Shops usually go looking for a Printavo alternative for one of four reasons: the pricing came back higher than expected, the product is built around screen printing and their shop is not, they need something a solo operator can run, or they want purchase orders and invoicing handled properly rather than scheduling.
Which of those it is decides which alternative is right. Here are the real options, including where each one beats us.
The options at a glance
| Tool | Best for | Entry price |
|---|---|---|
| fulflo | Small mixed-method shops; PO and invoice-driven work | $39 / $79 / $149 flat, team included |
| commonsku | Promo distributors who source rather than produce | $258/mo floor (2 × $129/user) |
| Print Laser Pro | Artwork, mockups, gang sheets, machine files | $79/mo + 8–4% on designer orders |
| QuickBooks + spreadsheets | Very low job volume | $38–$140/mo |
| Shopify + apps | Consumer web orders, little B2B | Plan + per-app fees |
| Staying on Printavo | Screen print shops with a press to schedule | Quote-based |
1. fulflo — for the small shop drowning in paperwork, not scheduling
Built for custom-goods shops running more than one decoration method: laser, DTF, embroidery, UV, signage, promo, awards. The differentiator is intake: forward a distributor purchase order to your fulflo address and it becomes a job with line items, quantities and dates already filled in, including from image-only PDF scans.
Everything after that is in one place — quotes that convert to jobs, versioned proofs with approval history, a job pipeline with a clock, invoicing over Stripe, ACH and check through your own Stripe connected account, expenses and job margin, an online storefront, and a branded customer portal where clients see their own quotes, jobs, proofs and invoices. Your team is included at every tier and customer portal users are unlimited and free.
Pricing is $39 Starter, $79 Pro or $149 Studio, with the storefront, portal messaging and proofs from Pro upward, and margin, scoring and outbound tools at Studio. Card sales carry a platform fee of 1% on Starter, 0.4% on Pro and 0% on Studio; ACH and check invoices carry none.
Where it loses: no press scheduling calendar, no design or artwork tooling, no contracts or e-signature, proofs and the storefront need the $79 Pro tier, and it is new — in beta, without Printavo's decade of track record. Full fulflo vs Printavo comparison.
2. commonsku — for distributors, not decorators
The strongest vertical product in promotional products, with ESP, SAGE and DistributorCentral catalogue search inside the workflow and PromoStandards connected suppliers giving live inventory, electronic POs and shipment notifications.
It is priced accordingly: Essentials at $129 per user per month with a two-user minimum, Advanced at $159 per user with a three-user minimum, plus shop transaction fees that start at 2.5% of lifetime sales and taper to 1%. Seats cannot be reduced and tiers cannot be downgraded mid-contract.
Pick it if you source products rather than make them and have the volume to carry per-seat pricing. Full fulflo vs commonsku comparison.
3. Print Laser Pro — if the bottleneck is artwork
A design and production workspace rather than a shop management system: mockups, hat models, gang sheet nesting for DTF and UV DTF, cutlines, and exports to SVG, DXF, LightBurn and xTool. One plan at $79 a month ($790 a year, or $2,500 lifetime).
Note the two things on top of the subscription: a tiered usage fee on embedded-designer store orders (8% on the first $50, down to 4% above $500) and $9 a month per team member and per store-level customer user.
Pick it if your hard problem is getting files ready for the machine. It does not do invoicing, purchase orders or accounts receivable. Full comparison.
4. QuickBooks and a spreadsheet — the honest baseline
Plenty of shops leave Printavo for this and it works at low volume. Be aware that QuickBooks Online got more expensive on 1 August 2026: Essentials moved to $85, Plus to $140 and Advanced to $340. Plus is the tier with inventory and purchase orders, so it is the one shops end up on.
What you give up is everything that is not accounting: job status, proofs, approval history, a customer portal, and any real answer to "where is my order?". How fulflo and QuickBooks divide up.
5. Shopify plus apps — only if you are consumer-led
If nearly all your work arrives as web orders from consumers, a Shopify store with a few apps can carry a shop a long way. It falls down on B2B: quoted work, net terms, purchase orders from resellers, and company accounts with multiple contacts are Shopify Plus territory, which starts far above what a small shop will pay.
6. Staying on Printavo
Worth saying directly: if you are a screen print shop and scheduling press time is your hardest daily problem, Printavo is good at exactly that and switching for the sake of it is a bad trade. Its production calendar is more developed than anything in this list, it has been shipping since 2011, and its support organisation is established.
How to choose
- Scheduling is the pain → stay on Printavo.
- Paperwork is the pain — quotes, POs, invoices, customers chasing status → fulflo.
- Artwork is the pain → Print Laser Pro.
- Sourcing is the business → commonsku.
- Very low job volume → QuickBooks and a spreadsheet is not a failure.
Common questions
How much does Printavo cost?
Printavo does not publish standard pricing; plans are quoted. Third-party directories listed an entry point around $49 per month as of May 2026, but ask them directly for a current figure.
What is the cheapest Printavo alternative?
Cheapest is usually QuickBooks Simple Start at $38 plus a spreadsheet, but you lose job tracking, proofs and any customer-facing portal. Among purpose-built options, fulflo's tiers include the whole team and unlimited customer users, which changes the maths more than the headline number does.
Which alternative handles purchase orders best?
For inbound POs from distributors, fulflo parses a forwarded PDF or scan into a job automatically. For outbound electronic POs to suppliers, commonsku's PromoStandards integration is the strongest option.
Can I import my Printavo data?
Into fulflo, yes — customers, jobs, invoices, quotes, products and expenses import from CSV with column mapping and a preview step.