Screen print pricing is about spreading setup. DTG pricing is the opposite problem: there is barely any setup, and the per-print cost hardly moves however many you run. Price it like screen print and you will lose money on the volume orders and turn away the one-offs you should be winning.
What a DTG print actually costs
| Cost line | Typical driver | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Blank | Per garment | Combed, ring-spun cotton prints noticeably better, and costs more |
| Pretreat | Per dark garment | Fluid plus the press time to dry it |
| Ink, colour | Coverage area | Rises fast with a full front print |
| Ink, white | Dark garments only | Usually the single biggest ink cost |
| Machine time | Per print | Pretreat, print, cure; take it from your own cycle time |
| Cure | Per print | Dryer or press time and power |
| Maintenance | Amortised | Head cleans, wipes, waste ink, service |
| Waste | Percentage | Your real reprint rate, not your hoped-for one |
Two numbers matter more than the rest: white ink on darks, and your maintenance amortisation. A DTG printer that sits idle still costs money in head maintenance, so low utilisation quietly raises your true cost per print.
The light / dark split
Do not try to average across garment colours. Build two costs:
- Light garments: no pretreat, no white underbase, faster cycle.
- Dark garments: pretreat applied and dried, white underbase laid down, more ink, longer cycle.
Dark can easily cost two to three times what light costs. One blended price means light prints subsidise dark ones, and your customers will notice which way to push you.
Finding your crossover with screen print
Take one design and cost it both ways at several quantities. The point where the lines cross is where you should be steering customers, and it is a real number for your shop rather than a rule of thumb.
| Quantity | DTG total | Screen print total | Cheaper |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | £9 | £62 | DTG |
| 12 | £108 | £96 | Screen |
| 24 | £216 | £130 | Screen |
| 50 | £450 | £202 | Screen |
Those figures use a £9 DTG cost per dark garment and a screen job with £54 of setup plus £3.20 a shirt. Substitute your own and the shape stays the same: DTG is a straight line from the origin, screen print starts high and flattens. See how to price screen printing for the other side of that comparison.
Pricing structure that works
- Two base prices, light and dark.
- A size band for the print area, for example up to A4, up to A3, oversize.
- A second-position charge, because it is a second full cycle.
- No setup fee, and say so. It is your genuine advantage on small orders.
- A minimum order value rather than a minimum quantity, so single-piece work stays worth handling.
The trap: quoting DTG like a photocopier
A full-front, edge-to-edge design on a black hoodie is not the same job as a small left-chest logo on a white tee, and pricing them the same is how shops end up busy and broke. Charge by coverage band and garment colour, and the arithmetic looks after itself.
If pretreat is where your rejects come from, that is a process problem rather than a pricing one: see DTG pretreat troubleshooting. Printer's Friend prices per decoration method, so DTG jobs carry their own cost model, pretreat step and cure schedule rather than being bent into a screen print workflow.