Best Print on Demand Supplier for Towels (2026): Beach, Hand, Tea and Golf Towels Compared
Quick answer: for towels it's a two-provider choice. Printful keeps a short, predictable line with published base costs, including a 30 x 60 inch Beach Towel at $29.40, a printed 28 x 16 inch Hand Towel at $9.85, and an embroidered Imabari cotton hand towel at $9.75 in seven colors. Printify has far more range: beach towels up to 36 x 72 inches, tea towels, waffle kitchen towels, golf and rally towels, and hooded towels for babies and kids. Gelato doesn't list towels in its catalog as of October 2026, so it isn't a towel supplier right now.
Towels are a quietly good print on demand product. They're giftable, they're seasonal in a useful way (beach towels in spring, kitchen towels around the holidays, rally towels in football season), and a big rectangle of fabric gives bold artwork room to breathe. They're also a product where the type of towel matters more than the brand of supplier, because a beach towel, a tea towel and an embroidered hand towel are three completely different products.
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 steer you toward one. This guide uses the costs, sizes and print areas from the providers' own catalogs, pulled this month.
Which supplier is best for print on demand towels?
- Printful if you want known costs and a small, tidy line. Three towel products: a Beach Towel, a printed Hand Towel, and an embroidered Imabari cotton hand towel.
- Printify if you want variety. Its towel range spans beach towels, hand and face towels, several tea towel styles, waffle weave kitchen towels, golf towels, a rally towel and hooded towels for babies and kids. Different print shops make different products, so quality and materials vary by which one you pick.
- Gelato isn't in the running. A catalog search for towels returns nothing today. Gelato is strong for apparel, wall art and paper goods, but towels aren't part of its line.
What do print on demand towels actually cost?
These are Printful's published base costs as of October 2026. Base cost is production only; shipping and tax come on top.
| Product | Provider | Size | Decoration | Base cost |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Beach Towel | Printful | 30 x 60 in | Full print | $29.40 |
| Hand Towel | Printful | 28 x 16 in | Full print | $9.85 |
| Cotton Hand Towel, Imabari | Printful | One size, 7 colors | Embroidery | $9.75 |
The two hand towels are almost the same price and couldn't be more different. The printed one is a white canvas for a full-color design. The Imabari towel is a colored cotton towel with a small embroidered mark in one corner. One sells artwork, the other sells a premium, minimal look, and they suit different shops.
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 towels by cost before you build one. If you're comparing, build the same design on a Printify beach towel and the Printful one and look at the real numbers side by side.
What towel types does each provider offer?
Printful keeps it simple:
- Beach Towel: one size, 30 x 60 inches, white base, full front print.
- Hand Towel: one size, 28 x 16 inches, white base, full print.
- Cotton Hand Towel, Imabari: one size in Asphalt Black, Cappuccino, Light Blue, Light Pink, Moss Green, Navy Blue and White, with an embroidered design in the corner.
Printify has more because its catalog is the sum of many print shops. As of October 2026 the towel range includes:
- Beach towels: a two-size beach towel at 30 x 60 and 36 x 72 inches, and a three-size line at 18 x 27, 24 x 44 and 30 x 60 inches.
- Bathroom: a 28 x 16 inch hand towel, a face towel, and a mink-cotton towel.
- Kitchen: a tea towel, cotton and poly tea towels at 18 x 30 inches, a microfiber tea towel, a waffle weave kitchen hand towel and a double-sided waffle tea towel.
- Sports: a 16 x 24 inch golf towel and an 11 x 18 inch rally towel.
- Kids: a hooded baby towel, a youth hooded towel, and an embroidered terry hooded towel with ears.
That range is the real reason to use Printify for towels. If you want a kitchen towel line for the holidays, a rally towel for a local team, or a hooded kids' towel, Printful simply doesn't carry the product. Check the live catalog before you commit, since towel lines shift often.
Why does one design crop differently on each towel size?
This is the trap that catches people who add several sizes to one listing.
Sizes inside one towel product aren't always the same shape. Printify's three-size beach towel is the clearest case: 18 x 27 is a 1.5 to 1 rectangle, 24 x 44 is about 1.83 to 1, and 30 x 60 is exactly 2 to 1. Upload one image for all three and it has to be fitted differently to each, so a slogan that sits perfectly on the small towel can get pushed toward the hem, or cut, on the long one.
Three habits fix almost all of it:
- Keep text and faces away from the edges. Towel hems fold and stitch over the outer margin, and people fold towels in thirds on a shelf or a chair, so the middle of the towel is where the design is actually seen.
- Check every size's preview. A mockup of the 18 x 27 size tells you nothing about the 30 x 60 crop.
- Make a separate file for the outlier. When one size is a very different shape, give it its own composition. A near-square kitchen towel and a long beach towel are two designs, not one.
It's the same issue we covered for desk mats in our mouse pad guide, and the fix is the same: design for the shape, not just the size.
How big does a towel image need to be?
Bigger than most people expect, especially for beach towels.
Printify's own recommended image sizes give you the target. Its three-size beach towel recommends roughly 6,986 x 10,532 pixels. Its two-size beach towel, which goes up to 36 x 72 inches, recommends about 24,570 x 12,870. Even the 11 x 18 inch rally towel recommends around 4,719 x 7,449. A small square image stretched across a beach towel will look soft.
The practical rules:
- Build for the largest size you'll sell. Scaling down is safe; scaling up is where blur comes from.
- Fill edge to edge on printed towels. There's no transparent area on a printed towel the way there is on a tee. If you want a navy towel, the navy has to be in the file all the way to every edge, or you'll get a white border.
- Check the orientation. Some towel print areas are set up landscape and some portrait. Match your artwork to the template before you build, or a vertical design ends up sideways.
For file prep in general, see what a print-ready file for print on demand actually needs.
What changes when the towel is embroidered?
The Imabari towel works by completely different rules from a printed towel.
Embroidery is stitched thread, not ink. Designs need to be flat and bold, use a small set of solid colors, and avoid gradients, photos and fine detail. Printful's embroidery works from a fixed thread palette, so pick colors that map cleanly to it, and keep lettering large enough to stitch cleanly. On this towel the embroidery sits in one corner, so think monogram, small logo or a short word rather than artwork.
Transparent backgrounds are correct here. Anywhere the file is transparent, nothing is stitched and the towel's own color shows through. That's what makes a simple gold or white mark look sharp on the Navy Blue or Asphalt Black towel.
If you'd like to sell personalized monogram towels, this is the product to start with. Our hats guide covers embroidery design rules in more depth.
How do you price a towel so it's actually profitable?
- Price against landed cost, not base cost. A beach towel is heavy compared to a tee, so shipping is a real share of the total. With Printful you can get production plus shipping plus tax before you confirm an order, so use that number for each destination you ship to.
- Price each type on its own. A $9.85 hand towel and a $29.40 beach towel shouldn't share a margin rule. Small kitchen and hand towels work well as bundle add-ons, while beach towels can carry a premium retail price as a gift.
- Plan around the season. Beach towels sell best in late spring and early summer; kitchen and tea towels pick up around the holidays; rally and golf towels follow sports seasons. Build and order samples a few weeks ahead.
For the full math, see how to price print on demand products.
Where ApparelHub fits, and where it doesn't
ApparelHub sits above the providers. You connect your own Printful, Printify and Gelato accounts, keep your own pricing, and we take no share of your print margin.
For towels specifically:
- Printful and Printify towels can both be built from one place, and fulfillment is chosen per product, so your beach towels can print with one provider while your tees print with another from the same storefront. More on how that works in connecting multiple print providers to one storefront.
- Printful's published costs are visible while you browse, and Printify's real cost lands on your variants automatically when you build.
- Full landed estimates for Printful before you confirm an order.
- Listings on the channels you already use: Shopify, WooCommerce, Wix and TikTok Shop are all live.
- An agent surface at apparelhub.ai/agents. ApparelHub doesn't run an agent for you and doesn't have its own AI. We expose the whole pipeline through an API, an MCP connector and a Claude skill, so the assistant you already use can generate a wide beach towel design at the right proportions, build it on both providers and compare real costs. You bring the agent.
What we won't claim: Gelato towels aren't available because Gelato doesn't carry them, we can't sort Printify's towels by cost before you build one, and we can't tell you how a given print shop's towel feels in the hand. Order a sample for that.
Frequently asked questions
Does Gelato do print on demand towels? Not as of October 2026. A search of Gelato's catalog returns no towel products, so your choice is Printful or Printify.
What's the cheapest print on demand towel? On Printful, the embroidered Imabari cotton hand towel at $9.75 base cost, with the printed Hand Towel close behind at $9.85. Printify doesn't publish cost in its catalog data, so build a candidate there and compare real numbers.
Can I sell a beach towel in several sizes in one listing? Yes, where the provider offers several sizes in one product, like Printify's 18 x 27, 24 x 44 and 30 x 60 inch beach towel. Check every size's preview, because the sizes are different shapes and one image will crop differently on each.
Can I personalize towels with a name or monogram? Yes. The embroidered Imabari towel suits a monogram or short name in the corner. For printed towels, a name works best as part of a larger design placed well inside the edges.
Where to start
If you want the simple path, start with Printful's Beach Towel and printed Hand Towel. The costs are published, the line is easy to manage, and you get a landed estimate before you commit. If you want kitchen, golf, rally or kids' towels, build two or three Printify candidates and compare real costs.
Either way, order one sample of your biggest towel and wash it once. That one sample answers the color, softness and crop questions for good.
Create a free account, connect your own provider accounts, and build the same towel design on Printful and Printify to compare real costs side by side. If you'd rather hand that loop to an assistant you already use, start at apparelhub.ai/agents.