in place before you pick one; see how Printify charges you.

Leave Shopify's Request Fulfillment Button Alone

Printify's Shopify article is direct: "It is not neccessary to press the Request fulfillment button on Shopify if you want Printify order approval settings to apply." Printify says clicking it "will immediately send the Printify order to production, regardless of your settings," and Shopify's page on fulfilling orders with an app says that "after you request a fulfillment, you can no longer edit the order or refund items."

Shopify's default is manual fulfillment, and most print on demand apps "automatically mark items as fulfilled when the order ships." For Printify, that update arrives with tracking: it updates the Shopify order once the order has shipped, and Shopify then sends the tracking number to your customer.

Exchanges, Returns and Refunds

Three facts from Printify's help center shape a returns policy for print on demand items:

• Exchanges. "Using Shopify's exchange functionality does not create a new order on Printify; as a result, your customer will not receive a replacement product."
• Returns. "Products cannot be returned to Printify."
• Refunds. "The refund provided by Printify is sent only to you, the merchant, and not directly to the customer."

To handle an exchange, Printify says to create a manual order in Printify when the replacement costs the same, or to refund the customer in Shopify and ask them to place a new order when it costs more or less.

Who Pays Whom: Production Costs, Your Payout and Taxes

Money moves in two directions that never touch. Printify's billing article puts it in one line:

The App Store listing says product and shipping costs are billed only when a sale is made, and Printify adds that it "can't access funds directly from your sales channel." Keep the card or Balance funded, because that is where production money comes from.

Setting Up How Printify Charges You

Printify's payment setup guide separates methods that can pay automatically from ones that can't. That matters most when you use automatic order approval.

Your billing currency "determines the currency in which you will be charged for orders." If it isn't USD and you use the once-a-day approval option, Printify charges each order individually instead of one consolidated payment.

Samples follow the same billing. "Printify does not offer free samples," so a sample order is charged at regular pricing like any other.

Taxes Printify Adds to Your Cost

Printify calls Shopify a standalone store, and its tax article says that on a standalone store "a sales tax may be applied to the order on the Printify side." What it describes:

• US sales tax applies in two cases: "when shipped within the US or when imported to the US."
• Resale certificates remove it: sales tax is not charged "if a valid resale certificate for the destination state has been submitted to Printify."
• VAT applies to orders for the EU, the UK and Norway, and the applicable VAT rate can vary and ranges from 0% to 27%.
• Canada, Australia and New Zealand: items printed and shipped within Canada are subject to local taxes at a rate that depends on the ship-to address, and items printed and shipped within Australia and New Zealand are subject to local taxes of 10% and 15%, respectively. Printify applies no tax to orders shipped to Canada from another country, though customers may be subject to customs fees upon delivery.
• Other countries: Printify "won't charge taxes on orders being shipped to other countries that are not mentioned in this article," though orders may be subject to customs fees based on each country's import regulations.

None of this is the tax you collect from your own buyers. Printify reminds you that "you are responsible for understanding your tax obligations in your jurisdiction," and for US stores our US sales tax guide covers where you owe it.

When Something Breaks: Fixes for Common Printify Errors

Start from what you see in your store. The causes below come from Printify's help center and Shopify's limits; the fixes follow from them.

The Sold out row surprises people most. Printify says that when all variants show as Sold out, "this is almost always a shipping rate issue, not a stock issue"; other causes are covered in why a Shopify product shows as sold out when you still have stock.

When the table doesn't cover it, contact Printify. The App Store listing states "App support provided by Printify," and Shopify's app support page says "Shopify only provides support for apps made by Shopify." For an App Store app, you reach support from Settings › Apps in your Shopify admin.

Disconnecting, Uninstalling and Reconnecting Printify

Three exits and the way back look alike and behave differently. Printify's disconnect guide and Shopify's uninstall page describe each one:

In Shopify adminOpen in your store

1. Settings
2. Apps

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Uninstalling is not a general billing switch. Shopify's page on uninstalling apps says that removing an app "doesn't cancel external charges." A Premium plan you signed up for from the Printify app embedded in Shopify is canceled automatically when you uninstall; for any subscription billed outside Shopify, Shopify says to review the app's billing settings or contact the app developer.

If you disconnected the store and plan to come back, reconnect rather than rebuild. Printify says a store you connected and then disconnected can be reconnected "without affecting your existing products on the Shopify side," although disconnecting can affect how those products are linked between Printify and Shopify. When you publish again, use one of the two options in the Reconnect row above.

The Bottom Line

The decisions around the connection are what protect your orders and your margin.

Frequently Asked Questions