T-shirts offer a chest-sized canvas for designs, perfect for branded merchandise, event giveaways, competitions, employee uniforms and apparel businesses. Custom T-shirts—easy to design and produce—are a great marketing, branding and sales tool, but with hundreds of design platforms available, it can be difficult to decide what software to use for T-shirt design. So we’ve rounded up the best T-shirt design platforms to help your business raise its apparel game. In this guide, we’ll cover professional, beginner-friendly and free T-shirt design software, exploring price points, how easy they are to use and the results you can expect.
- From beginners to experts, there’s a T-shirt design tool for everyone—but you shouldn’t just jump on the first one you see online. The best T-shirt design software for your project will depend on your aims, budget and willingness to spend time learning and using design tools.
- VistaPrint is a great option for creating high-quality T-shirt designs with little effort. If you’re looking for an established tool for advanced designs, Adobe Illustrator, VistaCreate or Affinity Designer are good choices.
- While more advanced tools come with a monthly or one-off cost, other platforms let small businesses produce straightforward artwork or try out T-shirt design ideas for free. Beginners should look out for software with ready-made templates and tutorials.
Source: T-shirt design by pkrsky via 99designs by Vista
How to create T-shirt designs on a computer
To create your T-shirts, you’ll need to consider…
- How to design a T-shirt: from choosing colors to the scale and placement of your design. If you need inspiration, browse T-shirt design ideas, tips and trends.
- Practicalities like your budget and the materials you use.
- How to print a T-shirt and choose the best printing service for your project.
- Your distribution plan: how to print and ship your T-shirts.
If you’re unsure where to start, AI tools and our design services can help create the perfect T-shirt design.
Source: Branded T-shirts via VistaPrint
10 best T-shirt design software
Many of these digital solutions don’t require expert tools or knowledge, just a willingness to produce your own design.
1. VistaPrint
VistaPrint offers over 1,500 customizable T-shirt design templates, allowing you to add your own design or photos, print your logo and choose T-shirt colors and fabrics.
Price point: The software is free; printed customized T-shirts start at $9.49.
Ease of use: Easy. You can upload your design in most file formats with a straightforward customization process. Suitable for non-designers and beginners.
Results: VistaPrint partners with high-quality apparel brands like Bella + Canvas, Carhartt and Fruit of the Loom, plus reliable print results.
Branded pizza restaurant T-shirt design. Source: T-shirt via VistaPrint
Our verdict on this T-shirt design software
A range of easy-to-use customization options and the ability to sort T-shirts by style, neckline, brand, printing type and purpose (from uniforms to giveaways) make this a great option for small businesses wanting high-quality results fast.
2. Adobe Illustrator
Adobe Illustrator is a leading vector graphics design software—vector means you’re working with geometric shapes rather than individual pixels.
Price point: The individual software costs $22.99 a month, with a seven-day free trial.
Ease of use: Illustrator’s advanced tools and options can be a steep learning curve for beginners.
Results: Custom tools, precision drawing and vector graphics that display accurately at any scale, creating high-quality results.
Our verdict on this T-shirt design software
Adobe Illustrator is a great option if you have design skills and are willing to put in the hours and pay the monthly fee. However, if you’re a beginner or working on a one-off T-shirt design project, there are more suitable software options out there.
Source: T-shirt design by reza ernanda via 99designs by Vista
3. Adobe Photoshop
Illustrator isn’t the only Adobe T-shirt design software—Photoshop has a wide range of photo editing tools, fonts and filters. It uses raster graphics, which show great detail but can blur when expanded.
Price point: Seven-day free trial, then $22.99/month.
Ease of use: Easier than Illustrator, with useful tutorials, but beginners may still find it challenging.
Results: Photoshop is a great solution for multi-layered, image-based files, but its raster graphics means images designed for one context may work less well in another.
Our verdict on this T-shirt design software
Although not specifically graphic design software like Illustrator, Photoshop can still produce excellent results, especially if working with an image. The monthly cost may make this software unsuitable for one-off designs.
4. VistaCreate
Free graphic design tool VistaCreate has a drag-and-drop editor, over 150,000 templates, an extensive library of illustrations and photos and a useful background removal tool. The Brand Kit feature makes it easy to save your branding preferences for future projects.
Price point: Free, with some key features accessible only on the $10/month Pro plan (comes with a free trial).
Ease of use: T-shirt templates make it easy to produce visually appealing designs. The editor is intuitive and ready-made graphics mean you don’t have to design everything from scratch.
Results: VistaCreate is a quality design solution and you can easily print your final designs with the associated reliable printing service, VistaPrint.
Our verdict on this T-shirt design software
A great option for non-professionals or anyone who requires easy-to-use graphic design tools and ready-made graphics.
Try the Pro version for unlimited storage and additional features like background removal and resizing tools.
Source: Branded T-shirt via VistaPrint
5. CoreIDRAW
CoreIDRAW is an all-rounder T-shirt design software that offers vector graphics and a range of templates.
Price point: CoreIDRAW has different pricing plans, including buying the software outright for $129 for the straight painting app or $299 with clip art and images. Otherwise, it costs $22.42/month for the full software with a 15-day free trial. Note that some pricing tiers are Windows-only.
Ease of use: More user-friendly than Illustrator (and can talk you through T-shirt design), but still more complex than VistaCreate or VistaPrint.
Results: Can produce great results as an image editor or drawing program and its vector graphics mean you don’t have to worry about scaling.
Our verdict on this T-shirt design software
CoreIDRAW’s advantages include multiple pricing tiers and the one-off purchasing option. Beginners will find a slightly smoother learning curve than Adobe and it’s a good option for pros, although it has a relatively small range of specialist tools.
6. Canva
Although Canva’s main focus is creating social media graphics, the T-shirt design templates make putting a design on apparel straightforward. It uses Raster graphics and is aimed primarily at beginners.
Price point: Canva Free is a free T-shirt design software with no charge for individuals, while the Pro plan (with more templates) costs $120 per year and Teams (with added brand tools) is priced at $100.
Ease of use: The drag-and-drop tool is easy to use, while templates and over a million graphics and photos make this a good option for beginners.
Results: Logos or designs that vary in size won’t always display brilliantly thanks to the Raster graphics, but beginners will be impressed with what they can achieve with Canva.
Our verdict on this T-shirt design software
Canva’s range of templates and images will suit non-designers who want to produce something more complex than other entry-level alternatives. However, it lacks the flexibility of some pro software and has a smaller range of tools than the more expensive apps.
Don’s Cafe branded T-shirt. Source: T-shirt via VistaPrint
7. Procreate
Procreate’s tagline is that “Art is for everyone”, although you’re out of luck if you’re not an Apple user because this design software and its animation cousin, Procreate Dreams, are iPad and iPhone-only. iPad users will specifically find Procreate easy to use and appreciate its impressive sketching and painting tools.
Price point: A one-off payment of $12.99 for iPad or $5.99 for iPhone.
Ease of use: Procreate’s simple interface means non-professionals can pick it up quickly. Choosing colors, brushes and fonts is easy, while automated tools make it relatively easy to draw complex shapes.
Results: Procreate can produce excellent results, particularly when used with an Apple pencil. You can save custom brushes and draw 3D shapes—handy for wrap-around detail on T-shirts. Graphics are raster, however, so may blur when stretched.
Our verdict on this T-shirt design software
With a low one-off payment and easy-to-master tools, Procreate is a good option for iPad and iPhone users who want to produce quality T-shirt designs on a budget. However, the lack of vector graphics means resized images may look low-quality.
8. Affinity Designer
Affinity Designer is affordable, professional-quality design software that has become increasingly popular in the last few years thanks to a snappy interface, vector and raster graphic support and useful platform-specific tools (like a reliance on touch for the iPad).
Price point: $69.99 to purchase Affinity Designer 2 individually or $164.99 for the full package. Month-long free trial.
Ease of use: Not the most beginner-friendly option, but clean, customizable menus, a dedicated YouTube channel and sample artwork make it relatively straightforward to use for T-shirt design.
Results: Although there are gaps (symmetry tools could be more intuitive) Affinity Designer’s ability to switch between raster and vector graphics helps produce quality T-shirt designs.
Our verdict on this T-shirt design software
Affinity Designer is a good option for professionals or beginners who are prepared to put the time in, not least because it offers most of Illustrator’s capabilities for a reasonable one-off payment.
![T-shirt made using T-shirt design software]](data:image/svg+xml;base64,PHN2ZyB4bWxucz0iaHR0cDovL3d3dy53My5vcmcvMjAwMC9zdmciIHdpZHRoPSI4MDEiIGhlaWdodD0iNjAwIj48cmVjdCB3aWR0aD0iMTAwJSIgaGVpZ2h0PSIxMDAlIj48YW5pbWF0ZSBhdHRyaWJ1dGVOYW1lPSJmaWxsIiB2YWx1ZXM9InJnYmEoMTUzLDE1MywxNTMsMC41KTtyZ2JhKDE1MywxNTMsMTUzLDAuMSk7cmdiYSgxNTMsMTUzLDE1MywwLjUpIiBkdXI9IjJzIiByZXBlYXRDb3VudD0iaW5kZWZpbml0ZSIgLz48L3JlY3Q+PC9zdmc+)
Source: T-shirt design by Anastasia S. via 99designs by VistaPrint
Source: T-shirt design by Anastasia S. via 99designs by VistaPrint
9. GIMP
The GNU Image Manipulation Program (GIMP) is a free T-shirt design software. This open-source image editor is a good free alternative to Photoshop and its image manipulation tools mean it can also be used for drawing or to produce image-led T-shirt designs.
Price point: Free, with no registration required.
Ease of use: If you’re just resizing or formatting images, GIMP is ideal. More advanced photo tools are less beginner-friendly and you may need to download multiple plugins depending on your project scope, resulting in a steeper learning curve for anything complex.
Results: GIMP can produce good quality basic T-shirt designs, although its graphics are raster, so might not keep their resolution when resized.
Our verdict on this T-shirt design software
GIMP is free and a good option if you want to optimize or manipulate images for your T-shirt designs or work on mock-ups. However, it’s not the best choice for more complex needs.
10. Design Wizard
This inexpensive graphic design tool has thousands of templates and around a million images (you can also upload your own), with options for different tasks including T-shirt design.
Price point: The basic tier is free (with registration) but limited, with watermarks visible on images. The Pro plan costs $9.99/month or $49.99/month for a business account.
Ease of use: Smooth menus, tutorial videos and templates optimized for various project types make Design Wizard an intuitive option for non-professionals.
Results: Design Wizard’s library of images and templates makes it easy to produce fun T-shirt designs. However, advanced tools—manipulation, customization and effects—are limited and the templates don’t have much variety.
Our verdict on this T-shirt design software
With Design Wizard, beginners can produce a basic T-shirt design in minutes using the templates and editing tools. More advanced users may find the features and tools limited, however, preferring another T-shirt design software from this list.
Source: T-shirt design by Shoobo’s via 99designs by VistaPrint
What program is best for T-shirt design?
Deciding what software to use for T-shirt design can be difficult given the wide range of options. If you’ve got time to explore different platforms, check out the trials for Illustrator and CoreIDRAW and free design software like GIMP and VistaCreate to see what suits your project best.
Otherwise, the choice will depend on your needs. Want an advanced tool for complex designs? Illustrator is the obvious choice, although more affordable competitors like Affinity Designer are worth considering. For an intuitive iPad app, Procreate is ideal, while Design Wizard’s templates make designing T-shirts easy. Want to get high-quality T-shirt designs with minimum fuss? Try VistaPrint.
T-shirt design software FAQs
What makes a great T-shirt design?
Start by thinking about your brand identity, audience and budget. Then ask yourself, do you have the skills and time to create an impactful T-shirt design or should you consider hiring a designer?
Is there beginner-friendly design software?
Absolutely. VistaCreate, Design Wizard and Canva have easy-to-use drag-and-drop tools, pre-made templates and a library of graphics and images, ideal for those without a design background.
Can I use AI to design T-shirts?
AI is a useful tool for small businesses, including when it comes to T-shirt design. Generating images using text prompts can help produce appealing designs, as well as mock-ups for inspiration.
What’s the best free T-shirt design software?
While GIMP is a completely free open-source platform, Design Wizard, Canva and VistaCreate all have free tiers with a good range of tools. VistaPrint’s T-shirt design tool and templates are also free to use, you just have to pay for the T-shirts themselves once you’ve finalized your design. You can always use free T-shirt design software like VistaPrint to play around with your design in the initial stages.
How can I ensure my T-shirt designs look professional?
High-resolution images and vector graphics will generally give the best print quality, especially if you’re printing the same design on T-shirts in different sizes and styles. Color simulation tools allow you to preview how your design will look on different color fabrics or hex codes help to match colors exactly.
