7 Most Successful Print-on-Demand Stores in 2025 to Learn From

One of the best ways to start a POD store is to learn from the stores that are already successful. 

In this guide, we’ll walk through 10 successful POD store examples in 2025. By studying how they design their websites, what products they sell, and how they present their brand, you’ll get a clearer picture of what makes a POD store work. 

Top Successful Print on Demand Store Examples

Here’s a quick overview of the stores we’ll cover:

1. The Oodie — Wearable Blankets & Accessories Brand

The Oodie is one of the most recognizable print-on-demand and dropshipping success stories. At first, it started as the oversized hoodie blanket POD store and now grew into the top-rated wearable blankets & accessories brand. 

The Oodie’s first winning product was the Oodie Original hooded blanket, launched in 2018 and quickly exploded social media back to that time thanks to its playful designs and cozy appeal. 

Once their wearable blankets were established, they slowly expanded into related products like robes, pajamas, slippers, and tees.  

While the product itself didn’t change much, The Oodie kept it fresh by offering endless designs, from fun themes like Squid Game, Avocados and Tie-Dye to seasonal releases.

2. Crown & Paw — Personalized Pet Portraits

Crown & Paw is a pet-focused POD store that sells personalized portraits—customers upload a photo of their dog or cat, and the brand transforms it into a modern digital portrait.

Sometimes portraits are in a fun, regal costume, sometimes in a watercolor style. 

This highly personalized niche alone attracts attention and converts well. But what makes Crown & Paw sustainable is the way they expand the whole catalog onto blankets, socks, canvases, and other items. This way, Crown & Paw can easily increase average order value and boost profitability without needing entirely new designs.

3. Wander Prints — Personalized Customized Gifts

Wander Prints is a POD store founded in 2018 that specializes in personalized gifts, home décor, and fashion items. It allows customers to add names, upload images into products such as canvases, blankets, mugs, and apparel, and more.

You can rarely see any trending designs across their store, yet, Wander Prints is still one of the most profitable POD in the market. By reusing personalization templates across multiple products, they turn one design into multiple revenue streams. And because gifts are seasonal by nature, they can align campaigns with holidays and repeat the cycle year after year.

This way, they grow their store around repeat sales— which is smarter than chasing trends or trying to out-design competitors.

4. GearBunch — Workout Assets

GearBunch is a clear example of how selecting the right niche can define the POD success.  Instead of competing in the saturated t-shirt market, they focused on leggings, workout pants, and yoga apparel, while targeting bikers, Irish Americans, and fitness enthusiasts. 

This gave the brand three advantages: they owned a niche no big brand was focusing on, they could charge higher prices for designs that felt exclusive, and they built loyalty by showing up where their audience’s passions lived.

As a result, the store generated around $5 million in sales in the first year, with about 80% driven by video ads. One campaign alone involved a $7,000 high-production dance video that racked up over 10 million views and brought in serious traction. 

5. iLikeMaps — Customized Maps Store

iLikeMaps is the POD store that lets everyone customize the maps of the cities they love.  Using open-source map data, customers could choose literally any place, customize colors and sizes, and order wall art that carried personal meaning. 

What began as a hobby now evolved into a full-time online business selling posters, apparel, stationery, and other home décor items. Map is the niche that feels too “niche” but ends up being one of the most unique and profitable POD business ideas.  

In 2025, it rebranded as Studio Raton, broadening its focus to other urban art forms and collaborations with other artists.

6. Rebel Youth—Rebel Streetwear Brand

Rebel Youth Apparel is a POD streetwear brand designed for misfits, rebels, and those who don’t fit into mainstream fashion. Their products—graphic t-shirts, hoodies, and accessories—reflect counterculture styles with grunge and punk undertones.

In a niche as crowded as POD apparel, this niche clarity is everything. Rebel Youth doesn’t have to chase trends or fight for attention against every other store. Instead, they’ve built a big product catalog that feels true and unforgettable to their customers. 

7. Starrypaige — Hand-Drawn Design Store

Starrypaige is a store built around an artist’s original work. It sells products like t-shirts, stickers, posters, and phone cases featuring snakes, flowers, and other nature-inspired themes—they’re all hand-drawn designs by Paige Penrose. 

What began as her personal project became a full collection of products—making Starrypaige a good example of what happens when an artist sells their creativity in POD. For other sellers, the takeaway is simple: Your hobbies and passions can be the strongest advantage you have. When your products reflect something genuine, they stand out in the crowded, copy-heavy POD market.

What Every Profitable POD Store Has in Common? 

No matter what niche those POD stores are in, the profitable ones all share the same 4 key traits: 

Highly Personalized Niche: Categories where customers expect to make the product uniquely theirs. Whether it’s adding a name, a special date, or a custom design, this level of personalization creates stronger demand and leads to more sales and repeat buyers.

Exclusive Design Ideas: Exclusive designs give shoppers a reason to pick your store over countless alternatives. But remember, the most profitable POD designs aren’t something no one’s ever seen—it’s about creating a design that resonates with your customers, costs little to print, and strongly reflects your brand identity.

Large Product Catalogs: In such a low profit margin industry like POD, a single design or product type rarely carries the whole store. By offering many products—say t-shirts, hoodies, mugs, phone cases, stickers, posters—you increase the total sales or average order value  without reinventing new art every time.

Stay on Top of Profit Margin: Smart sellers keep a close eye on profit margin alongside total costs, net profit and other key business performance metrics. That’s how they know which products deserve to be scaled and which should be cut, ensuring every move strengthens the bottom line.

What is the Average Profit Margin for POD Business?

In print-on-demand, the healthy gross profit margin for POD businesses usually falls between 20–45% across most product types.

Apparel like t-shirts and hoodies typically fall into this bracket. They sell in high volume, but competition keeps margins closer to 20–30% for many stores. 

Accessories, such as mugs or phone cases, usually perform better, reaching 30–50% margins.

Stickers and prints stand out as the most profitable category, with margins climbing to 70–90% because of their low production costs.

How to Start a Profitable POD Store?

Here’s 5 steps in setting a POD store for profitability from scratch:  

Step 1: Pick Your Niche

Your niche is the audience or category you want to serve—like dog owners, gamers, or eco-conscious shoppers. The right niche isn’t just about chasing what’s trending; it’s about finding a high profit margin niche with low competition. 

A great place to start is your own hobbies or interests. When you already understand the audience, you’ll know what designs click, what messaging works, and what products are worth selling. That insider knowledge makes your store stand out faster.

Step 2: Choose Your Products

Not every retail best-seller translates well to POD. The best POD products typically share three traits:

Design-friendly – A product with a clean surface and enough space for printing, like t-shirts, mugs, or phone cases.

High-profit potential – Allows a profit margin of 40–60% or higher while still being affordable for customers.

Consistent demand – Items people buy year-round, not just seasonally.

When you choose products that meet all three, you give yourself the best chance at creating a best-seller in your niche.

Step 3: Design Your Products

In POD, design makes or breaks your success. Even the best product can flop with a weak design. That’s why the goal is to create designs customers actually want to wear, use, or gift.

If you’re not a designer, tools like Canva, Placeit, Adobe Express, or GIMP make it simple to create professional-looking designs and mockups. The secret is not just making something that looks nice—it’s creating something people want to buy.

Step 4: Set Up Your Store

Shopify is the most popular option thanks to its easy setup, affordable pricing, and wide range of POD apps that automate fulfillment, inventory, and even marketing.

Other platforms worth considering include:

Etsy – Best for handmade-style, niche, or creative products.

WooCommerce (WordPress) – Highly customizable but more technical.

BigCommerce – A Shopify alternative with fewer POD integrations.

Step 5: Promote Your Brand

The reality is that no matter how great your products are, no one will see them without marketing. While organic growth (social media, SEO, word of mouth) works long-term, paid ads are the fastest way to get sales for a new store.

Ads on Facebook, TikTok, Instagram, or Google let you target the right audience, test designs, and start generating revenue. As you collect data from these campaigns, you’ll see what products resonate, which gives you insights to scale profitably.

Let’s Keep Track of Your POD Store Performance 

Like we said above, one of the traits every profitable POD store shares is a close eye on their profit performance. Without knowing the bottom line, there’s simply no way to be profitable long term.

TrueProfit stands out as the #1 rated Shopify profit analytics platform that helps sellers monitor net profit in real-time by automatically calculating all costs. With the app, you always know exactly the overall store performance and which sales are contributing to your bottom line.

Here’s how TrueProfit gives you the best edge in POD: 

By giving you a real view of profit, TrueProfit turns your store into a sustainable, profitable business, empowering you to scale confidently while keeping an eye on the metrics that truly matter: net profit. 

Final Thoughts

The most successful POD stores in 2025 have one thing in common: focus. Whether it’s pets, astrology, humor, or feel-good lifestyle goods, they each found a niche and built a brand around it.

As a beginner, don’t worry about matching their scale right away. Start small, choose a niche, and learn as you go. Over time, you’ll close the gap between your store and these inspiring examples.

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