Docs & help

MerchLab automates the grind of print-on-demand: you pick a style and a niche, and it generates a batch of t-shirt/hoodie designs, scores each one against design-science quality gates, and routes the winners to your review queue. Winners become real draft products in your own connected Printify store, and you push them live to your sales channel (Etsy, eBay) whenever you want.

The important part: everything lands in your accounts. Your Printify store, your marketplace shop, your listings, your revenue. MerchLab is the design-and-publishing engine, not a middleman.

A typical loop looks like:

1. Connect your Printify store (one-time, ~2 minutes, see the next section).
2. Generate a batch: pick a style archetype, a niche, and a count.
3. Review: MerchLab scores every design; you approve, reject, or tweak the borderline ones.
4. Publish: approved designs are drafted in your Printify store and released on your drip schedule.

MerchLab acts on your store with a Printify Personal Access Token (PAT) that you create and can revoke at any time. The token is encrypted at rest and only used server-side to create and publish your products.

1. Sign in to printify.com and open your account menu (top right) → Connections.
2. In the "Personal Access Tokens" area, click "Generate" and name the token (e.g. "MerchLab").
3. Grant the scopes MerchLab needs: shops (read), products (read/write), uploads (read/write). If Printify shows no scope picker, the default full-access PAT also works.
4. Copy the token immediately, Printify shows it only once.
5. In MerchLab, open Shops (sidebar) → paste the token → Connect. MerchLab verifies it by listing your shops and shows what it found.

To disconnect, remove the connection in MerchLab (Shops page) and revoke the token in Printify. Revoking on Printify's side kills MerchLab's access instantly.

You need a Printify account with at least one sales channel (e.g. an Etsy shop) already connected inside Printify. MerchLab publishes through Printify to that channel.

Usage is measured in dollars, not points. A standard design draws $0.40 of usage; premium image models draw $1.20. Adding the optional second print side (the chest mark) adds $0.20.

• New accounts start with 6 free items, no card. Picking a plan starts a 7 day trial with 20 more.
• Each plan includes monthly usage equal to its price: $19 buys the platform plus $19 of design usage. Included usage refreshes with your invoice and does not roll over.
• Nothing is held up front. Each design is charged only when it finishes successfully, so a failed design or a failed batch costs nothing.
• Past your included usage, generation keeps flowing: top-up packs first, then metered overage on your next invoice at the same per-item rate, capped for safety.
• Your balance and full usage history are on the Billing page.

Generated designs are scored automatically (composition, contrast on the garment color, text legibility, niche fit) and routed: clear winners go straight to your publish queue, borderline ones wait in Review for your call, and duds are discarded. Since usage is charged on success only, dropped designs cost nothing.

Publishing creates a real product in your connected Printify store: title, description, tags, mockups, print files, pricing. High scorers are drafted automatically; you push things live from Review or Store, so nothing floods your shop and nothing goes live without you.

Every item shows its status (pending, drafted, published, or an error with the reason). Failed publishes never silently disappear, they stay visible with a human-readable explanation.

Plans bill monthly via Stripe Checkout; card details never touch MerchLab's servers. From Billing → Manage billing you get the Stripe customer portal to update your card, download invoices, or cancel.

• Cancel anytime, access and remaining included usage run to the end of the paid period; no cancellation fee.
• Spent usage is final (the compute is spent when the design generates), but failed designs are never charged in the first place.
• Duplicate/erroneous charges and outage-caused dead periods are always refunded.

The full rules are in the Refund & Cancellation Policy.

• Etsy AI disclosure: Etsy requires sellers to disclose when listings use AI-generated content. MerchLab designs are AI-generated, disclosing that in your listings, and complying with each marketplace's creativity standards, is your responsibility as the seller.
• Publish velocity: keep it to roughly 20 new listings per day per shop. Faster bursts are a known trigger for marketplace spam filters and shop reviews.
• IP is on you: MerchLab does not pre-clear designs against trademarks or copyrights. A basic prompt screen blocks obvious brand names, but the absence of a block is not legal clearance (see the Terms).
• Printify is the production layer: product types, print areas, colors, and fulfillment quality are determined by Printify and its print providers, not MerchLab.
• Design quality varies: the scoring gates catch most weak output, but AI generation has a real failure rate. That's why failures are never charged and Review exists.

Email support@merchlab.app and a human will get back to you, normally within 1 business day. (Operator note: this is the support address to configure, point it at a real inbox before launch.)

If something failed, include the job or listing id shown next to the error, it lets us trace exactly what happened. Billing questions: include your invoice number from the Stripe receipt.