Guide · Published October 28, 2026

Best Print on Demand Supplier for Shorts (2026): Fleece, Athletic, Mesh and Biker Shorts Compared

Quick answer: for shorts it's a two-provider choice. Printful has a focused line of about a dozen styles with published base costs, from $23.31 for all-over print cotton shorts to $29.98 for all-over print athletic shorts, plus a $26.47 Independent Trading Co. fleece short you can print or embroider. Printify has far more range, roughly 38 shorts across all-over print styles and branded blanks from Comfort Colors, Independent Trading Co., AS Colour, Badger and Boxercraft. Gelato doesn't list shorts in its catalog as of October 2026, so it isn't a shorts supplier right now.

Shorts are an underrated add-on for an apparel brand. If you already sell tees and hoodies, a matching pair of fleece shorts turns a single purchase into a set, and athletic and mesh shorts open the door to gym, team and summer collections. They're also one of the trickiest products to design for, because the space you actually get to print on is nothing like a t-shirt.

ApparelHub connects to Printful, Printify and Gelato, all live for our merchants, and we don't take a cut of anyone's print margin, so we've got no reason to push you toward one of them. Every cost and print area in this guide comes from the providers' own catalogs, pulled this month.

Which supplier is best for print on demand shorts?

• Printful if you want predictable costs and a tidy range. Its catalog has all-over print athletic, mesh, cotton, biker, yoga, pajama and board shorts, long versions of the athletic and cotton styles, a youth mesh short, and one blank fleece short from Independent Trading Co. Every size has a published base cost before you build anything.
• Printify if you want brands, colors and cuts. Its shorts range is the sum of many print shops, so alongside a long list of all-over print styles you'll find dyed fleece from Comfort Colors, fleece from Independent Trading Co., gym and pocketed mesh shorts from Badger, a whole run of AS Colour track, court, training and active shorts, and women's French terry, flannel and ribbed knit shorts from Boxercraft.
• Gelato isn't in the running. A catalog search for shorts comes back empty today. Gelato is strong for tees, hoodies, wall art and paper goods, but shorts aren't part of its line.

The real decision isn't really Printful vs Printify, though. It's whether you want an all-over print short, where your artwork is the fabric, or a colored blank with a logo on the leg. Those are two different products, and they suit different shops.

What do print on demand shorts actually cost?

These are Printful's published base costs as of October 2026. Base cost is production only; shipping and tax come on top.

Two patterns are worth knowing before you price. First, the plus-size step is consistent: Printful adds $2 for each size above XL on these shorts, so a 3XL athletic short costs $4 more to make than a medium. If you charge one price across every size, your margin quietly shrinks on the bigger sizes. Second, the cheapest short isn't the simplest one. The all-over print cotton short comes in under the plain fleece blank, so "a full print costs more" isn't a safe assumption here.

Printify's costs aren't in the table, and that's on purpose. Printify doesn't put base cost in the catalog data that connected platforms read. The real per-variant cost comes back when the product is created on Printify's side, which happens as part of building it, so on ApparelHub it lands on your variants automatically. What you can't do is sort Printify's shorts by cost before you build one. If you're comparing, build the same design on a Printify fleece short and the Printful one and look at the real numbers side by side.

Where does the design actually go on a pair of shorts?

This is the part that catches people out, and it's different on every style.

Blank fleece shorts only take a design on the legs. Printful's Independent Trading Co. fleece short has four placements: front left leg, front right leg, back left leg and back right leg. There's no front waist or seat placement. Printify's Comfort Colors garment-dyed fleece short is set up the same way, with the same four leg panels. So a fleece short is a logo or wordmark product. A small mark on the front left leg is the classic look, and a short word running up the leg works well too.

All-over print shorts split into front and back panels. On Printful's athletic short, the front and back are each a wide, short rectangle, close to twice as wide as it is tall. The mesh and cotton shorts are the same shape, just a little wider still. Your artwork wraps across both legs of each panel, which is why repeating patterns look so good on these and a single centered graphic often doesn't. The center of the panel lands right on the crotch seam.

Biker shorts are built leg by leg. Printful's biker short takes a separate design for the left leg, the right leg, the front waistband, the back waistband and a pocket. That's five files, and it gives you a lot of control: a solid waistband with your brand name, a pattern on the legs, a contrasting pocket. It also means five chances to get an edge wrong, so check every panel in the preview.

For that last row, read the placement list on the specific product before you design. Printify's branded athletic shorts come from different print shops and they don't all print the same way or in the same spots.

How should you design for all-over print shorts?

Three habits fix most of the problems we see.

1. Use a pattern, not a poster. A seamless repeat survives seams, pleats and the way fabric bunches at the crotch. A single photo or illustration gets split down the middle and folded into a seam.
2. Fill the color to every edge. Every Printful all-over print short starts from a white fabric, and the design is the color. If you want navy shorts, the navy has to be in the file all the way to each edge, or you'll get white peeking through at the seams. Our all-over print guide goes deeper on this.
3. Size your file for the panel, not a square. A square image dropped into a wide panel has to be stretched or cropped to fit. Make the artwork the panel's shape, then check the preview for both front and back. The same idea applies to legwear generally, which we covered in the leggings guide.

For blank fleece shorts, the rules flip back to t-shirt rules: a transparent background so the fabric color shows through, and a design small enough to sit on the leg without wrapping around the side seam.

Should you print or embroider fleece shorts?

Printful's Independent Trading Co. fleece short supports both printing and embroidery, and on a leg logo embroidery is often the better call. It looks more premium, it survives washing well, and a small mark is exactly the size embroidery handles best.

The tradeoffs are the usual ones. Embroidery works from a limited thread palette, so gradients, photos and fine detail don't translate, and very small text turns into blobs. Keep embroidered designs to a few solid colors with bold shapes. If your design is full color or detailed, print it instead.

Which shorts sell best for print on demand?

We won't invent sales numbers, but the use cases are clear enough to plan around:

• Matching sets. Fleece shorts sold next to a hoodie or crewneck in the same color with the same small logo. This is the easiest add-on for an existing apparel brand. The sweatpants guide covers the long-leg version of the same idea.
• Gym and team shorts. Mesh, athletic and Badger-style pocketed shorts for gyms, leagues, run clubs and school teams. Printful's recycled mesh short runs all the way to 6XL, which helps when you're outfitting a whole team.
• Loud pattern shorts. All-over print athletic and cotton shorts with bold repeats for summer, festivals and novelty collections.
• Swim and beach. Board shorts and swim trunks are their own category with their own fabrics. We covered them separately in the swimwear guide, where Printful's board shorts start at $42.74.

How do you price print on demand shorts?

Start from base cost and work forward, not from what a competitor charges. Using Printful's published costs:

The example retail prices are illustrations, not recommendations. Your real margin depends on what you charge for shipping, your sales channel's fees and any discounts, and on the plus sizes, where base cost climbs by $2 a size. Our pricing guide walks through the full calculation.

How ApparelHub helps with shorts

Here's what the platform actually does for this product, and where it stops.

• One place to compare both catalogs. You can browse Printful's and Printify's shorts side by side, see each style's placements and print areas, and see Printful's base costs per size before you build. Printify's costs land on your variants automatically once you build the product.
• Build on either provider with your own account. You connect your own Printful, Printify and Gelato accounts. We don't resell fulfillment and we don't take a cut of the print margin, so the difference between your retail price and the provider's cost stays with you.
• Sell everywhere you already are. Products sync to Shopify, WooCommerce, Wix and TikTok Shop, and orders come back to one place for fulfillment.
• Margin guardrails. Pricing below cost gets flagged, which matters on shorts because of those per-size steps.
• Let your own agent do the busywork. Connect Claude or another MCP-capable assistant through apparelhub.ai/agents and ask it to find shorts that take an embroidered leg logo, build them in your colors and list them on your channels. It's your agent, working through your accounts.

What we don't do: we can't make Gelato carry shorts, and we can't show you Printify's cost before a product is built. Check the live catalog before you commit to a style, too, since shorts lines change with the seasons.

FAQ

Does Gelato do print on demand shorts? Not as of October 2026. A search of Gelato's catalog for shorts returns nothing, so for shorts you're choosing between Printful and Printify.

Can I put a design on the front waist of fleece shorts? Not on the fleece shorts we looked at. Both Printful's Independent Trading Co. short and Printify's Comfort Colors short only offer leg placements, front and back. If you want a waistband design, Printful's all-over print biker short has separate front and back waistband placements.

Are all-over print shorts more expensive than blank shorts? Not necessarily. Printful's all-over print cotton short starts at $23.31, below its $26.47 fleece blank, while its all-over print athletic short starts at $29.98. Compare by style, not by decoration method.

Why do my all-over print shorts show white at the seams? Printful's all-over print shorts are made from white fabric, and the design supplies the color. If your file doesn't carry the background color to every edge, the white fabric shows where the panels meet. Extend the background edge to edge and check both panels in the preview.

Which shorts should I add to an existing hoodie brand? Fleece shorts in the same colors as your hoodies, with the same small logo on the front left leg. It's the easiest matching set to make and the simplest design to get right.

Ready to build a shorts line on the provider that fits it? Create a free ApparelHub account, connect Printful or Printify, and compare real costs before you list. If you'd rather hand the building to your own AI assistant, start at apparelhub.ai/agents.