Insight
DTG VS DTF COST & SUSTAINABILITY
DTG and DTF rarely lose or win on printer price. They separate on consumables per printed area, on pretreatment and on how much energy curing takes for the garments you actually sell.
DTG: CMYK and white ink volume, pretreatment fluid, pretreat drying, print time per garment, maintenance and nozzle cleaning waste.
DTF: CMYK and white ink, film sheet or roll metres, adhesive powder, curing pass, heat-press seconds and operator handling per transfer.
Both: labour rate, rejects, energy price and the printed area per garment, which scales almost everything else.
Energy per garment from printer, pretreatment dryer, curing oven and heat press runtime.
CO2e from that energy using the emission factor you enter for your electricity contract.
Water related to pretreatment dilution and cleaning, plus film and powder waste for DTF.
Sustainability results are planning indicators based on entered process data. They are not a certified life-cycle assessment.
Reading the comparison
The calculator never declares one process greener or cheaper in general. It compares the two with your prices, your printed area and your reject rate, and shows where the crossover sits for the order sizes you actually run.