Canvas vs Poster Photo Gifts: 16x20 at $13.86 vs $7.02

For a Christmas photo gift, you’re choosing between a canvas that arrives ready to hang and a poster the recipient still has to frame. The cost gap at the same size is real: a 16x20 canvas costs $13.86 from the cheapest supplier we price, and a 16x20 poster costs $7.02. At 24x36, it’s $25.20 against $8.00.

Size	Canvas, cheapest	Poster, cheapest	Canvas costs
16x20	$13.86 (CustomCat)	$7.02 (Teelaunch)	+$6.84 (1.97×)
24x36	$25.20 (CustomCat)	$8.00 (CustomCat)	+$17.20 (3.15×)

Quick verdict

Sell canvas as your Christmas photo gift. It costs more, but it’s a finished present that goes straight on the wall, and at typical gift prices it keeps more than twice as many dollars per sale as a poster.

Sell posters as the lower-priced option on the same listing, or for designs and art prints where the buyer probably already has a frame. A bare poster is a harder gift to give.

Every canvas price we have

Canvas	CustomCat	Teelaunch	Gelato	Printful
16x20	$13.86	$20.25	$28.19	$28.56
24x36	$25.20	$32.90	—	$52.02

Canvas has the widest dollar spread between suppliers of any gift product we price. Printful’s 16x20 costs $14.70 more than CustomCat’s (106% more), and its 24x36 costs $26.82 more. On a product you’ll sell at $40–$80, that’s the difference between a good margin and a thin one.

Gelato and Printful are within 37 cents of each other at 16x20. If you’re choosing between those two, go on shipping and production location rather than unit price.

Every poster price we have

Poster	CustomCat	Teelaunch	SPOD	Printful
11x14	—	$4.01	—	$9.83
12x18	$4.75	$6.01	—	$11.62
16x20	—	$7.02	—	$12.13
18x24	—	$7.02	$13.37	$13.15
24x36	$8.00	—	$17.23	$18.25

Two things stand out:

• Teelaunch charges $7.02 for both 16x20 and 18x24. If you sell through Teelaunch, the bigger size costs you nothing extra. Only offer 16x20 there when the photo suits its squarer 4:5 crop.
• CustomCat’s 24x36 is $8.00, less than half of SPOD ($17.23) or Printful ($18.25). Large posters are where the choice of supplier matters most.

What each keeps at a gift price

These are example listing prices chosen for illustration, not market data. Fees are Etsy’s 6.5% transaction fee, 3% + $0.25 payment processing and $0.20 listing fee, per Etsy’s fee structure. Shipping isn’t included.

16x20

Product and supplier	Cost	Example price	You keep
Canvas, CustomCat	$13.86	$44	$25.51
Canvas, Teelaunch	$20.25	$44	$19.12
Canvas, Gelato	$28.19	$44	$11.18
Canvas, Printful	$28.56	$44	$10.81
Poster, Teelaunch	$7.02	$20	$10.63
Poster, Printful	$12.13	$20	$5.52

24x36

Product and supplier	Cost	Example price	You keep
Canvas, CustomCat	$25.20	$80	$46.75
Canvas, Teelaunch	$32.90	$80	$39.05
Canvas, Printful	$52.02	$80	$19.93
Poster, CustomCat	$8.00	$30	$18.70
Poster, SPOD	$17.23	$30	$9.47
Poster, Printful	$18.25	$30	$8.45

The pattern is the same at both sizes. A canvas from a cheap supplier keeps about 2.4 to 2.5 times what a poster does. But a canvas from Printful keeps roughly what a poster from CustomCat or Teelaunch does, while asking the buyer to spend more than twice as much. If Printful is your only supplier, canvas loses most of its advantage.

Plug in your own prices with the profit calculator.

Why canvas works better as a gift

It comes down to what arrives in the box.

A canvas is printed, stretched over a wooden frame and delivered ready to hang. Gelato, for example, uses 1.5” stretcher bars for gallery wrap and sends canvas with hanging hardware included, per its canvas vs poster guide. The person who opens it can hang it on Christmas Day.

A poster, as the same guide notes, ships flat or rolled and still needs a frame, mount or tape to look finished. As a gift, that means the recipient has to go out and buy a frame. So a poster suits buyers who already have one, or who want a specific frame, better than it suits a present.

A few suppliers sell framed posters, which fixes that problem. We don’t price framed posters yet, so check your supplier’s framed price before comparing it with canvas.

Photo quality: check the file before the order

Photo gifts come from customer uploads, and phone photos don’t always hold up on a wall. A common rule of thumb is 150 pixels per inch at the final print size:

Print size	Pixels at 150 PPI	Megapixels
16x20	2400 × 3000	7.2 MP
18x24	2700 × 3600	9.7 MP
24x36	3600 × 5400	19.4 MP

A recent phone photo usually covers 16x20. A cropped photo, a screenshot or an image saved from social media often won’t cover 24x36. If your personalization tool accepts uploads, set a minimum image size, or at least warn the buyer, before a blurry 24x36 canvas becomes a refund in December.

Shipping and Christmas timing

Canvas is the harder product to get delivered on time:

• It’s bigger and heavier. A 24x36 canvas on a wooden frame ships as a large box, and a poster doesn’t. Get a real shipping quote for one unit to your main market before setting prices. On canvas, shipping can take a big share of the margin in the tables above.
• It has an extra production step. A canvas has to be stretched and framed after printing, so don’t assume its holiday order cutoff matches your poster cutoff. Look up each product’s date separately. Printful’s holiday deadline guide notes that a mixed order has to meet the earliest cutoff of any item in it.
• Customer approval takes time. If you send a proof of a customer’s photo before printing, allow a day or two for the reply, and set your listed cutoff that much earlier than the supplier’s.

Bottom line

For Christmas photo gifts, lead with canvas from CustomCat or Teelaunch: $13.86–$20.25 at 16x20 and $25.20–$32.90 at 24x36, keeping $19–$47 per sale at the example prices. Offer posters as the cheaper option, where Teelaunch’s $7.02 18x24 and CustomCat’s $8.00 24x36 are the best value. Avoid building a canvas line on Printful alone, because the $28.56 and $52.02 prices use up most of the margin.

For other Christmas products ranked by cost, see the cheapest POD Christmas gifts, or compare every wall art size in the product catalog.

Prices are the cost of one printed unit before shipping, pulled from each supplier’s own API. Printful and Gelato quote US prices (Printful checked September 17, 2026, Gelato August 22, 2026). CustomCat, Teelaunch and SPOD quote account prices checked August 22, 2026. See how we source prices.