How do I set up product personalization?

You can offer products with personalized text or even fully customized designs (like images or photos). Personalization is a great way to offer meaningful gifts, celebrate special occasions, or simply create one-of-a-kind items.

Printify supports two ways to add personalization:

• Manual personalization (all sales channels) – supports both text and images.
• Automated Personalization (TikTok Shop US, Pop-Up Store only) – automatically incorporates a customer’s text input into your design.

You can also upload custom fonts in the Product Creator to align with your brand and give buyers more variety.

Manual personalization (all sales channels)

This option is available on all channels. It allows you to offer text or image customization and works for a wide variety of use cases.

Step 1: Choose a product

• New product: Select a product from the Printify Catalog that you want to offer as personalizable.
• Existing product: Select one of your current products to enable personalization.

Step 2: Add a sample design

• New product: Add sample text or a placeholder to show how the product can be personalized (e.g., “Custom Name” or “Your Text Here”).
• Existing product: Click the brush icon to open the Product Creator and modify your design if needed.

Step 3: Enable personalization

At the product details step, toggle the Personalization option to activate it. All personalized orders require manual approval. You’ll be able to review and update the design in the order before fulfillment.

Step 4: Provide instructions for customers

Use the instructions field under the toggle to explain how customers should share their personalization details.

Customers may provide personalization at checkout (if supported) or contact you directly (e.g., via email).

Making personalization optional for buyers

If you want customers to have the choice to personalize or not personalize the product:

• Manual personalization:
  You can simply mention in the buyer instructions that personalization is optional — for example:
  “Leave this field blank to receive the default design.”
  Orders without provided text or images will be fulfilled using your sample or default design.

• Automated Personalization (TikTok Shop US, Pop-Up Store):
  The personalization layer must be filled in before checkout, so it isn’t optional by default.
  To offer a non-personalized version, we recommend creating a separate listing for the standard (non-personalized) product.

Once everything is set up, click Save product and publish it to your store.

Automated Personalization (TikTok Shop US, Pop-Up Store only)

Automated Personalization uses a built-in personalizable text layer that automatically pulls the buyer’s text input from the order field into your design.

Step 1: Choose a product

• New product: Select a product from the Printify Catalog to set up with Automated Personalization.
• Existing product: Select an existing product to update.

Step 2: Set up the personalizable text layer

In the Product Creator:

• New product: Choose the Personalize option. This automatically links the buyer’s input to your design.
• Existing product: Open the Product Creator, delete your static text, and replace it with a personalizable text layer by selecting Personalize.
• On Pop-Up Stores, you can also add multiple text and image layers to create more advanced designs.

Step 3: Adjust buyer instructions (optional)

The personalization toggle is enabled automatically with a personalizable text layer. Underneath, you’ll find default buyer instructions. You can edit these to match your product’s needs.

Once you’ve finished setting up, click Save product and publish it to your store.

Things to keep in mind

• Manual personalization works for all channels, supports text and images, but requires customers to share details manually.
• Automated personalization simplifies setup but is limited to TikTok Shop US and Pop-Up Store.
• On Pop-Up Stores, automated personalization also supports buyer image uploads, live previews, and multiple personalization layers.

To learn more about handling orders with personalization, see: Managing orders with personalized products.