Your Printify Products Are Out of Stock... Now What?

By Sharky · Last updated: October 27, 2026

If you run an online store using Printify for fulfillment, then this has probably happened to you:
One or more of your products are “out of stock” on Printify but they’re still listed as “in stock” in your shop. This happens because Printify does not automatically sync inventory with storefronts - a quirk that has caught many sellers by surprise.

This guide covers what happens within Printify when your product availability changes, and what steps you can take to avoid issues with out-of-stock items.

What Happens When a Printify Variant Goes Out of Stock?

The inventory status for every product variant (e.g. a specific color or size) you carry is available within your Printify Dashboard. When a Print Provider runs out of a variant, Printify adds the red “out of stock” notification in the inventory column on your My Products page.

Options for Handling Out-of-Stock Products

If an order is placed for an out-of-stock item, different options are available to you depending on your level of comfort and how you have your shop optimized:

• If you have Order Routing enabled, the order will be pushed to an alternate Print Provider who has that variant (or a similar product) in stock - but there may be an additional cost for production.
• If you’re using Printify Choice, the order will be routed through the network to an alternate provider only if an identical product is available - as a safeguard, the replacement product must be priced less than or equal to the original product to be automatically routed.
• If you don’t have Printify Choice or Order Routing enabled, you can manually use the Replacement Tool within the order page to see if a similar product is in stock, make the swap, and submit the order.

In all the above scenarios, if no suitable replacement products are available then you may have to make a decision about when to contact your customer about the issue. In some cases it may be reasonable to wait and see if the item gets restocked, or it could be more appropriate to cancel the order and issue a refund right away.

Printify is not provided with restock dates from their Print Providers, so their customer service team won’t be able to provide an estimate about when any item will be back in stock.

The Restocking Problem

Printify doesn’t alert users when product variants come back in stock, so it can be difficult to know when it’s possible to relist products in your storefront. Best practices and suggestions for staying on top of your inventory are:

• Check your Printify products for out-of-stock variants regularly.
• Have a backup Print Provider chosen for your best sellers so you’re ready to route orders.
• Review whether sold-out variants are shown on your sales channel and decide if you want to keep them visible (best choice for SEO).
• Turn on Order Routing if you’re okay with potentially paying an extra cost per sale.
• Set up Printify Choice if it’s within your comfort zone to not know precisely which Print Provider will be making and shipping your products.
• Sign up for an inventory monitoring service to let you know when your products go in or out of stock so you can update your listings accordingly and avoid making sales on out-of-stock products.

Automate Your Inventory Monitoring

Using an inventory tracking service like SharkyPOD Monitor may be a good option for sellers that prefer to maintain control of their catalog and work only with their trusted Print Providers.

SharkyPOD Monitor checks your Printify catalog every 6 hours and alerts you when variants become unavailable or get restocked - so you can easily keep your storefront up to date without the hassle of manually tracking your inventory or relying on secondary fulfillment options.

Having your inventory monitored automatically can also be beneficial by allowing you to maintain the full range of products you’d like to sell without tediously tracking countless variants and products yourself.

SharkyPOD Monitor requires only read-only access to your catalog, securely encrypts your credentials, and never modifies your listings or orders so you always stay in complete control of your shop.

The Printify details in this guide are based on Printify's help pages as of October 2026.