Comparison · Published November 5, 2026

Best Print on Demand Supplier for Coasters (2026): Printful vs Printify vs Gelato

Quick answer: Printify is the best print on demand supplier for coasters if you want choice. Its catalog lists nine coaster products, from cork and hardboard to ceramic, soapstone car coasters and bulk packs of 50 or 100. Printful is the pick if you want a known price: it carries one cork-back coaster at 3.74 inches with a published base cost of $5.55. Gelato doesn't carry coasters today. Every number below came from the live catalogs on November 5, 2026.

Coasters are a quiet workhorse in a print on demand store. They're cheap to make, they photograph well next to a mug, they make an easy gift in November and December, and they work for almost any niche, from pet portraits to local landmarks to brewery and coffee shop merch. They also sell well in sets, which changes how you should price them.

We run all three suppliers. ApparelHub connects to Printful, Printify and Gelato, all three are live for our merchants, and we don't take a cut of anyone's print margin, so we've got no reason to steer you toward one.

Which print on demand supplier is best for coasters?

It depends on what kind of coaster business you want.

• One reliable product with a published price: Printful. One cork-back coaster, one size, $5.55 base.
• Materials, formats and sets: Printify. Cork, corkwood, hardboard, ceramic, soapstone, a four-piece set and bulk packs.
• Coasters from Gelato: not an option today. A keyword search of Gelato's catalog for "coaster" returned nothing.

So if Gelato makes the rest of your home range, coasters have to come from Printful or Printify. Worth knowing before you plan a mug and coaster gift bundle around a Gelato mug.

What do print on demand coasters actually cost?

Printful is the only one of the three that publishes a coaster base cost in its catalog feed.

That $5.55 is production cost only, before shipping, tax and your channel's fees. On Printify, every coaster variant arrives through the catalog feed with a cost of zero. That isn't a bug, Printify just doesn't share base cost with platforms until a product is actually built. More on what that means for you below.

Which coasters can you get on Printify?

Printify's catalog lists nine coaster products:

• Cork Back Coaster: 3.75 by 3.75 inches and 4 by 4 inches.
• Corkwood Coaster Set: 3.75 by 3.75 inches.
• Hardboard Back Coaster: 3.5 by 3.5 inches.
• Coasters: 3.7 by 3.7 inches, with four variants.
• Coasters (50, 100 pcs): 4 by 4 inches, sold as a pack of 50 or 100.
• Soapstone Car Coaster: 2.6 by 2.6 inches, small enough for a car cup holder.
• Ceramic Coaster: one size, two variants.
• Coaster: 3.5 by 3.5 inches.
• Hardboard Coasters with Cork Bottom (Set of 4): 4 by 4 inches.

That range opens up product ideas Printful's single coaster can't cover. A set of four is a ready-made gift. A ceramic or soapstone coaster feels heavier and more premium than cork, which suits a higher price. A car coaster reaches buyers who'd never think of a coaster for the kitchen table. And the 50 and 100 packs are made for businesses: a bar, a cafe, a wedding or a brand event buying in bulk.

Why can't you see Printify's coaster costs up front?

Printify doesn't put base cost in the catalog data it publishes to other platforms, so every coaster comes through at zero until you build.

That doesn't mean typing costs in by hand. Printify returns the real per-variant cost when a product is created on its side, and building the product through ApparelHub, mockup included, does exactly that, so the cost lands on each variant as part of the build. What you can't do is sort Printify's nine coasters by price before building any of them. To compare its cork coaster against Printful's, build it, read the cost off the variant, and compare like for like. Comparing shipping and tax across suppliers is a separate step, since base cost leaves both out.

Same product, two suppliers: the cork-back coaster

Both catalogs carry a cork-backed square coaster at almost the same size, which makes it the fairest head to head.

Size. Printful's is 3.74 inches square. Printify's comes in 3.75 inches, effectively the same, and a slightly larger 4 inch option.

Price. Printful publishes $5.55. Printify's appears when you build.

Print area. Printful's template is 570 by 570 with a recommended image of 728 by 728. Printify's is 1200 by 1200 with a recommended image of 1560 by 1560. Those numbers are each supplier's own template scale, not a quality score, so don't read the larger number as a sharper print. What matters is that both are square, so one square design works on both, which makes a backup supplier easy to set up.

How big is the print area on a coaster?

Every coaster in both catalogs uses a square template. That's simple, but it hides one trap: coasters come in different sizes, and a design that sits nicely at 4 inches can feel crowded at 2.6.

A few habits help here:

• Keep important detail away from the edges. Coasters are small and the edge is where wear and trimming show first. Leave a margin around text and faces.
• Go bold. At under 4 inches, thin lines and small text disappear. If you can't read it on the mockup at actual size, a customer won't either.
• Make a version for the car coaster. At 2.6 inches it's the smallest format here, so simplify the design rather than shrinking the kitchen version.

Our print ready file guide covers resolution, format and color in more depth.

What goes wrong with coaster listings?

Three mistakes show up often.

Treating a single coaster like a gift. Most people buy coasters in sets. A single coaster at a gift price feels thin. Either sell Printify's set of four, or bundle several of the same design.

Pricing from base cost alone. $5.55 looks like plenty of room at $12.99. But a coaster ships in its own order more often than you'd expect, and shipping plus your channel's fee can take most of that margin on a one-coaster order.

Listing a material you haven't seen. Cork, hardboard, ceramic and soapstone all look different in person, and the mockup can't tell you how a surface feels or how colors sit on it. Order a sample of any material you plan to feature heavily.

How do you price coasters so they make money?

Start with base cost and the way people actually buy.

Take Printful's cork-back coaster at $5.55. Sold alone at $12.99, you've got $7.44 left before shipping and fees. Sold as four of the same design at $34.99, the base is $22.20 and you've got $12.79 left before shipping and fees, and that order ships as one package instead of four separate purchases. That's why sets and bundles are where coasters earn their keep.

A few more ways to protect margin:

• Pair coasters with a mug. It's the most natural bundle in home decor, and a coaster added to a mug order shares its shipping. See our guide to the best print on demand supplier for mugs.
• Price premium materials as premium. If you pick ceramic or soapstone on Printify, don't price them like cork. Build first, read the real cost, then set the price.
• Use bulk packs for business buyers. The 50 and 100 packs suit a different customer entirely. Price them as a business order, not a gift.

For the full method, see how to price print on demand products, and for watching margins across your catalog, how to track profit margins in a print on demand store.

How many coasters does each supplier carry?

Coasters often sit beside other small gift products. Our guides to the best print on demand supplier for magnets and for ornaments cover two that go well in a holiday range. For the wider supplier picture, see Printful vs Printify vs Gelato.

Where ApparelHub fits, and where it doesn't

ApparelHub runs the pipeline around these suppliers rather than replacing them. Printful, Printify and Gelato are all live today, you connect your own accounts, and whatever margin you have with them stays yours. We don't take a percentage of print cost.

For coasters, that means browsing both coaster catalogs side by side, real Printify costs landing on your variants when you build, mockups rendered by the supplier that would actually print the coaster so you can check the design before listing, and margin guardrails that can hold an order instead of fulfilling it at a loss when a cost moves. Listings sync to Shopify, WooCommerce, Wix and TikTok Shop.

What it doesn't do: we don't make the coaster, we can't add coasters to Gelato's catalog, and we can't make Printify publish a base cost it doesn't publish, so price shopping across Printify's nine coasters before building still happens in Printify. A mockup isn't a sample, and for a new material ordering one is worth it. We don't integrate Etsy, and we've explained why.

If you'd rather not do the comparison by hand, you can connect your own AI agent, Claude or any assistant that supports connectors, and have it compare coaster formats, build the ones you want so the real costs land, fit your design to each square template and review the mockups through ApparelHub. Agent access is on every plan, including Free, and setup is at apparelhub.ai/agents.

Frequently asked questions

Which supplier has the cheapest print on demand coaster? Of the published prices, Printful's cork-back coaster is $5.55 base, and it's the only coaster with a cost in a catalog feed. Printify may be cheaper on some formats, but you'll find out by building the product, since its costs aren't published to platforms up front.

Does Gelato sell print on demand coasters? Not as of November 2026. A search of Gelato's catalog for "coaster" returned nothing, so coasters need to come from Printful or Printify.

Can I sell coasters as a set? Yes. Printify carries a hardboard set of four with cork bottoms and a corkwood coaster set, plus packs of 50 or 100 for bulk buyers. Printful's coaster is sold one at a time, so a set there means bundling several in your store.

What size are print on demand coasters? Most are between 3.5 and 4 inches square. Printful's is 3.74 inches. Printify ranges from 3.5 to 4 inches, plus a 2.6 inch soapstone coaster made for car cup holders.

Can I sell the same coaster design through more than one supplier? Yes. Every coaster in both catalogs uses a square template, so one square design works on Printful's cork-back and Printify's cork back alike. That makes a second supplier an easy backup plan for when a print provider runs out of stock.

Where to start

Pick the format your buyer wants first: a single cork coaster, a gift set, a premium ceramic or a bulk pack. Then build it on the supplier that carries it, check the real cost and the mockup, and price it as a set or a bundle. Create a free ApparelHub account to compare both coaster catalogs in one place, or see how AI agents can run the comparison for you.