How To Design And Sell T-shirts Online Without Investment

By Pierre Eustache Chardavoine Last Updated: January 11, 2026

First thing, you don’t need to be a designer to design and sell t-shirts online profitably.

Selling designs printed on t-shirts is one of different ways to make money with print-on-demand business model.

It’s appealing because:

It is a profitable online home business anyone can start.
You can build a t-shirt store generating passive income updating it only part-time.
The process is simple and require no investment.

It’s one of the best opportunities to start an online business from scratch. It’s also one of the easiest. However, there is fierce competition in the t-shirt-selling business and you need to master the basics.

Table Of Contents

How to Make Money Selling T-shirts Online
Where to Sell T Shirt Designs Online
T-Shirt Design Resources

How to make money selling t-shirts online?

How to make money selling t-shirt designs online without paid ads

There are several ways to earn money by selling t-shirt designs.

You can sell customized t-shirts, you can sell the designs to other people, and you can make money with t-shirt affiliate programs.

It is a print-on-demand (POD) affiliate program. You don’t have to hold inventory or print shirts personally. You don’t have to ship t-shirts either. You have to:

create a design
and customize t-shirts, mugs, and hoodies with them.
Set how much money you want to make per sale.
Promote your design in front of potential buyers.

Each time someone buys it, the company prints and ships the shirt. They take the shirt price. You get the design revenue. The customer covers the shipping cost.

Basically, you’re selling products online for other companies and get paid. But you can customize package with your brand.

As I said, there are several ways to earn money with t-shirt designs. I will talk about the best sites to sell t-shirt designs and how you can make money with them.

Where to sell t-shirt designs online?

Starting a t-shirt business is very important. You need a company with high-quality prints and an excellent policy on shipping and returns. I will show you four sites that may fit your needs.

I have used Teespring, Spreadshirt, Redbubble, Printify. And I also reviewed print-on-demand sites that support Payoneer.

With proper competitive research, you can take advantage of organic traffic coming to these sites.

Let’s start.

Spring, formerly TeeSpring.com

make and sell t-shirts online with teespring

Spring is a crowdfunding t-shirt-selling site. The site is intuitive and allows you to make money even if you’re not a designer.

How does it work?

1.- You design a t-shirt. (thousands of graphics available free or make your own)

2.- You set your revenue tag and start a campaign.

3.- You promote your t-shirt and get sales.

4.- You get paid via PayPal or Payoneer.

You can set your campaign to end in 3, 7, 12, or 31 days. When your campaign end, the t-shirts are printed and shipped to your customers by TeeSpring. You can set the campaign to repeat so your item remains available for purchase.

The more t-shirt you sell, the more commissions you get.

Keep in mind that your first campaigns may fail when you start without an audience. So, optimize your listing with keywords to get SEO traffic over time and promote your designs on social media.

Spreadshirt

Spreadshirt is one of my favorite sites to create and sell designs online. You can reach more people with your designs with Spreadshirt because it’s not time-sensitive.

And better, Spreadshirt allows you to start an online store to sell t-shirts, caps, mugs, phone cases, leggings, hoodies, and top tanks.

How to make money by selling t-shirts with Spreadshirt?

Spreadshirt is one of the best sites to start a t-shirt business and make passive and residual income. It’s a place to sell t-shirt designs where you can make money without active promotion through organic traffic.

You can earn money in four different ways:

First way: You create and upload SVG, ai, eps, and cdr designs on the website. You can create them with Photoshop, Inkscape (The open-source and free tool that I use), or any other illustrator you’re comfortable with.

You set how much money you want to receive each time your design is used. You add that design on the marketplace and tag it well so it can be found. Each time someone uses it on a t-shirt, either to buy or to sell it, you get paid.

You can upload a beautiful design, use it on a T-shirt and promote it. You can even upload the vector design, other Spreadshirt partners use it and you get paid on EACH sale.

Second way: You customize t-shirts, hoodies, tanks, mugs, and caps with your own designs, or designs available on the marketplace.

You create one or multiple shops free to add and promote your products. You set how much money you want to receive for each sale. You earn even more if you use your own designed art.

Third way: You can also make money with a design shop. It’s a shop where people can create custom apparel with designs from the platform. Each time someone designs a product and buys it using your designer shop, you earn money.

Fourth way: They have an affiliate program where you earn money linking to apparel available at Spreadshirt.

Enjoy making money with Spreadshirt. Take the time to pick a niche, and build an audience to earn more money when you release a new design.

Sell custom tees with no minimum. Get paid each month when your account balance reaches $10. Spreadshirt pays through PayPal.

Sometimes I receive email notifications that I earn passive extra income with Spreadshirt from designs I uploaded months ago.

I got paid from Spreadshirt using Payoneer

You can customize your shop with HTML and CSS. Start selling designs today.

Who is Spreadshirt best for?

Anyone who wants to earn residual and passive income by making designs.
Anyone who wants to create t-shirts for a cause, a group, or an event.
Anyone who wants to design t-shirts for their blog, brand, or for personal use.
Anyone who wants to create a t-shirt store for a specific audience. You can get designs from the marketplace, add text, and promote to earn the price you set per t-shirt sale.

Zazzle

Zazzle is a marketplace where you make money selling designs on t-shirts, mugs, caps, phone cases, wedding invitations, and more… They have an affiliate program on ShareASale that you can join for free!

Create an account and start making money selling print art online.

They pay via PayPal and cheque.