TL;DR
- A 63% polyester share removed DTG from the shortlist before any cost comparison.
- Two heat presses behind one DTF printer beat a faster printer on both cost and output.
- Payback of 19 months, driven mainly by outsourcing costs that disappeared.
The shop outsourced all digital work at €2.90 per print and wanted to bring it in-house — without knowing which technology matched its actual order mix.
| Attribute | Value |
|---|---|
| Business type | Workwear and sportswear decorator |
| Volume | 9,000 digital prints / month (outsourced) |
| Employees | 11 |
| Garment mix | 63% polyester / blends, 37% cotton |
| Investment considered | DTG €142,000 vs DTF line €61,000 |
Calculation
In-house cost per print
- Outsourced today
- €2.90
- DTG in-house (cotton only, 37% of volume)
- €1.71 — plus continued outsourcing for polyester
- DTF in-house (all substrates)
- €1.28 incl. press labour
- Monthly saving with DTF
- 9,000 × €1.62 ≈ €14,580 minus €11,300 added fixed cost = €3,280
Added fixed cost includes depreciation, two operators' partial time, energy, maintenance and floor space allocation.
Result
- DTF line installed with two presses; printer utilisation 61%, presses 88%.
- Payback 19 months against a modelled 21.
- Turnaround dropped from 6 working days to 2, which won two additional accounts.
Lessons learned
- Garment mix is a hard constraint and should be the first filter, before economics.
- Buy the bottleneck twice before buying the headline machine once.
- Outsourcing cost is the cleanest benchmark a shop can have — use it.
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.
Interactive example
DTF consumable cost per transfer
- Film
- € 0,195
- Ink + powder
- € 0,374
- Total per transfer
- € 0,569
Same calculation kernel as the full calculators. For a decision-grade result, open the matching calculator.
Run the numbers in a calculator
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