There is almost no money barrier here. $100 to $500 gets you a store, a domain, and a print-on-demand partner who makes and ships each shirt, mug, or hoodie only after someone orders. You never buy stock, so you never sit on a box of unsold inventory.
The low cost is also the trap. Because anyone can open the same store with the same blank products from the same supplier, price and speed will not set you apart. Your designs will. That is the whole game, and it is where your real work goes.
So the question is not "what does it cost." It is "why would someone buy this shirt instead of a generic one." The answer is almost always a specific person who feels seen. A design about a niche hobby, a job people are proud of, or an inside joke a small community shares will outsell a pretty graphic aimed at everyone.
Order a sample of anything before you list it. Print quality and color vary by product, and a bad first order becomes a refund and a one-star review that a new store cannot absorb.
The rest, choosing a niche you can keep making designs for, pricing around the supplier's base cost, and where the first buyers come from, is in the full plan:
See the full print-on-demand business plan →
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