Printavo vs PrintShopCRM: An Honest Feature Comparison
Printavo vs PrintShopCRM compared fairly: per-size pricing, live job costing, BYO Stripe, unlimited seats, and embeddable DTF ordering, with the tradeoffs.
Printavo is one of the best-known names in print shop management, and it earned that with a clean interface and a real focus on apparel. If you are comparing it against PrintShopCRM, you deserve a comparison that names Printavo strengths honestly and points out the real, checkable differences rather than marketing spin.
Here is a fair side-by-side across pricing, payments, job costing, and ownership of your data, so you can decide based on how your shop actually runs.
Pricing and seats
Printavo tiers cap users and quotes: Lite runs around 109 dollars for two users with a roughly twenty-quote-per-month limit, and Standard runs around 244 dollars for five users, with the annual discount removed back in 2022. PrintShopCRM uses flat pricing with unlimited seats, so the whole team can be in the system without a per-user penalty. Neither model is automatically cheaper, it depends on your headcount and volume.
- Printavo Lite: about 109 dollars, two users, roughly twenty quotes a month.
- Printavo Standard: about 244 dollars, five users.
- PrintShopCRM: flat pricing, unlimited seats, no quote cap.
- Add a salesperson or production lead without changing your bill.
Payments and your processor
In April 2023 Printavo moved shops onto its own payment processor, a change many owners resented because it removed their choice of who handles their money. PrintShopCRM is bring-your-own-Stripe: you paste your key, payouts land in your account, and it is never merchant-of-record for your sales. That difference matters most for the embeddable DTF builder, where checkout runs on your Stripe directly.
- Printavo consolidated shops onto its own processor on April 3, 2023.
- PrintShopCRM uses your Stripe key, so you keep your processor relationship.
- DTF gang-sheet checkout deposits straight into your Stripe account.
- No key connected means orders simply arrive as quotes to invoice.
Job costing and per-size pricing
This is the sharpest functional gap. PrintShopCRM prices per size, so a 3XL does not price like a large, and Printavo's API structurally cannot do that. It also costs each job live at real press time, flagging margin as Losing Money, Too thin, Tight, Healthy, or Strong, which is not a standard feature in Printavo.
- Per-size pricing on every line, not a flat blended price.
- Live per-job profit while quoting, not a post-invoice guess.
- Real press-time labor, correcting the roughly threefold raw-rate understatement.
- Built-in color separations with screen count flowing into price.
- Real data export of line items and size grids, no lock-in.
Common Questions
Is Printavo a bad product?
No. Printavo is a mature, well-designed apparel platform with a large user base. The comparison is about specific differences like per-size pricing, live job costing, and processor choice, not about Printavo being poor software.
Who owns Printavo now?
Printavo is owned by Inktavo, a private-equity roll-up that also absorbed InkSoft, GraphicsFlow, and SignTracker, and merged with OrderMyGear in October 2025. That consolidation is worth factoring into a long-term software decision.
Can I get my data out of either system?
PrintShopCRM provides real data export including line items and size grids, so you are never locked in. If leaving Printavo, exporting your history first is the safe move before migrating.