A Printavo alternative for shops that price by the sheet
Printavo is a well-liked system, and apparel decorators have good reasons to stay on it. Shops look elsewhere when the work stops being garments and starts being material — vinyl, board, roll media — because a garment matrix cannot tell you what a job really consumed. Print-It 26 nests every piece onto your actual sheets and rolls, prices the waste, and shows the margin on the line while you type.
Side by side
| Area | Printavo | Print-It 26 |
|---|---|---|
| Shop type it suits | Built around screen printing, embroidery and apparel decoration | Built around material-consuming work: wide format, signage, print and finishing |
| Pricing model | Quote from price matrices per garment, imprint and quantity | Cost-based: substrate yield, FIFO stock cost, work-center time, your markup |
| Material nesting | Not part of quoting | Sheet and roll nesting with waste and multi-sheet runs priced into the quote |
| Inventory | Light stock handling; garment sourcing lives with suppliers | FIFO material ledger, stock forms, reorder points, purchase-order suggestions |
| Production | Order status workflow and a production calendar | Live board with stage rows, capacity planning, and a touch kiosk for the floor |
| Cost visibility | Reporting on sales and orders | Margin per line as you type, plus job actuals recorded against the estimate |
| Who sees money | User permissions | Cost and margin redacted server-side — production and floor users never receive them |
| Customer-facing | Approvals, online payment and strong customer messaging | Branded portal, proof mark-up, online payment, and an optional B2B storefront |
| Accounting and payments | Accounting and payment integrations | QuickBooks Online sync and Stripe payments (the only two connected today) |
| Maturity | Long-established with a large apparel-decorator community | New product, smaller ecosystem, actively developed |
Compiled from Printavo's publicly described features. Vendors change quickly — check their site for the current picture before you decide.
Pricing, side by side
| Item | Printavo | Print-It 26 |
|---|---|---|
| Entry plan | Published on Printavo's own pricing page — check it for current figures | Starter, $79 per month, one seat |
| Full-feature plan | Tiered by features and users | Professional, $199 per month, up to ten seats |
| Extra seats | Priced per user | $19 per month per seat |
| Trial | Demo on request | 14-day trial, no card, plus a live demo shop with no sign-up |
| Onboarding | Guided onboarding packages | Self-serve setup with CSV and Excel import |
Our figures are the plans on our pricing page. We do not restate Printavo's numbers here because they change — read them from Printavo directly.
What switching actually costs you
Cost-based pricing needs your substrates, current costs and work-center rates entered before the first quote is meaningful. Budget a few evenings, not a weekend project.
Customers, vendors, materials and price lists come in from CSV or Excel with a preview, and your document numbering continues rather than restarting.
Quote a live job in both systems and compare. If the cost-based number lands close, your matrices are well tuned and the gain is visibility. If it does not, that gap is your margin.
When Printavo is still the better call
- You are an apparel decorator and your quotes come from garment and imprint matrices, not sheet yield.
- You rely on supplier catalogue integrations for garments; material imports here are CSV or Excel.
- You need integrations beyond QuickBooks Online and Stripe, which are the only two connected today.
- Your team already lives in Printavo's messaging flow and switching cost outweighs the costing gain.
Common questions
- Is Print-It 26 a drop-in replacement for Printavo?
- It covers the same ground — quoting, orders, production, invoicing, payments and a customer portal — but it is aimed at shops that consume sheets and rolls. If your margin moves on garment matrices rather than material yield, Printavo is the closer fit.
- What does Print-It 26 cost?
- Starter is $79 per month with one seat, Professional is $199 per month with up to ten seats, and extra seats are $19 per month. Enterprise is quoted. Check Printavo's own site for their current pricing.
- Can I bring my history across?
- Customers, vendors, materials and price lists import from CSV or Excel with a preview before anything is written, and document numbering continues from where you are today so there is no gap in your records.
- Can I try it before switching?
- The demo shop opens without signing up, and a 14-day trial with no card lets you load your own substrates and rates and quote a real job against your current system.
See it with your own numbers
The demo is a fully worked example shop you can open without signing up. For the longer write-up, read the full Print-It 26 versus Printavo guide, or compare the shopVOX summary if that is also on your list.