Most software comparisons are feature grids, and feature grids are the least useful way to choose. Every product in this category has quoting, orders and invoicing. The differences are in whether they express your work, and you can only find that out by trying to do your work in them.
Evaluate in this order
1. Can it price your decoration methods properly?
The quote is the foundation. If it is wrong or awkward, everyone works around the system and you have bought a very expensive address book.
Specifically:
- Screen print: per-colour, per-position, with setup separate from the run. See how to price screen printing.
- DTG: per garment, split by light and dark, by coverage. See pricing DTG.
- Embroidery: per thousand stitches per position. See pricing embroidery.
- DTF: by sheet area with utilisation. See gang sheet costing.
- Quantity breaks, per-customer price lists, and minimums.
If a method has to be entered as a free-text line item with a manual price, it is not supported, whatever the website says.
2. Does it hold artwork approvals with provenance?
Which version, approved by whom, when. This is the difference between a reprint discussion and a reprint argument. See handling a reprint request.
3. Can the floor see what to do next without asking?
A board the shop can look at, on a screen, that is a byproduct of the work rather than a thing someone updates. If keeping it accurate is a job, it will be inaccurate by the second week.
4. Can you get your data out?
Customers, orders, invoices, artwork, as CSV and files, whenever you want, without asking. This is your exit route, and asking about it also tells you a lot about the vendor.
The questions that actually discriminate
| Question | What a weak answer looks like |
|---|---|
| Can I quote a two-colour print on darks with an underbase? | "You can add a line item for that" |
| Where is the approval timestamp stored? | "The customer replies to the email" |
| Can the packer see only their stage? | "Everyone sees the same list" |
| What is the total monthly cost with the portal and the designer? | Add-ons that were not in the headline price |
| Can I export everything today? | Hesitation, or a support ticket |
| How long until I can quote a real job? | Measured in weeks |
| What happens on the busiest day of the year? | No answer about performance or support hours |
Do the three-job test
Take your three most common jobs and quote each one, end to end, in every candidate. Time it. Count the workarounds. This takes an afternoon and tells you more than a month of demos, because demos are run on the vendor's example data by someone who uses the product daily.
Cost the whole thing
License plus add-ons plus per-user fees plus onboarding plus the hours you will spend on setup. A cheaper subscription with a paid portal, a paid designer and a paid onboarding is often the more expensive option. Quote-only pricing is itself information: it usually means the price depends on what they think you will pay.
Then read the comparisons
We publish comparisons against every alternative with the date we last checked their published pricing, and each one says plainly when the other product is the better choice. If you are coming from a spreadsheet, the real cost of staying manual is the more relevant read, and switching without losing history covers the migration.