Frequently asked questions

Same product, two ways of running it.

The PrintKit Shopify app is the native Shopify app, listed on the App Store as PrintKit by Big Chato's. It installs from the App Store, adds builders to your product pages through the theme editor, runs orders through your own Shopify checkout, and bills through Shopify.

PrintKit on any other website is the universal edition. You sign up at app.printkit.tech, paste a one-line embed on any page, and finished designs land in your PrintKit portal as quotes with the print-ready file attached. You quote and collect payment your own way.

No. The six builders your customers use are exactly the same files in both editions — same canvas, same pricing logic, same print output, same English/Spanish toggle. What differs is the merchant side: how you install it, where you configure it, and how the order reaches you.

A few merchant-side tools are ahead in one edition. Right now the Shopify app additionally has the one-photo recolor grid, per-garment youth palettes, and the minimum-order field for apparel/embroidery/UV substrate. The referral program runs on both editions. Each of those is flagged where it appears in this help center.

Yes, and some shops do — for example a Shopify storefront plus a separate marketing site. They are separate accounts and separate subscriptions, so you would be paying for each. If you are not sure which fits, email support@printkit.tech and describe your setup.

Every plan starts with 14 days free, in both editions, and you can use your builders fully during it. On Shopify the trial is handled by Shopify's billing; on the any-website edition your card isn't charged until the trial ends. Your dashboard shows how many days are left.

It's a flat ladder with no cap and no bundle you have to buy: $19/month for your first builder and +$12/month for each additional one. So one builder is $19, two is $31, three is $43, four is $55, five is $67, and all six is $79 a month. Pricing is identical in both editions.

Yes — on both editions. Annual is $190/year for your first builder and +$120/year for each additional one, which works out to roughly two months free versus paying monthly. Three builders are $430/year and all six are $790/year.

Shopify app Choose Monthly or Annual on the Plan & billing page before you subscribe, and switch cycles later whenever you like — Shopify prorates the change and you approve the new subscription on its own screen. Your 14-day free trial is the same either way.

Any website Choose Monthly or Annual on the billing page; we bill you directly.

Monthly is the default on both editions, so annual is always a deliberate choice.

No. There are no transaction fees and no commission on your orders — you pay the flat monthly (or annual) subscription and keep everything you charge your customers. PrintKit never sits in the payment path: on Shopify the money goes through your own Shopify checkout, and on any other website you collect it yourself.

No. Enabling or disabling a builder never re-bills you on its own — billing only changes when you pick a plan on the billing page. If the number of builders you have enabled no longer matches your plan, PrintKit shows a banner nudging you to the matching plan, up or down, so your bill stays correct.

Enable the builder first, then open your billing page and choose the plan matching the number of builders you now run. On Shopify the change goes through Shopify's subscription billing; on the any-website edition it goes through Stripe, and you can manage your card and invoices in the billing portal from that page.

Shopify app Cancellation runs through Shopify's billing — uninstalling PrintKit or cancelling the app subscription ends billing. When a store uninstalls, its PrintKit data is deleted and its encryption key destroyed, which makes any remaining data permanently unrecoverable.

Any website Cancel from your billing page. Removing the embed snippet from your site stops new orders immediately. For account and data deletion, email support@printkit.tech.

On Shopify the subscription is billed by Shopify, so any billing adjustment or refund is handled through Shopify's app-billing system rather than by PrintKit directly. On the any-website edition, refunds are handled by us — see the refund and cancellation policy linked in your portal footer. Either way, for a specific situation email support@printkit.tech.

Both editions Share your referral link with another print shop. When they subscribe to a paid plan you get a $19 account credit toward your PrintKit bill, and they get 25% off their first month (monthly plans). Credits stack — every shop you refer that becomes a paying merchant is another $19. And every 5th paying referral earns an extra credit equal to your own current monthly bill.

Both editions The 25% is a first-month welcome offer, so it applies to monthly plans. If the shop you referred picks annual billing they don’t get the 25% — annual is already about two months cheaper than paying monthly — but you still earn your $19 credit when their first payment goes through.

All rewards are account credits toward your PrintKit subscription — never cash. Codes and rewards stay inside the edition that issued them; nothing credits across the two.

Shopify app In the PrintKit app in your Shopify admin, under Plan & billing.

Any website On the Billing page at app.printkit.tech.

In both editions the card is titled Refer a shop, get $19 and has a Copy link button. Your link looks like printkit.tech/r/YOURSHOP-7K2Q, and the same card shows how many shops have subscribed, how much you’ve been credited, and how far you are from your next milestone.

How you claim it depends on which edition your code came from — a code only works on the edition that issued it.

Shopify app It isn’t automatic, and it can’t be added later. Copy the code from the link you were sent, install PrintKit, then open Plan & billing and paste it into the Have a referral code? field before you subscribe. That is what applies your discount and credits the shop that referred you. The 25% is a first-month offer, so it applies on monthly billing; if you pick annual, enter the code anyway — there is no 25% off a yearly plan, but your referrer still gets their credit.

Any website Click the printkit.tech/r/… link you were sent and sign up from there — the code rides along in the link, so on a monthly plan your 25% is applied at your first checkout automatically. If you pick annual there is no first-month discount — annual is already about two months cheaper than paying monthly — but sign up through the link anyway and the shop that referred you still gets their credit.

Either way your 14-day free trial comes first. The discount applies to your first subscription only and doesn’t stack with other promo codes. If you subscribe first and enter a code afterwards, it is ignored.

Both editions When the shop you referred has their first real charge succeed — an active paid subscription, past the trial, for more than $0. A shop on a free or fully discounted plan doesn't trigger a credit. Attribution is locked to the first referrer permanently, so nobody can overwrite it later. If a milestone falls due while you don't have an active paid plan of your own, that milestone bonus is skipped.

Any website Yes. PrintKit for any website runs the same program on the same numbers: the $19 account credit, the referred shop’s 25% off their first month (monthly plans), and the every-5th-referral free month. Your link is on the Billing page at app.printkit.tech.

Codes and rewards stay inside the edition that issued them. A code created in the Shopify app only applies when the referred shop subscribes in the Shopify app; a code created in PrintKit for any website only applies at signup on app.printkit.tech. Nothing credits across the two editions.

Any website Use the Forgot password link on the login page. We email a single-use reset link that expires after 30 minutes; opening it lets you set a new password, and using it invalidates every other outstanding reset link on your account. Only verified accounts get a link, and the page looks the same either way so nobody can use it to discover whether an email is registered.

Shopify app There's no PrintKit password to forget — you reach the app through your Shopify admin, so Shopify handles the login.

Any website Yes. The portal is a progressive web app: use your browser's “Install” or “Add to Home Screen” option and it installs as PrintKit with its own icon, opening straight to your dashboard. It is a real app shortcut, not an offline copy — orders and quotes still need a connection, deliberately, so you never see stale job data.

Any website Not yet — the portal is one login per shop today. If you need separate staff accounts, tell us at support@printkit.tech.

Shopify app Access follows your Shopify staff permissions, so anyone you have given app access to in Shopify can open PrintKit.

Yes. Every builder has a built-in English / Español toggle that shoppers switch themselves, and their choice is remembered on their device. No setup required. Options and form values stay constant behind the scenes, so switching language never changes what gets ordered. Separately, you can add an optional link to your own translated storefront page if you keep one.

Yes, and they're deliberately separate settings. Any website The portal has its own EN / ES switch for you, and the ticket language is set independently — it drives the work-ticket page, the ticket PDF, and the labels and filenames inside the Production Pack. So you can run the admin in English and print every job sheet in Spanish, or the other way round.

No — and this is deliberate. The storefront builder is treated as untrusted: it never sends a price, only the pricing inputs (the garment, size, options, quantities and so on). PrintKit recomputes the price on its own server from your saved configuration — the exact same config the builder showed the shopper. Because both sides read the same source and the server has the final say, what a shopper is shown is what they are charged, and a tampered request cannot lower the price.

The server also rejects options you don't offer: a cut style you haven't enabled, a size that isn't on your list, a quantity that isn't one of your tiers, or an order under your minimum.

Rush is entirely yours to set, per shop: you turn it on or off, and set a percentage (25% is the usual starting point) and/or a flat minimum. When on, the rush charge is the greater of your minimum or that percentage of the line subtotal. When your rush toggle is off, no rush fee is ever applied — even to a crafted request — because the server forces it to zero.

Where you enter a total price for a quantity — single stickers work this way — the per-unit price the shopper sees is that total divided by the quantity, rounded to the cent, and the subtotal is then rebuilt from that rounded unit price. If your tier total doesn't divide evenly by its quantity, the charged total can land a cent or two off your typed number. Entering totals that divide cleanly avoids it entirely.

Yes, in two separate places. The apparel, embroidery and UV substrate builders share a minimum order quantity that counts every unit in the order across all sizes and colors, shows a notice at the top of the builder, and is enforced on the server. Shopify app is where that field lives today.

Single stickers have their own separate minimum inside the sticker builder, available in both editions — it hides the tiers below it and tells the shopper “Minimum order: 10 stickers.”

The design prints at the physical dimensions the shopper chose. In the sheet and transfer builders they can type an exact width and height in inches and the art is resized to precisely that, exporting 1:1 at print resolution and clamped to the printable area. An aspect-lock keeps art from stretching; if a shopper unlocks it to force an exact width and height, the builder warns that the art can distort. What they see is what prints.

No. The resolution check is a warning, never a gate. The meter shows green when resolution is good for the chosen print size, amber when it's getting low, and flags art below that. In the sheet and layout builders the shopper is also asked to confirm before adding low-res art — but they can always go ahead and complete the order.

PrintKit is also honest that a high DPI number alone doesn't guarantee a good print. The meter only measures pixels against print size; a blurry, heavily compressed or already-upscaled source file can still look soft at a “good” reading, so it's worth asking for the original file when something looks off.

The print builders accept common raster images — PNG, JPG/JPEG, GIF, WEBP and BMP. The Embroidered Apparel builder additionally accepts vector and digitizing source files (PDF, AI, EPS, SVG). You choose which formats to accept, and PrintKit verifies every upload by its real file signature, so a renamed or forged file can't slip through.

Transparent PNG matters for die-cut work: it's what lets the cut follow the outline of the art rather than a rectangle.

Yes, to keep things safe: up to 25 MB per uploaded design (decoded), up to 10 files per order request, and image dimensions capped well above any real print file — no side over 30,000 px and around 250 MP total — to reject “decompression-bomb” images. These limits sit far above a legitimate order. Merchant-side photos you upload for garments and substrates have their own smaller cap of 8 MB.

A press-sized file at the real print dimensions: a transparent PNG for apparel, a nested sheet for stickers, a packed gang sheet for DTF, a laid-out roll or sheet file for UV Roll, or a substrate-mapped file for UV Substrate.

One honest caveat: 300 DPI is the target and it is what you get on any normal job, but a very long roll layout can come out below it, because there's a hard ceiling on total pixel dimensions. When that happens the actual export DPI is written on the work ticket and into the filename, so your bench always knows what it's holding rather than assuming.

The Embroidered Apparel builder is the exception — it produces a spec sheet plus the customer's art, ready for digitizing, rather than a raster print file.

For sticker work, yes: a cut-contour PDF at true size, with the contour drawn in your cutter's spot color, alongside the printed art. You choose whether PrintKit produces it or whether you contour in your own RIP — set the cut-line mode to self and you get an art-only file.

UV Roll is print-only — it lays out and prints, and does not produce cut contours.

Shopify app One. A multi-builder cart is written as a single order with one combined work ticket and one Production Pack. Choose the combined layout and PrintKit auto-nests the print files into gang sheets sized to your machine width, each design captioned by its order number. Single-sticker items are the deliberate exception — they're kept out of the gang sheet, because a singles order is many copies of one sticker and your RIP does the step-and-repeat.

Any website Each submitted design arrives as its own quote, so you get one ticket per submission.

The work ticket is the on-screen (and printable) job sheet: order number, the builder it came from, status, quantity and totals, the full production spec, the mockup and the customer's contact details. The Production Pack is a one-click ZIP for the bench containing the print-ready file(s), a work-ticket PDF, the cut-contour PDF(s) and the mockup — plus an optional gang-sheet version that auto-nests the print file at your machine width.

No. The builder only appears where you place it, and it matches your site's look. On Shopify all checkout and payment happen inside your own Shopify checkout. On any other website PrintKit doesn't handle checkout at all — you get the quote and the file, and collect payment however you already do. PrintKit never sees card numbers, CVVs or bank details in either edition.

Six are live today in both editions: Full Color Apparel, Sticker Sheet, DTF Transfers & Gang Sheets, Embroidered Apparel, UV Roll, and UV Substrate. A 3D Print builder is marked coming soon — you can register interest at no charge, but it is not yet available to run and is not billed.

Yes to both. Each builder gets its own page: on Shopify, add the Product Builder block to each page and pick the builder; on any other website, change data-builder in the snippet.

Stickers go one step further — you can put packed sheets and rolls on one page and single stickers on another, from the same account, and neither disables the other. The sticker guide has the exact recipe for both editions.

Every builder has an Order direct form underneath it — name, email, optional phone, what they want and the details — for specialty items, odd sizes, huge runs, or a customer who simply doesn't want to use a builder. It's also the right route for vector artwork: the builders take raster images, so a customer with a PDF, SVG or AI file sends it through the form and you prep it. Those enquiries reach you the same way an order does.

Yes. The builder offers “save my design for later” and emails them a link back to it. Saved designs are kept for the retention window you choose — 7, 30 or 90 days — and you can see the ones that left an email address in Abandoned designs on Shopify or Saved designs in the portal. They are warm leads worth a nudge.

PrintKit collects only what an order needs — the design and its settings, plus the customer's name and email — and never card or bank details, because payment never runs through PrintKit. Customer personal data is encrypted at rest with AES-256-GCM under a separate key per store, and all traffic is over HTTPS/TLS. See the Security page for the full picture.

Print files, mockups and tickets are encrypted at rest and only the authenticated merchant can download them. Saved shopper designs auto-delete after the retention window you choose in setup — 7, 30 or 90 days — enforced by an automated purge.

Shopify app PrintKit handles Shopify's mandatory privacy webhooks automatically — customer data request, customer redact and shop redact — so access and erasure requests are actioned without manual steps, and each is logged. When a store uninstalls, its data is deleted and its encryption key destroyed.

Any website A Data Processing Addendum is available and linked in your portal footer, alongside that edition's own terms and privacy policy. For a deletion or access request, email support@printkit.tech.

Each edition has its own. The ones on printkit.tech cover the PrintKit Shopify app. If you run PrintKit on your own website, your terms, privacy policy, DPA and refund policy are the ones linked in the footer of your portal at app.printkit.tech.