DTG vs. Screen Printing | Pros, Cons, How Much It Costs

Описание: Screen printing and DTG (direct to garment) printing are two common ways to print custom t-shirts. They both have their pros and cons. So how do you choose between them? Steven Farag from Campus Ink in Champaign, IL shows the difference between DTG and screen printing.

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Q: What is DTG printing?
A: A DTG printer is a large digital print head – similar to the kind you’d use to print on paper at home – that prints on fabric.

Q: When would a print shop use DTG printing versus screen printing?
A: Screen printing presses can print shirts quickly – sometimes up to 1080 pieces an hour. However, a screen printer's setup time limits what's possible. Here's why: the extensive labor required to create, separate, coat, expose, and register screens make screen printing presses inefficient for small quantity orders with lots of colors. Let's say you want 20 t-shirts that have a design that requires 5 screens to print. It takes far more time just to create those 5 screens (not even accounting for setting the screens up on the actual press) than it does to print the 20 shirts! Screens are the biggest part of the print cost with traditional screen printing.

Q: What are the cons of DTG printing?
A: DTG has several cons. It’s expensive. The ink is expensive. The equipment is expensive. It’s fairly slow. With the most common DTG printers, you may be able to do a shirt every two minutes. You also need to pre-treat the shirt to get really vibrant colors or print on dark garments. It can cost $4 to $5 just to print a large, vibrant print on a dark shirt.

Q: So why do DTG printing?
A: If you want to serve certain types of customers, DTG can still work. You can take on smaller orders, like complicated artwork for 12 to 24 piece orders. Get sent bad artwork, or a photograph? Consider DTG printing.

Q: How do you determine whether you’ll use DTG versus screen printing for a customer?
A: Consider what it will take to screen print the order first. If you see that artwork can easily be separated, lean toward screen printing. It’s still the first and best way to print a shirt. If the artwork is extremely complicated and it’s in a low quantity, lean toward DTG. If it’s a high quantity print with complex art, consider subcontracting the job to a print shop that specializes in complex simulated process screen printing (or trying to separate and print it yourself).

Q: What is DTG pretreatment?
A: A t-shirt typically has to be pre-treated for DTG printing. This is almost always true if the t-shirt is black or another dark color. A DTG pre-treat machine puts a special coating on the shirt. It acts like an underbase (or primer) so that the ink is vibrant and long-lasting.

Q: How much does it cost to print a shirt with a DTG printer?
A: Epson actually offers a cost calculator tool for DTG printers.
With DTG, you’re simply applying ink to a given area on a garment. You can actually calculate the cost of the ink over the area. A complicated print with 7 colors on a dark garment that covers a large area could cost $8! When you’re starting to price your own DTG prints, you should consider the cost of pre-treating and how large the image actually is.

Q: How much does a DTG printer actually cost?
A: DTG can be expensive! Consider purchasing your first DTG printer after you’ve contracted thousands of dollars of DTG work out of your business.
A typical Epson or Brother DTG (direct to garment) printer for the everyday print shop costs between $10,000 and $20,000.
High-end digital printers like M&R’s Digital Squeegee cost significantly more.
A pre-treatment machine will cost you between $3,000 and $4,000. Don’t understimate your pre-treatment machine! It’s one of the most important parts of your DTG setup. Lawson, Equipment Zone and M&R all make pre-treatment machines for DTG printing (along with numerous other manufacturers).
Finally, you’ll need a heat press. They can cost $1,000 to $2,000 for a high-end model. However, you can use the heat press for innumerable things in most print shops.
All-in, you’re looking at a $20,000 to $30,000 investment to start DTG printing. Be prepared for that cost!

Q: How much does DTG printing ink cost?
A: Here’s the most important part. Ink costs are high for DTG printing. Each ink cartridge costs around $200. For a typical CMYK DTG printer (with two white inks), there may be $1,200 in ink in the printer at any given time. DTG ink has a shelf life, so you can’t buy it on sale and save it for later. It may cost $300 to $400 a month to run a DTG machine, and if it’s a busy month your costs will swell. And of course...pre-treat is fairly expensive as well. Be careful with the hidden ink costs with DTG printing!

#printlife #screenprinting #dtg

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