11 Best Mug Mockup Generator Tools and Sites Reviewed (Paid & Free)

Mugs are the second best item for Print on Demand business owners in terms of popularity and profitability. Still, when it comes to Mug mockup generators, they don’t get the love they deserve. That’s why it’s not easy to find suitable mug mockup generators according to your requirements.

Our Bulk Mockup team has again taken on the task of solving an issue that POD business owners face. (Check our T-shirt and book cover mockup generator reviews)

We tested all the mug mockup generators currently available in the market to find the 11 best mug mockup generators that every POD business owner can use.

Our List of 11 Best Mug Mockup Generators

Placeit:

Like any other mockup generator review, Placeit came supreme with a 2254-strong mug mockup library. Quality is great without a doubt and so are the variations. Any small or mid-sized POD business owner can work it until their business goes big.

Pros:

• Biggest library.
• Many mockup templates have the option to brand the model's apparel as well.

Cons:

• Not as big as their t-shirt mockup library.
• Not many free options for mug mockups.

Pricing:

• They have some free templates. Not the best, but as free, quite good.
• Individual Mockup pricing is the highest in the market. A whooping $7.95
• Monthly subscription costs got lower after Envato acquired them. They are now at $14.95
• Yearly subscription also got lower at $89.95.

Mockup We Made With Placeit For Our Research:

Smart Mockups:

Smart Mockups almost didn’t come second this time for their small library of only 532 mug mockups. But their custom mockup generator is quite good which let you make your own mockups if you have the images of mugs you want to create mockups for. 

Pros:

• Custom mockup maker.
• Integrates with Canva.

Cons:

• Small library with even smaller free mockups to try out.

Pricing:

• They have some good quality book cover mockups for free.
• They have a $9 premium subscription plan for an individual user with some limits on features.
• Their pro plan offers all features for an individual user at $19 per month.
• Smart Mockup has a plan for 5 man teams as well. Although quite expensive, standing at $69 per month, they added more features trying to make it worth it.

Mockup We Made With Smart Mockups For Our Research:

Bulk Mockup:

Bulk Mockup is specialised for POD business owners with a large inventory. Small and medium-sized businesses can take advantage of our tool as well. If anyone is willing to spend an hour with our Photoshop plugin, whether they have a small or big inventory, they don’t need any other service for their mug mockups.

We are also proving limited time service for beginners so they can get started.

Pros:

• Optimized for speed.
• Can be used with any PSD template for greater variation.
• Despite having many mind blowing features, it’s relatively easy to use.
• Great documentation on how to use this mockup generator most effectively.
• You can’t get a service like this with 10x the price.
• Excellent Post Purchase Support.
• Limited time service and consultation not found with other mockup generators.

Cons:

• Need to spend at least an hour learning all its quirks and features.

Pricing:

• $47 lifetime deal. No monthly or yearly hassle, LTD product.

Media Modifier:

Despite having some hiccups here and there, Media Modifier is one of the easiest mug mockup generators to use. It’s a service like Placeit with a much smaller mockup library but in terms of customizability, it’s one of the top dogs.

When working on one mockup on their generator, they also show you how your design will look like on other mockups. With just one click, you can check how your design looks like on other mockups.

Pros:

• Very easy to use.
• Have many customization options.

Cons:

• A bit expensive.
• Have some bugs/glitches here and there.

Pricing:

• They have a free subscription with 100 free basic templates.
• Monthly subscription Pro plan $19 and team plan $45
• Yearly Subscription Pro plan $189.96 and team plan $450

Mockup We Made With Media Modifier For Our Research:

Vexels:

Vexels is one of the most loved services by our Bulk Mockup users. As we don’t offer many free mockups, users usually have to get their own PSD templates and Vexels offers the best in terms of quality.

They also have an online mockup generator and the quality of the mockups generated is top-notch, the library size is really low.

Pros:

• Really high quality output. Among the best when it comes to photo realistic mockups.
• Good fit for even big inventory POD businesses if they got BulkMockup to use with it.

Cons:

• Vexels is actually a stock library of digital assets so it’s not a service made specifically for Mockups.
• For the other extra features you might not even need, the subscription gets super expensive.

Pricing:

They have 3 rigid subscription plans with various limitations.

• Merch plan - $29/month or $261/ year
• Merch Plus plan - $49/month, $441/year
• Merch Ultimate plan - $99/month,$891/year

Canva: 

Even as we have other services who specifically cater towards mockups, we include Canva on most of our Top/Best lists cause it’s just that good. A big community of people regularly updating it’s library size, Canva is a designer dream.

In the hands of a good designer, Canva can produce anything you may need for your business.

Pros:

• Amazing flexibility.
• Fairly cheap.
• Can make an mug mockup with animation even at their free tier.

Cons:

• Non designers can use it but need some getting used to.
• With the effort it needs to get some quality mockups, Vexels+Bulkmockup or Freepick+Bulkmockup can produce thousands.

Price:

• There is a free subscription that can be used to build almost any mockup if in the hands of an expert designer.
• Monthly subscription for one person at $6.49 and $8.49 for a five people team.
• Yearly subscription for one person at $54.99 and $84.90 for a five people team.

Artboard Studio:

Artboard Studios' main specialty is Video mockup generation. If you’re using it for the first time, you’ll wonder why this service is listed on most of the Top mockup generators list even with the worst UX provided by them. But after you get your first output from this generator, you’ll see it can produce the most realistic mockups without needing any edits or add-ons.

Pros:

• Has video mockup capabilities.
• Good video editing options that can produce awesome output without any video editing knowledge.

Cons:

• Very hard to navigate.
• The mug mockup videos are just product mockups, no models like Placeit.

Price:

• They do have a free subscription plan but it’s not that usable.
• Monthly subscription at $15 and yearly subscription at $144

Mockup We Made With Artboard Studio For Our Research:

Render Forest:

RenderForest has kept its promise to produce Instagram-worthy mockups with its mug mockup generator. It’s a collection of design tool catering to many business owners but especially useful for Print on Demand businesses. Have your design ready, put the design in RenderForest and Voila! An eye-catching mockup is ready to post on your business Instagram page.

Pros:

• Readymade mockups to put on Instagram without much editing.
• Can compete with any top dog like Placeit and SmartMockup in terms of quality.

Cons:

• The library size is too low for mug mockup generators or any other product mockup for POD.
• Not the easiest service to use.

Price:

• One single mockup costs $5.99
• Monthly Subscription costs $19.99

Mockup We Made With Render Forest For Our Research:

Freepik:

It’s not a traditional mockup generator service per se. Freepik is more like a marketplace like Envato but has many good quality design elements and mockups for free. The reason for putting it on the list is how powerful this service becomes with BulkMockups. 

The only issue with BulkMockups is not having many readymade templates, Freepik can negate that issue. It has many great quality mug mockups or any other POD product mockups for free and even if that vast resource doesn’t suffice, its subscription pricing is really low compared to what they are offering.

Pros:

• Vast amount of design elements and mockup templates.
• Can be a great addon service with BulkMockups.
• Pricing is really cheap.
• Free options have great output quality as well.

Cons:

• No online generator to work with.
• Have to curate carefully to get great quality.

Pricing:

• Yearly subscription is priced at $75.19
• Monthly subscription $14.92

Mockup We Made With Freepik For Our Research:

Printful:

Printful is a POD service company with an inbuilt free online mockup generator. Although free, their quality is quite great. Their mug mockups have all the variations needed for all the types of mugs we usually sell on POD. Not the greatest in terms of quality but still not that bad.

Pros:

• Full POD service.
• One of the most easiest to use.

Cons:

• No design variations.
• Quality is good but not that great.

Pricing:

• It’s a free mockup generator.

Mockup We Made With Printful For Our Research:

Printify:

Printify is another full POD service like Printful. They are much much better at their POD service but their free online mockup generator is quite lacking. They don’t have much of a design variation but what they do have is product variation. So if you’re selling a mug that is not that common, there’s a good chance Printify have a mockup for it.

Pros:

• Product variation is great.
• Online mockup generator is free with decent quality output.

Cons:

• Not many design variations.
• Quality of output is good but not great.

Pricing:

• It’s a free mockup generator.

Mockup We Made With Printify For Our Research:

Conclusion

Just like t-shirts, we know our clients usually have a huge number of Mug designs in their inventory. While Placeit and Smart Mockup can satisfy every need a beginner POD business owner can have, when it comes to heavy lifting, these types of services fall short.

We suggest using services like Vexels or Freepik combined with Bulk Mockup. No matter how huge your product library is, it will only take minutes to make a month's worth of marketing material.

If you're unable to do it yourself or need help, please feel free to check out the limited-time service offering we made just for your help.