Choosing between a DTG and a DTF line

All digital work was outsourced at €2.90 per print with a six-day turnaround, and the shop did not know which technology matched its actual order mix.

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Figures derived from the shared calculation kernel

Choosing between a DTG and a DTF line

A workwear decorator with a 63% polyester share compared a €142k DTG system against a €61k DTF line and stopped outsourcing at €2.90 per print.

Business: Workwear and sportswear decorator
Volume: 9,000 digital prints / month (outsourced)
Employees: 11
Equipment: Heat presses only, all digital work outsourced
Country: Austria

Investment

61.000 €

Cash benefit / month

3.280 €

Payback

18.6 months

actual: 19 months

ROI (60 mo)

223%

NPV 108.660 €

Before / after

Metric	Before	After	Direction
Cost per print	€2.90	€1.28	lower is better
Turnaround	6 working days	2 working days	lower is better
Outsourced share	100%	0%	lower is better
Substrate coverage	Cotton + poly via partner	Cotton + poly in-house	higher is better
Press utilisation	—	88%	higher is better

Lessons learned

Garment mix is a hard constraint and belongs before the economics, not after.
Buy the bottleneck twice before buying the headline machine once.
Outsourcing cost is the cleanest benchmark a shop can have — use it as the baseline.

Pitfalls

Comparing printer speed instead of line output would have selected the wrong machine.
The €11,300 added fixed cost per month is easy to forget when only per-print cost is compared.

Recreate this case with your own numbers

Prefills job mix, 63% polyester share, both capex blocks and the outsourcing baseline of €2.90 per print.

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Choosing between a DTG and a DTF line