Top 5 Best Print-on-Demand Products to Sell on Etsy
Unlike traditional e-commerce platforms such as Amazon and eBay, Etsy focuses more on original, handmade, and artistic items, emphasizing personalization and uniqueness. The customizable nature of the Print on Demand business model perfectly aligns with Etsy’s platform vibe. Many Etsy sellers utilize POD technology to turn personalized goods, creatively designed products, and handicrafts into POD merchandise to meet consumer demand for customized and individualized items. This article will select and analyze five highly profitable products from Etsy’s top-selling categories as of 2025 to provide some suggestions for your product selection.
Custom Necklaces
First, let’s talk about the jewelry category. Jewelry has always been a very popular product. Frequent Etsy users know that “jewelry” products consistently dominate the top-selling categories, bar none, especially during peak gift-giving seasons like Christmas, Valentine’s Day, and Thanksgiving.
Looking at the long term, jewelry is a product with immense development potential and is highly promising. According to the latest data from several well-known market research firms (such as Fortune Business Insights, Grand View Research, and IMARC Group), the global jewelry market value in 2025 is estimated to be between $242.8 billion and $384.2 billion. With jewelry being so popular, is the custom necklace business worth investing in? Let’s let the sales volume of Etsy custom necklaces speak for itself.
The reason behind the impressive sales of custom necklaces is simple: customers buying jewelry often intend to give it as a gift. This plays right into the hands of the POD model—POD necklaces generally allow for the addition of text or patterns requested by the customer. A custom necklace infused with the gift-giver’s thoughtfulness carries much more added value than a standard necklace. When the materials are identical, the answer to which one makes a better gift is self-evident.
Custom Mugs
Home living products can certainly be considered a top-selling macro-category, encompassing many of Etsy’s bestsellers. By 2026, the annual sales of the U.S. home decor market are projected to exceed $230 billion; for a successful Etsy store, this is a category always ripe for entry and expansion. Within the home decor category on Etsy, mugs are relatively easy to sell. Custom mugs serve a dual purpose for buyers, and they offer a broad market for sellers. Furthermore, the global mug market size is expected to reach $27.23 billion by 2028.
MindBlowingStudio is a shop dealing in similar gift items, primarily featuring highly personalized and exquisite products. This store has been open for about 5 years, yet it has over 4,300 items listed for sale!. What kind of financial backing is needed to stock so many products?. Or perhaps the products are highly profitable, providing the funds to continuously develop new items?. Let’s analyze the product profit margins first!.
Taking one of the store’s mugs as an example, MindBlowingStudio prices it at $16.00, whereas ordering from a platform like PeaPrint only costs $1.46, plus $8.96 for shipping.
$16 (Etsy Selling Price) – $1.46 (Product Cost) – $1.95 (Etsy Platform Fee) – $8.96 (Shipping Fee) = $3.63
$3.63 (Profit) / $12.37 (Cost) = 29.3%
Custom Socks
Socks are an even more everyday clothing item than T-shirts. Precisely because of their high-frequency use, the lifespan of a pair of socks isn’t very long, driving a continuous and robust demand for them, giving this product the potential to become one of the best-selling items on Etsy. The profit that socks can bring to any Etsy store should not be underestimated—the global socks market size is expected to reach $61.5 billion by 2026.
The unique designs of custom socks highlight the wearer’s personality and attitude. Sometimes, once customized, they can also be given as gifts to friends or family members to express well-wishes and care, holding significant commemorative value.
What are the profit margins like? Let’s take a look at how lucrative it can be!
PetPartyCo primarily sells custom socks. It is a well-established store that has been operating for 10 years. They only have 33 products, but these 30-something items have generated hundreds of thousands of sales!. How much can you earn selling this much?. Taking an all-over print crew sock as an example, PetPartyCo prices it at $16.24. If an Etsy seller orders it through PeaPrint, the cost is $1.65 per item, shipping is $7.84, and the platform fee is $2.04.
$13.99 (Etsy Selling Price) – $2.04 (Etsy Platform Fee) – $1.65 (Product Cost) – $7.84 (Shipping Fee) = $2.46
$2.46 (Profit) / $11.53 (Cost) = 21% (Profit Margin)
Custom T-Shirts
When you search for T-shirts on Etsy, there are millions of results to choose from at any given time. Despite the fierce competition, the average search volume for T-shirts on Etsy remains impressive, with an average of 10,394 searches per listing. Furthermore, the average click-through rate for individual T-shirt items is 40%, meaning nearly half of the T-shirt visitors will click to view the product details. With interesting, exquisite designs and high-quality products, selling T-shirts on Etsy is absolutely a profitable business. Data shows that T-shirt sellers on Etsy can earn an approximate 50% profit margin at an average price of $19.00. The net profit margin for T-shirts is 50%.
The source of the aforementioned 50% profit margin for T-shirts is an article from Yahoo Finance, but in reality, the top-selling T-shirts on Etsy are more often budget-friendly options priced around ten dollars. The purchasing momentum for the $19 short sleeves mentioned by Yahoo Finance is nowhere near that of the affordable T-shirts.
Custom Stickers
If you want to know what sells best on Etsy, just look at stickers. Although they are inconspicuous little trinkets, the sales volume of these small items might be much higher than you imagine. Behind the strong sales of stickers is the simple motivation of customers buying them to showcase their thoughts or viewpoints to everyone. This is practically a product tailor-made for the POD model!. Sellers only need to design visually resonant images and can then wait for customers to buy them. Products like stickers, which have low costs but strong profit margins and sales, are worth listing for every Etsy store.
