Confession: I’ve been flirting with the idea of selling small batches of my candles since I first started pouring them in 2020. And all this time, one thing has held me back—shipping.

The thought of packaging and shipping (and still charging a reasonable price) has intimidated me. That’s why, when ToAuto offered me the chance to test out its portable Thermal Label Printer, I considered it the push I needed to turn my hobby into a side hustle.

Up until now, I’ve been using my printer and roll after roll of shipping tape to package and send out the occasional eBay or Facebook Marketplace order. But replacing ink and tape can get pricey—and tedious as you start to scale up.

Unboxing the To Auto Thermal Label Printer

Right out of the box, I was impressed by the printer’s size. It’s about the size of a large croissant, and it came with not just the device, but a stack of 4″x6″ shipping label stickers and a type-C adapter, in case you need it to plug the device into your laptop.

How Well Does the ToAuto Printer Work?

While I had some issues printing from my laptop, I found connecting via Bluetooth on my phone to be totally seamless. The printer includes a quick start guide taking you through each step, with photos and arrows showing exactly where to click, though it’s fairly intuitive. You simply download the Here Label app, click “not connected” and select the device to connect it.

From there, you download the shipping label image, making sure it’s sized to 4″x6″, and tap “PDF print,” following the app’s instructions. The printer works so fast that I struggled to take a video of it; each label was ready in (literally) less than 2 seconds!

What You Should Know Before Buying It

If you’re an eBay seller and tend to buy shipping labels through eBay, you’ll need to resize the labels to 4″x6″, because they default on a full-page size.

But, if you use PirateShip—which offers discounted UPS and USPS rates—there’s an option to export your shipping label as a PDF that’s perfectly sized for a 4″x6″ sticker, making the process pretty seamless. (This may be the case with other services, but after multiple small businesses recommended PirateShip to me, and I saved $7 on the first package I shipped, I’ve been using them ever since.)

The Verdict

At $60 (normally $80), the ToAuto Thermal Label Printer costs a fraction of the Dymo and similar printers, and it yields very reliable, speedy results. I went from spending 3 to 5 minutes packaging an order to about 1 minute, and while that may not seem like much, it adds up, fast. I really appreciate how easy the app has been to use and the quality of the print. (Refills are also pretty affordable—you can snag 500 stickers for $10 on Amazon.)

If you’re thinking of launching a side hustle, I highly recommend it.