{
 "schema_version": "1.0",
 "id": "gelato",
 "name": "Gelato",
 "research_status": "researched",
 "vendor_domain": "gelato.com",
 "category": "Growth & Revenue",
 "task": "E-commerce growth",
 "summary": "Global print-on-demand platform: design, produce and ship custom products (apparel, wall art, mugs, photo books) locally in 30+ countries with no inventory — integrates with Shopify, Etsy and WooCommerce.",
 "best_for": "creators and stores selling custom products internationally who want local production in many countries to cut shipping time and cost, with no inventory",
 "skip_if": "you sell only a handful of orders a month (stay on the free plan) or your customers are concentrated in one country where a single-hub competitor is simpler",
 "honest_knock": "The free plan is genuinely usable, so the honest question is only whether Gelato+ earns its fee — and that depends entirely on volume: below ~10 orders a month the discounts won't cover the subscription. Its real edge is local production in 30+ countries (fast, cheaper international shipping), but that means quality and product availability can vary slightly by region and print partner. Sample your key products before scaling.",
 "pricing": {
  "status": "public",
  "entry_price": "$29.99",
  "entry_price_terms": "a month, or $19.99 a month billed annually",
  "from_price_usd_month": 29.99,
  "plans": [
   {
    "name": "Free",
    "price": "$0 forever",
    "includes": "Two connected stores and two account users"
   },
   {
    "name": "Gelato+",
    "price": "$29.99 a month, or $19.99 a month billed annually",
    "includes": "Unlimited stores/users, Personalization Studio, AI tools, up to 33% off products"
   },
   {
    "name": "Platinum",
    "price": "quoted (no published price)",
    "includes": "Custom discounts, rewards programme, dedicated implementation service"
   }
  ],
  "plans_source": "summarised from pricing.notes; every plan name and amount appears verbatim in those notes",
  "notes": "(re-read 2026-09-23 on gelato.com/subscription-plans in a browser session, every figure unchanged since 26 August; the site serves a bot challenge that our capture cannot pass, so there is no dated screenshot beside this) Free is $0 forever with two connected stores and two account users. Gelato+ is $29.99 a month, or $19.99 a month billed annually, and lifts both of those to unlimited while adding Personalization Studio, the AI tools and up to 33% off products year-round. Platinum is quoted, with custom discounts, a rewards programme and a dedicated implementation service. Note where those figures live: gelato.com/pricing publishes no subscription rates at all — it explains how payment works, with no upfront fees and no commission — and the plan table sits on /subscription-plans. The rates are in dollars even read from Europe. The plan FAQ adds that the product discounts may vary per market, that monthly and annual carry identical features and discounts (annual saves $120 a year), and that Gelato+ can be cancelled anytime from the account dashboard. Gelato+ pays for itself on product discounts rather than features, so the question is order volume, not which tools you want.",
  "verified_at": "2026-09-23",
  "source_url": "https://www.gelato.com/subscription-plans"
 },
 "free_plan": true,
 "free_plan_evidence": "The free plan is genuinely usable, so the honest question is only whether Gelato+ earns its fee — and that depends entirely on volume: below ~10 orders a month the discounts won't cover the subscription.",
 "cost_traps": [],
 "compare_with": {
  "name": "Printful or Printify",
  "why": "the major POD alternatives — Gelato's differentiator is its global local-production network; compare product range and per-item cost for your catalog"
 },
 "links": {
  "record": "https://aibuildermarketplace.com/api/v1/products/gelato.json",
  "review": "https://marketingandsalessoftware.com/gelato-review.html",
  "marketplace": "https://aibuildermarketplace.com/marketplace/gelato/",
  "vendor_site": "https://gelato.com"
 },
 "purchase": {
  "seller": "the vendor",
  "how": "AIBuilder Marketplace does not sell this software. Sign up, start a trial or buy on the vendor's site.",
  "handoff_url": "https://try.gelato.com/c9ioyi0ycvpz",
  "affiliate": true,
  "disclosure": "Where purchase.affiliate is true, purchase.handoff_url is an affiliate link: AIBuilder Marketplace may earn a commission at no extra cost to the buyer. Commission never changes what a record says, and products are not ranked by commission. Where it is false the link is the vendor's plain site."
 },
 "provenance": {
  "research": "hand-researched dossier, read on the vendor's own pages",
  "researched_since": "2026-07",
  "method": "https://aibuildermarketplace.com/how-we-review/",
  "license": "CC BY 4.0. Credit 'AIBuilder Marketplace' with a link to https://aibuildermarketplace.com/atlas/.",
  "note": "A rebuild is not a new measurement: pricing.verified_at is the date that matters."
 },
 "cost": {
  "status": "not_yet",
  "engine": "https://aibuildermarketplace.com/agents/#cost",
  "rules": null,
  "growth": null
 },
 "unknowns": [
  "Contract terms (cancellation, data export, data location, minimum seats) are not researched as separate fields; pricing.notes mentions them only where the vendor's pricing page does.",
  "No computable price rules yet: cost at a given team size cannot be calculated for this product.",
  "Not tested hands-on by us: what the product does comes from the vendor's pages and our reading of them."
 ],
 "task_evidence": null,
 "open_questions": [
  {
   "question_id": "gelato:cancellation_terms",
   "key": "cancellation_terms",
   "question": "Can a customer cancel at any time, and what happens to an annual plan that is cancelled mid-term?",
   "status": "open"
  },
  {
   "question_id": "gelato:data_export",
   "key": "data_export",
   "question": "Which data can a customer export, in which formats, on which plans?",
   "status": "open"
  },
  {
   "question_id": "gelato:data_location",
   "key": "data_location",
   "question": "Where is customer data stored, and can a customer choose the region?",
   "status": "open"
  },
  {
   "question_id": "gelato:minimum_seats",
   "key": "minimum_seats",
   "question": "Is there a minimum number of seats or users on any plan?",
   "status": "open"
  }
 ],
 "vendor_answers": [],
 "agent_channels": {
  "vendor_mcp": null,
  "agent_checkout": {
   "status": "not_checked",
   "detail": "We could not read the vendor's pages as plain HTML.",
   "checked_at": "2026-10-07",
   "method": "homepage, /pricing and the pricing page we cite, read as plain HTML (no JavaScript) and searched for explicit support of purchases by AI agents: Agentic Commerce Protocol, Instant Checkout, Agent Payments Protocol, buy in ChatGPT, agentic checkout"
  }
 }
}