Ten days ago we wrote about Etsy offering to print the file you just bought and said we could not find out who was actually printing it. That part now has an answer. On 13 October, Value Added Resource reported that Etsy had told it the shop fulfilling those orders is run by FYUL, the company that owns both Printify and Printful.
Which matters for a practical reason rather than a corporate one. Etsy’s own help page for buyers says only that “Your image may be cropped slightly to fit the selected item.” The catalogue pages of the company now named as the maker put numbers on “slightly”, publish them in centimetres as well as inches, and in four places disagree with themselves about what the paper weighs.
Who Is Printing It?
Value Added Resource published this on 13 October:
In response to questions from Value Added Resource, Etsy has now confirmed that Ventur Editions is powered by FYUL, parent company of Printify, Printful and Snow Commerce, and that creators receive no additional compensation when buyers order printed versions of their designs.
Two things in that sentence are worth separating. The maker is named, second-hand: Etsy said it to a trade publication, and we found no Etsy page that says it. And the question our earlier guide listed as unanswered, whether the person whose file you bought gets anything from the print sale, now has an answer. They do not.
FYUL’s own about page sets out the structure. It lists Printful, Printify and Snow Commerce as its brands, carries a 2023 timeline entry reading “Printful acquired Snow Commerce”, and describes the two print companies merging into FYUL in 2024.
The same report notes a limit on how far any of this can be taken: “Etsy declined to disclose how many sellers are currently included in the test, making it difficult to gauge the potential financial impact.”
So the honest version is this. Etsy told a trade publication that the print shop belongs to FYUL. Printify and Printful belong to FYUL too. That is a shared owner, not proof that any particular order is printed on any particular press, and we are not going to claim more than that.
How Much of the Picture Does a Frame Actually Hide?
Here is where the numbers start. Printify’s Colored Frame Posters page carries this warning:
NB! Approximately 1/4” of the image on each side will be hidden by the frame overlap.
A quarter of an inch is 0.635 cm, so 6.35 mm per side. Across a print that is 12.7 mm, or 1.27 cm, off each dimension.
Three makers publish three different versions of that same measurement, and only one of them is unambiguous about what it counts.
| Page | What it says | Per edge, in mm | Per axis, in cm |
|---|---|---|---|
| Printify, Colored Frame Posters | ”Approximately 1/4” of the image on each side” | 6.35 | 1.27 |
| Gelato, PDF design requirements | ”approximately 4-5 mm (about 0.16-0.2 inches) on each side” | 4 to 5 | 0.8 to 1.0 |
| Printful, enhanced matte framed poster | ”the poster frame will cover approximately 0.5” (1.3 cm) of the poster” | unstated | 1.27, if that is the total |
Printful’s line is the one to watch. It gives a figure, 0.5 inches or 1.3 cm, and never says whether that is per side or across the whole print. Read as a total it matches Printify exactly, since two edges of 6.35 mm come to 1.27 cm. Read as per side it is 2.54 cm off each dimension, which is more than three times Gelato’s lower figure. We cannot tell from the page which it means, and the difference decides whether a border survives.
Gelato’s figures also come with a worked example on its frame page, which we went through in September: a 12 by 18 inch poster with a visible area of 11 7/8 by 17 7/8 inches, which is 3.175 mm lost in total rather than per side. Gelato’s help centre and Gelato’s product page do not describe the same overlap.
What Does 6.35 mm Cost You, By Size?
The useful way to hold a number like this is as a share of the print, because the same 6.35 mm is trivial on a large piece and serious on a small one. These are the Printify coloured-frame sizes in centimetres, with the visible area after 6.35 mm comes off each edge. The arithmetic is ours: visible side equals the print size minus 1.27 cm.
| Print size, cm | Visible after the overlap, cm | Lost across the width | Lost across the height |
|---|---|---|---|
| 12.70 x 17.78 | 11.43 x 16.51 | 10.0% | 7.1% |
| 20.32 x 25.40 | 19.05 x 24.13 | 6.25% | 5.0% |
| 27.94 x 35.56 | 26.67 x 34.29 | 4.5% | 3.6% |
| 30.48 x 45.72 | 29.21 x 44.45 | 4.2% | 2.8% |
| 40.64 x 50.80 | 39.37 x 49.53 | 3.1% | 2.5% |
| 45.72 x 60.96 | 44.45 x 59.69 | 2.8% | 2.1% |
| 60.96 x 91.44 | 59.69 x 90.17 | 2.1% | 1.4% |
On the smallest size a tenth of the width goes under the frame. If your design has a thin border, a signature near the bottom edge, or type that sits close to the margin, that is where it goes.
The practical rule that falls out of this is generous rather than exact. Keep 1 cm clear inside every edge and you are covered at Printify’s 6.35 mm, at Gelato’s 4 to 5 mm, and at the kinder reading of Printful’s 1.3 cm. You are not covered at the harsh reading of Printful’s figure, which wants 2.6 cm, and nothing on that page tells you which you are getting.
Why Does One Paper Have Two Weights?
Because the pages say so, on the same page, four lines apart. Printify’s Framed Paper Posters page prints both of these:
Paper thickness: 310 gsm for fine art, 260 gsm for semi-glossy paper
Each poster is made with 310gsm fine-art paper or 250gsm semi-gloss paper and comes in multiple sizes so that you can find the perfect match for your art.
The fine-art weight agrees with itself at 310 gsm. The semi-gloss is 260 in the specification line and 250 in the prose below it, a 10 g/m2 difference, which is 3.8% of 260. The page also calls a weight a thickness, which is a separate small thing: gsm measures grams per square metre, and thickness is the 0.26 mm figure that appears on other pages.
It gets wider on the Rolled Posters page, which lists paper by production partner:
Paper thickness (JONDO): Fine Art: 285 g/m², Semi-Glossy: 180 g/m², Matte: 200 g/m²
Paper thickness (Roma Imaging): Fine Art: 290 g/m², Semi-Glossy: 230 g/m², 180: 200 g/m²
Semi-glossy is 180 g/m2 from one partner and 230 g/m2 from the other. That is 50 g/m2, or 27.8% heavier from one plant than the other, for a paper with one name. Nothing on the page tells a buyer which plant fills their order. The “180:” label in the second line appears to be a slip for Matte, and we are reading it as printed rather than correcting it.
Printful’s framed poster shows the same pattern in a different place. Its product page says “Paper weight for worldwide orders: 170 g/m²” and “Black and white frame made from ayous wood”. Printful’s own public catalogue API, for the same product number, says “Paper weight: 189 g/m²” and “Black and white frame made from semi-hardwood alder”. Both agree on 0.26 mm thickness. They disagree by 19 g/m2 and on the species of the wood.
That one is awkward for us, because our September guide on Printful’s centimetre frame sizes quotes the alder and the 189 g/m2 as the vendor’s own figures. They still are, in the vendor’s API. They are no longer what the vendor’s page says.
One Frame Row That Cannot Be Built
A small one, for anyone who plans in centimetres. In the same Printify framed-poster size guide, the metric tab gives the vertical 24 by 32 inch entry a poster of 60.96 by 81.28 cm and a frame of 65.70 by 81.00 cm.
The frame is 0.28 cm shorter than the poster it holds. Every other row in that table adds between 4.64 and 5.16 cm to the poster’s dimensions, roughly 2.3 to 2.6 cm of frame per side, and the horizontal version of the same size implies 86.00 cm where this one says 81.00. It reads as a typo rather than a product, and it is the kind of typo that matters only if you were sizing a wall gap from the table.
While we are in the size tables: the same catalogue lists one A3-shaped poster two ways. The rolled poster’s entry is 42.00 by 29.70 cm, which is ISO A3 exactly. The coloured-frame entry for the same nominal size is 41.91 by 29.97 cm, which is 16.5 by 11.8 inches converted. Neither page uses the word A3. The difference is 2.7 mm on the short edge and 0.9 mm on the long one, and it is the same mismatch between a true ISO size and an inch-derived one that we went through in the A4 guide.
What Else the Pages Do Not Tell a Buyer
Three things worth knowing before you press print on someone else’s file.
The coloured-frame product is not available everywhere. Printify’s page for it says “Please note: This product is shipped only to the United States and their territories.” Etsy’s buyer help page, which lists the print options, carries no such restriction, so the catalogue and the storefront are describing different availability.
Sizes are not in the buyer’s hands in the way they look. Printify’s coloured-frame page counts 40 sizes running from 12.70 by 17.78 cm up to 101.60 by 71.12 cm. What any given Etsy listing actually offers is a shorter menu, and nothing on Etsy’s help pages publishes the range.
And tolerance is real on every one of these. Printful states it plainly: “Disclaimer: Product measurements may vary by up to 0.2″ (0.51 cm).” Just over 5 mm of play on a finished piece is enough to stop a 30 by 40 cm poster sitting easily in a 30 by 40 cm frame you bought separately.
If You Sell Printables
Two lines, because this is mostly a buyer’s guide.
Your file can be sold as a physical print and you are paid nothing for that sale. The shop-wide switch to turn it off is in your Etsy settings, and we set out the path in the earlier guide.
If you leave it on, design for the overlap. A 1 cm margin inside every edge costs you nothing on screen and saves a signature on a small print.
Where These Numbers Came From
Every page linked here was opened on 14 October 2026 and the quoted lines were matched against the text served. All eight returned HTTP 200.
Etsy’s own pages are not among them. Both etsy.com and help.etsy.com refuse automated requests, so everything attributed to Etsy here comes either from Value Added Resource reporting what Etsy told it, or from the help-page wording we quoted and dated in the 4 October guide.
The vendor catalogue pages carry no publication dates and change without notice, so each figure above belongs to 14 October and nothing more. The paper weights, the overlap figures and the size tables are quoted as printed, including the “180:” label and the frame row that is shorter than its poster.
All conversions use 1 inch = 2.54 cm exactly. Ours are: 1/4 inch is 0.635 cm; 0.5 inch is 1.27 cm; 0.2 inch is 0.508 cm, which Printful prints as 0.51 cm; the visible area in the table is the print size less 1.27 cm per axis; 10 g/m2 is 3.8% of 260 and 50 g/m2 is 27.8% of 180; and 81.28 cm less 81.00 cm is 0.28 cm.
If any of these pages changes, or if we have read one wrong, we will correct it here and say what changed.
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