FAQs
T-Shirt Printing Business
Frequently Asked Questions
Q. How much capital investment do I need to start a T-shirt printing business?
A. You can actually start with no money by using an print-on-demand (POD) product printing company such as CafePress or Zazzle. Then you can graduate to heat transfers that you apply to blank T-shirts using a simple heat press, which would cost only $200-$900. Then move up to printing to your own shirts with a direct-to-garment (DTG) printer, which offers the the most profit potential, but requires the most capital — about $20,000, which can be financed such that it pays for itself as you go. Few other businesses allow this type of easy progression.
Q. How much money can I make in a T-shirt printing business?
A. The T-shirt printing business is unique in a number of ways. First, the profit margin is high — between 75%-90% — which translates to $15-$18 profit on a $20 shirt. This is a very high profit margin percentage compared to most businesses. It doesn’t take a lot of shirt sales to make serious money. Second, many or most of your sales will be multiple shirts on single orders, especially if your customers are sports teams, fund raisers, cheer squads, or local businesses. This means high profits per order per customer. Let’s say you make $12 profit per shirt, and sell 50 shirts each to only 6 customers for a total of 300 shirts, you’ve made $3600. If you average that number each month, you make $43,200 a year. And these are very conservative numbers.
Q. Why all the attention to direct-to-garment (DTG) printers?
A. Because DTG printers are a significant new technology that is inexpensive enough to allow home-based T-shirt printing businesses to compete with, and complement, large screen-printing companies. The ability to take advantage of these opportunities didn’t exist before DTG printers came along a few short years ago. DTG printers offer a number of advantages over other printing methods. They are easy to use, are relatively fast, and can print detailed multi-colored images that other technologies can’t.
Q. Are there other ways to print and decorate T-shirts?
A. Yes, there’s always the traditional way: screen printing, which is better suited to large print runs and relatively few colors — and it’s a bit messy with all the inks and cleaning fluids. There’s also embroidery. You’ll need an embroidery machine, a computer, lots of colored thread, and a bit of patience because it’s not very fast. Then there are heat-applied transfers for which you need a heat press machine. You can buy ready-made transfers or print your own with a desktop inkjet printer or with a more professional printer/cutter machine, for which you’ll also need a computer.
Q. If my company already does screen-printing and/or embroidery, should I add direct-to-garment printing?
A. Absolutely. In the past you have most likely turned down jobs that were too small for screen-printing, or not right for embroidery. With a DTG printer, you can do it all, regardless of the customer’s requirements. The printer will pay for itself in only a short time.
Q. Why do dark T-shirts take longer to print than white shirts?
A. Black or dark shirts require more time because they must be pretreated with a spray-on solution so that a layer of white ink can be printed as a base for the color image to be printed as a separate step. This three-step process for dark shirts is compared to a one-step process for white shirts. Some printers that print both white and color inks do it as two steps but in a single pass through the machine. Most require two passes.
Q. Does anyone sell a “T-shirt business in a box” solution in which everything required is in a complete package?
A. No, not to our knowledge. You must buy your heat press, DTG printer, graphics software, and supplies separately — assuming you already have a computer. See our Resources page for sources.
Q. Why are DTG printers so expensive?
A. DTG ink-jet printers are relatively complex electromechanical machines that need to be able to consistently and flawlessly produce high-quality results on every use. The print heads with hundreds of nozzles have to deliver precise amounts and mixtures of ink at just the right spots, without getting clogged or starved. As the technology becomes more mature in the future, prices for DTG printers will come down. The cost of a DTG printer is offset by the fact that it pays for itself through sales of shirts it produces.
Q. What is the best DTG printer?
A. We have reviewed and compared a number of the best DTG printers for small businesses in our article, Best Digital Direct-to-Garment Printers. We also choose one of those printers as the best overall. Among the brands discussed are Brother, AnaJet, Veloci-Jet, DTG (brand name), Kornit, and i-Dot.
Q. What’s the best way to decide on a DTG printer?
A. Of course read our recommendations here but also follow up with your own research. Visit t-shirtforums.com where you can read about other people’s experiences with DTG printers and manufacturers, and ask questions. Visit DTG printer manufacturers’ and distributors’ web sites. And attend garment decoration trade shows, such as ISS, where you actually see different printers, watch them in action, and talk with company representatives. Ask for sample shirts, demonstrations, brochures, business cards, and pricing information.
Q. Is a vinyl printer/cutter less expensive than a DTG printer?
A. Yes, vinyl printer/cutters are less expensive and produce great results on T-shirts and other garments. However, cost-per-shirt is a little higher due to the vinyl material required as well as the extra labor associated with creating a heat transfer. On the plus side however, vinyl printer/cutters are more versatile than DTG printers in that they can do signs, stencils, car decals, rhinestone templates, and more. For more details, see Start Small with a Vinyl Printer/Cutter.
Q. What is the best graphics software for a T-shirt printing business?
A. Adobe Photoshop is the king of image graphics software. However it is expensive and is so feature-rich that it is difficult to learn for most first-time users. There are alternatives, such as Adobe Photoshop Elements, which is a less expensive, less robust, but easier to use version of Photoshop, and still has most of the needed features. It also accepts Photoshop plug-ins. Corel Paint Shop is another very capable alternative, as is GIMP, which is free (see our Resources page for links to these and other software). For vector (line drawing) graphics, Corel Draw is the most popular. Many T-shirt printing “helper” programs or plug-ins provided by DTG printer companies and clip-art vendors are designed specifically to work with Corel Draw. There are a number of alternative vector graphics programs such Adobe Illustrator and Inkscape (free).
Q. Will my PC or laptop computer work with a DTG printer?
A. Generally, if your computer is 5 years old or less, it should be fine. It needs a USB connector to connect the printer and needs Windows XP, Vista, or Windows 7 to run the printer driver software provided with the printer. Windows 7 is fairly new, so check with the printer company to make sure it’s drivers work on that operating system. Some large graphics programs, such as Photoshop, require a lot of memory on your PC – at least 2 GB – to operate satisfactorily.
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