Best AI Tools for Print-on-Demand Business

Have you ever felt stuck trying to come up with fresh design ideas for your print-on-Demand (POD) products? Or maybe frustrated because your mockups look too “fake” and don’t convince customers to click that buy now button?

The good news is you don’t have to do it all on your own anymore. With the rise of AI, a whole range of powerful tools are here to save you time, spark creativity, and level up your POD business.

In this guide, we’ll explore the best AI tools for Print on Demand right now. These tools will help print-on-demand sellers create unique artwork, generate realistic mockups, or craft scroll-stopping video ads.

If you want to become unstoppably creative with your print on demand design and sell more effectively, keep reading and you’ll discover the must-have AI tools that can transform your workflow.

1. Design & Artwork Generation

When it comes to running a print-on-demand business, design is everything. A strong visual can make the difference between a product that flies off the shelves and one that gets buried in search results. 

Luckily, today’s AI tools make it faster, easier, and often cheaper to create artwork that connects with your target audience. Below are some of the most useful AI design tools POD sellers should know about.

These tools help you create illustrations, patterns, product-ready designs, and unique visuals for your POD products.

Midjourney

Midjourney is one of the most popular AI art generators, loved by designers and e-commerce sellers alike. It specializes in creating visually stunning, highly detailed artwork that you can use as inspiration or directly on POD products.

Highlight Features & Benefits:

• Generate seamless textures and patterns that work perfectly for all-over-print apparel.
• Create original illustrations and concepts for mugs, posters, or t-shirts.
  Get design inspiration quickly, saving hours you’d normally spend on brainstorming.

Pricing:

• $10/month starter plan (enough for light use).
• $30/month for unlimited personal use (ideal for a POD seller creating multiple designs weekly).

Midjourney excels at producing high-quality, artistic visuals that stand out. While it’s not built specifically for typography, its detailed textures and illustration style make it a go-to for apparel designs and striking wall art.

Flux / Flux Krea

Flux (and its community-driven version Flux Krea) is an open-source image generator that’s uncensored. That means you get more creative freedom to explore unique niches without strict content filters blocking your ideas.

Highlight Features & Benefits:

• Generate unique and niche-specific designs, even ones other tools might restrict.
• Community-driven, so you can customize and fine-tune your own models.
• Ideal for edgy, trending, or unconventional product niches.

Pricing:

• Free plan: Basic daily generations
• Paid plans (from $8): Training and generating more images with commercial licences

Unlike Midjourney or Leonardo, Flux is open-source, which gives you control. It’s perfect if you want total creative freedom and aren’t afraid to get hands-on with settings.

Recraft.ai

Recraft is designed for creating crisp, scalable vector illustrations that are perfect for logos, icons, or flat designs that need to print cleanly at any size. It is the right tool for creating print design for print on demand business.

Highlight Features & Benefits:

• Generates vector graphics (SVGs) ready for POD designs.
• Perfect for creating graphics to print on t-shirts, stickers, mugs, hoodies, etc.
• Ensures designs remain sharp, whether they’re printed on a large printing area.

Pricing:

• Free basic plan with limited exports.
• Paid plans start around $10/month for higher resolution and commercial use.

While most AI art tools generate raster images, Recraft’s focus on vectors makes it a must-have for sellers who need sharp, scalable designs.

Stable Diffusion

Stable Diffusion is a powerhouse for generating unique branded visuals with full creative control. Unlike other print on demand AI tools, it’s open-source, so you can train and customize it to fit your POD niche perfectly.

Highlight features & benefits:

• Generate custom product ads, backgrounds, and visuals.
• Fine-tune styles for your brand identity.
• Massive community support with pre-trained models.

Pricing: Free if you use it for non-commercial purposes. Paid cloud-based services (like DreamStudio) start around $10/month for credits.

Dreamina

Dreamina is an AI image generator with a built-in editor, making it a more hands-on tool for POD creators. Print on demand sellers can leverage this tool to create posters, flyers, and logos easily. 

Highlight Features & Benefits:

• Create designs and tweak them instantly without switching platforms.
• Edit colors, remove details, or add new elements to fine-tune the artwork to match your ideas and make them print-ready.
• Great for small businesses that don’t want to juggle multiple apps.

Pricing:

• Free tier with limits.
• Paid plans: Starter plan from around $18 per month

Unlike Midjourney or Playground, Dreamina combines generation and editing in one tool, saving time and keeping your workflow smooth.

Ideogram.ai

If your products rely heavily on text like funny t-shirts, inspirational mugs, or typography-based posters, Ideogram is your best bet.

Highlight Features & Benefits:

• Accurately generates text inside designs (something most AI tools for print on demand struggle with).
• Great for slogans, quotes, or niche catchphrases on POD products.
• Simplifies the process of creating typographic designs without graphic design skills.

Pricing:

• Free tier with daily limits.
• Paid plans start at $7/month

While other generative AI tools like Midjourney and Leonardo excel in visuals, Ideogram nails typography, which is perfect for creating strong print-on-demand designs. If your niche leans on witty text-based designs, this tool is a game-changer.

And of course, while design tools matter, choosing the right platform to sell on is just as important. Many beginners start out by exploring top POD companies to find the best fit for their products.

If you’re looking for a POD partner that makes selling easier, Merchize has you covered. With a wide range of 650+ customizable products, automated order fulfillment, and seamless integrations. Merchize takes care of production and shipping so you can focus on growing your business and turning your unique ideas into profitable products.

Leonardo AI

Leonardo AI is a versatile design generator that works across multiple product categories. It’s often considered a great “all-rounder” for POD.

Highlight Features & Benefits:

• Generate character illustrations, detailed graphics, or branding concepts.
• Offers model fine-tuning for consistent style across designs.
• Strong community support with pre-trained models for various niches.

Pricing:

• Free version with limited credits.
• Individual Paid plans start at $10/month, with higher tiers offering more credits.

Leonardo is like a mix of Midjourney and Canva. It’s flexible, easy to use, and suited for both beginners and experienced designers.

Playground

Playground 2.5 is a creative image generator known for high-quality outputs and easy usability.

Highlight Features & Benefits:

• High-resolution images suitable for direct printing on products.
• User-friendly interface, perfect for quick idea testing.
• Offers image-to-image editing, great for refining product mockups.

Pricing:

• Free tier available.
• Paid plans start around $12/month for pro use.

Playground stands out for its balance of quality and simplicity. It’s less overwhelming than some advanced tools but still delivers professional results.

Raphael AI

Raphael AI is an uncensored, unlimited-use image generator, giving you a lot of creative freedom without worrying about running out of credits.

Highlight Features & Benefits:

• Unlimited generations, perfect for high-output POD stores.
• Uncensored, allowing for creative niche designs.
• Fast iterations for testing multiple design ideas.

Pricing:

• Often free or available for a flat one-time fee (varies depending on platform).

Unlike most tools that charge by credits, Raphael AI lets you create as much as you want. Great for volume sellers testing many design variations or new sellers who just started with a small budget.

Brushless.ai

Brushless is an SVG vector generator, making it especially useful for POD designs that need to scale cleanly.

Highlight Features & Benefits:

• Create SVG files ready for printing on anything from stickers to tote bags.
• Ideal for simple, bold designs that need crisp lines.
• Saves time compared to redrawing AI raster images into vector format.

Pricing:

• Free for basic usage.
• Adjustable plan based on your budget and need, starting from as small as $5/month.

Fermat.app

Fermat is a fashion-focused AI tool that turns clothing photos into illustrations, perfect for apparel POD.

Highlight Features & Benefits:

• Transform product photos into stylish illustrations for lookbooks or product pages.
• Helps visualize fashion designs before committing to production.
• Great for creating apparel-focused marketing visuals.

Pricing:

• Paid plans start around $30/month.

Lovart.ai

Lovart is an AI design agent that helps with branding and concept creation.

Highlight Features & Benefits:

• Create branded design systems and cohesive product visuals.
• Useful for sellers aiming to expand into lifestyle or concept-driven niches.
• Supports creative direction beyond single-product design.

Pricing:

• Free plan: Limited use
• Paid plan: Typically starts at $16/month, depending on usage.

2. Product Mockups & Branding

When selling print on demand, design is only half the game. The other half? Making your products look irresistible online. That’s where mockup and branding AI tools come in. 

These tools will take your flat designs and turn them into polished, professional product photos that help customers visualize what they’re buying. Let’s go through the top tools and see how each can fit into your workflow.

Flair.ai

Flair helps you turn raw product shots into polished lifestyle mockups that look like they came from a professional studio.

• Generate AI-enhanced product photoshoots without hiring a photographer.
• Add realistic lighting, shadows, and backgrounds to make products pop.
• Perfect for quickly upgrading plain white-background product images into ad-ready content.

Pricing: Starts around $8/month. A POD seller doing 50+ product uploads could get polished mockups for less than the cost of one professional photoshoot.

Flair focuses on studio-quality looks. It’s best when you already have product photos and just want to elevate them.

Pebblely

Pebblely takes your plain product shot and instantly places it in realistic, everyday settings that feel natural and human.

• Create lifestyle mockups (e.g., a mug on a coffee table, a t-shirt on a beach).
• Quick background swaps that look organic instead of fake.
• Super beginner-friendly and intuitive.

Pricing: Free tier with limited renders; paid plans from $15/month. Great for POD sellers who want fresh lifestyle content for social media and listings.

Pebblely excels at a realistic everyday context. Think lifestyle branding rather than sterile product images.

Kive.ai

Kive does more than just mockups: It enhances images and can even generate short product videos for ads.

• Upload designs and generate both stills and video versions.
• AI photo enhancement for sharper, more professional-looking visuals.
• Useful for scaling into TikTok/Instagram ads with fast video turnaround.

Pricing: Around $15–70/month. Perfect for sellers who want both product shots and ad creatives without outsourcing.

Few tools combine mockups + video generation, which makes Kive great for marketing-driven POD sellers.

Photoroom 

Photoroom is the go-to for quick background removal and simple mockup generation, especially on mobile.

• Remove backgrounds instantly for clean product cutouts.
• Replace with simple backgrounds or branded templates.
• Works great for eBay, Etsy, and Shopify product pages.

Pricing: Free version available; Pro starts at $9.99/month. A must-have for sellers uploading 100s of products quickly.

Photoroom is fast, simple, and mobile-friendly, making it perfect for busy sellers.

Stager (Adobe Substance 3D Stager)

Adobe’s Substance Stager is more advanced but gives you full creative control over mockups.

• Create 3D environments and position products realistically.
• Perfect for detailed product shots (apparel, mugs, packaging).
• Studio-quality rendering with photorealistic lighting.

Pricing: Part of Adobe Substance subscription ($49.99/month). POD shops with lots of products can create an unlimited variety of custom mockups.

Unlike other tools, Stager is full 3D, giving pro designers near-infinite control.

Cala (Mercer.design)

Cala, now Mercer.design, blends fashion design with AI-driven mockup generation, making it great for clothing brands.

• Generate apparel designs and instantly preview them as mockups.
• Streamlined for fashion-forward POD sellers.
• Also supports branding visuals.

Pricing: Starts around $30/month. Perfect for niche apparel POD shops.

It’s not just mockups. It’s a design + mockup hybrid for apparel.

Placeit

Placeit is a favorite among POD sellers for its huge mockup library and easy use.

• Thousands of product mockups across categories.
• Lifestyle and studio templates included.
• Great for quick uploads.

Pricing: $7.47/month billed annually (or $14.95 month-to-month). Most affordable for beginners.

Still the biggest, most accessible mockup library in POD.

Vizard

Vizard focuses on hyper-realistic rendering for POD mockups that almost look like in-studio photoshoots.

• Create photorealistic product visuals.
• Especially strong for premium-looking mockups.
• Suitable for high-ticket or luxury POD niches.

Pricing: Typically $30+/month. Better suited for sellers positioning their products at premium price points.

Canva

Canva needs no introduction. It’s the go-to design platform for e-commerce sellers who want professional-looking visuals without hiring a designer. Canva isn’t just about A. It’s the all-in-one design hub, combining templates, stock assets, and mockup integration in a way that’s super user-friendly.

Highlight features & benefits:

• Thousands of templates for ads, banners, and social posts.
• Easy drag-and-drop mockup integration.
• Team collaboration features for scaling brands.

Pricing: Free plan available. Pro plan at $12.99/month unlocks premium templates and brand kits. Perfect for POD sellers building consistent branding.

3. Editing & Enhancement AI Tools

Even the best product mockup or design sometimes needs a little extra polish before it’s ready for your storefront or ad campaign. That’s where editing and enhancement tools come in handy. Whether it’s removing backgrounds, fixing image quality, or making sure your design prints sharp and clean, these tools can save you time while keeping your visuals professional.

• Seelab: Seelab is your go-to for removing unwanted objects from product photos. Think of it like a digital eraser that keeps your mockups looking clean and distraction-free. Unlike basic background removers, Seelab is about object precision. It can get rid of small or tricky elements without wrecking the whole photo.
• Remove: Remove (often known as Remove.bg) is one of the most popular tools for instant background removal. Upload your product image, and in seconds, you’ve got a clean cutout ready for a new mockup.
• Upscayl: Upscayl is a free and open-source image upscaler that’s perfect for POD designers. If your design file is too small for print, Upscayl helps sharpen and resize it without losing quality. It’s 100% free to use, which a huge win for POD sellers on a budget.
• P.Re: P.Re is an all-in-one fixer-upper for images. It can colorize, restore, and remove backgrounds. It’s a handy “Swiss army knife” for enhancing visuals before you upload them to your store.

4. Video Content for Ads & Storefronts

Videos boost engagement in POD marketing. These tools help create product showcase videos, animated ads, and branded campaigns:

Runway ML

Runway ML is one of the most advanced AI video generators available right now, often used for high-end ads and creative campaigns. For POD sellers, it’s perfect for making polished product videos that look like they were shot in a studio.

Highlight features & benefits:

• Generate short ad-style videos from text or images.
• Add motion to static product shots for engaging promos.
• Includes background replacement and object editing.

Pricing: Standard plans start at around $15/month, which is more than reasonable if you’re creating weekly ad content. For a POD shop running multiple product ads, a $35/month Pro plan covers enough credits to make consistent videos.

Runway stands out because of its cinematic quality. It’s the tool you use when you want your ads to look premium and really stop the scroll.

Google Veo 3

Google’s Veo 3 is the company’s flagship AI video generator, and you can try it through Freepik’s creative suite. It’s designed to make ultra-high-quality, smooth videos that feel brand-ready.

Highlight features & benefits:

• Create lifestyle-style videos for products.
• Smooth, realistic camera motion, great for fashion and home décor POD items.
• Strong text-to-video for quick ad creation.

Pricing: Free for limited use on Freepik. Paid credits scale depending on usage. A small POD shop could spend ~$20/month generating ad assets.

Compared to Runway, Veo 3 focuses on realism and motion flow, making it perfect for ads that mimic real video shoots.

Pika Labs

Pika Labs is a fun, creative tool for generating short, stylized, or interactive videos. If you sell to younger audiences or niches that love bold, experimental visuals, Pika Labs is worth trying.

Highlight features & benefits:

• Animate still product designs into moving visuals.
• Add stylized effects for TikTok or IG Reels.
• Great for testing fast ad creatives.

Pricing: Free tier available. Paid plans start at about $10/month, affordable for small shops testing multiple ad variations.

Firefly (Adobe) 

Adobe Firefly is Adobe’s AI suite, and one of its free features is image-to-video generation. For POD businesses, it’s an easy way to turn product shots into moving ad creatives.

Highlight features & benefits:

• Animate product mockups or lifestyle photos.
• Seamlessly integrate with Adobe tools like Photoshop.
• Ideal for simple product promos or ad loops.

Pricing: Firefly is free to use with an Adobe account, with optional paid plans for heavier use. A small POD shop could get plenty of value without spending extra.

Firefly is best for those already using Adobe. It’s a simple add-on to your existing workflow rather than a standalone video tool.

LTX Studio 

LTX Studio specializes in maintaining consistent characters across videos, which is a game-changer if your POD brand uses mascots. It is powerful tool for building long-term brand identity.

Highlight features & benefits:

• Create brand mascots that appear consistently across videos.
• Maintain character style for storytelling ads.
• Ideal for shops that want a branded “face” in their marketing.

Pricing: Free trial available. Standard plans are expected to start around $28/month. Lite version is available from $12/month.

Beeble AI

Beeble AI is all about VFX-style video generation. Think of it as your mini Hollywood studio for adding special effects to product ads.

Highlight features & benefits:

• Add visual effects like sparks, fire, or cinematic transitions.
• Make product commercials pop with dynamic visuals.
• Great for high-energy ads targeting younger buyers.

Pricing: Free version is available. Paid plan starts around $16/month.

Unscreen

Unscreen is the easiest way to remove backgrounds from product videos. It’s perfect for turning lifestyle clips into clean cutouts you can reuse in multiple ads. Unlike other video editors, Unscreen focuses on video-specific background removal, which is much harder to do than in photos.

Highlight features & benefits:

• One-click background removal for video (no green screen needed).
• Works well for product unboxing or promo clips.
• Saves hours of manual editing.

Pricing: Free for short clips with watermark. Paid subscription starts at about $1.98 per video minute.

Clipanything

ClipAnything is a time-saving tool that automatically chops up long videos into short-form content. For POD sellers targeting TikTok, Reels, or YouTube Shorts, this is a huge hack.

While others help make videos, Clipanything helps you scale content, turning one video into dozens of ad-ready clips.

Highlight features & benefits:

• Split product explainer videos into bite-sized clips.
• Auto-format for TikTok, IG, and YouTube.
• Saves tons of editing time when repurposing content.

Pricing: Free trial available. Paid plans start around $15/month. Easily worth it if you’re posting daily content.

Conclusion

AI is no longer just a trend. It’s a true game-changing companion for every POD seller. From generating designs to creating realistic mockups and even producing ad-ready videos, these tools can help you save time, cut costs, and scale your business faster.

Now it’s your turn: start experimenting with the tools that best fit your workflow, and let AI handle the heavy lifting while you focus on growing your brand.