Printing methods
DTG vs screen printing: which do you actually need?
Screen printing wins on price at high volume in one or two colours. DTG wins at low volume, in full colour, with no minimum. If you're ordering under about a dozen pieces, or your design has more than a couple of colours, DTG is almost certainly the one you want. We don't offer screen printing — so if your job genuinely needs it, we'll tell you rather than take the order.
Why screen printing has minimums
Screen printing burns a physical screen for every colour in your design. That setup cost is the same whether you print 12 shirts or 1,200, so it has to be spread across a run to make sense. A 12- or 24-piece minimum isn't a shop being difficult — it's the only way the process pays for itself.
Digital printing has no screen to burn. A run of one costs us the same per piece as a run of a hundred, which is why we can genuinely say no minimum and mean it.
Where each one actually wins
- Under ~12 pieces: DTG or DTF, every time. Screen printing's setup cost is spread over too few shirts
- Full colour or photographic art: DTG or DTF. Screen printing prices per colour, so a photograph is impractical
- Hundreds of pieces, one or two colours: screen printing gets cheaper per piece than we can, and we'd rather say so
- Speciality inks — metallic, puff, heavy opaque whites on dark garments: screen printing territory
The honest trade-off
A screen print lays a layer of ink on top of the fabric. It's opaque and it's durable, and on a dark shirt it will be brighter than DTG can be.
A DTG print soaks into the fibres. It's softer, it's full colour at no extra cost, and there's nothing sitting on the surface to crack. On a light garment it's hard to beat. On a very dark garment it will read more subdued than a screen print's opaque white base would.
Neither is better in the abstract. The quantity, the colour count, and the garment decide it.
Ready to print it?
Upload your art, place it on the garment, and the price updates live. No minimum, no setup fee.