DTG printing usually runs $8 to $20 per shirt on orders under two dozen pieces, once you count the blank garment, pretreatment, and the actual print run. A single dark-colored shirt can land closer to $20 to $30 because of the extra pretreatment and white ink underbase it needs. Push your quantity past 50 or so identical pieces and screen printing almost always beats DTG on price per shirt.
That's the short version. Say a Sacramento nonprofit wants 15 shirts with a photo of an adopted dog for a weekend adoption fair, or a local band wants a dozen tour shirts with a detailed, full-color design. DTG keeps coming up in the quotes, but it's rarely explained past "digital printing." Here's what it actually is, what moves your number, and when it's the wrong call even though it sounds like the newer, fancier option.
What DTG actually is
Direct-to-garment printing sprays your design straight onto the fabric with a specialized inkjet printer, the same basic idea as printing a photo except the "paper" is a t-shirt. Kornit, one of the larger DTG equipment makers, breaks the process down as loading the garment on a flat platen, spraying water-based ink, and curing it with heat so the ink bonds to the fibers. There's no screen to burn like there is with screen printing, and no film to press like there is with DTF. That's the whole appeal: full color art, photo-realistic detail, no per-color setup charge.
Conquer Printing runs DTG alongside DTF under one combined DTF and DTG printing service, and the two get confused constantly because both skip the screen-burning step. The real difference is what fabric the ink will actually stick to. Cotton soaks up DTG ink well, the same way a cotton shirt soaks up a spill. Polyester and most performance blends mostly repel it, per Wikipedia's rundown of the process, which is why DTG stays a cotton-and-cotton-blend method rather than something you'd pick for a moisture-wicking athletic shirt or a hi-vis job site polo.
What drives the price per shirt
Four things move your number more than anything else.
The blank shirt itself is usually $2 to $5 of your total, more if you're stepping up to a heavier or ring-spun tee. Garment color matters almost as much. A design on a white or light shirt prints straight onto the fabric. A design on navy, black, or forest green needs a white ink layer sprayed down first so your colors show up instead of disappearing into the dark fabric. That underbase step typically adds $0.50 to $3 per shirt depending on how much of the design it has to cover.
Design size is the third factor, and it's straightforward: a small left-chest logo uses a fraction of the ink a full-back print does, and you're billed roughly by coverage. A postcard-sized front print and a shoulder-to-shoulder full front are not the same line item.
Quantity still matters even without a screen setup fee. Press time and production flow get more efficient as an order grows, so a 50-piece run costs less per shirt than the same design printed one at a time. It just doesn't drop as sharply as screen printing's price curve does, because DTG never had a big upfront setup cost to spread across more pieces in the first place.
Rush turnaround adds to all of it. Standard turnaround at Conquer Printing is 7 to 10 business days. Need it faster, rush service for orders in 5 business days or less starts at an additional 20% on the total.
DTG vs. DTF vs. screen printing, at a glance
| Method | Best for | Fabric it likes | How the price behaves |
|---|---|---|---|
| DTG | Full-color, photo-realistic art on cotton, small batches | Cotton and cotton blends | Fairly flat per shirt, dark garments cost more |
| DTF | Full-color art on almost any fabric, small batches | Cotton, poly, blends, nylon | Fairly flat per shirt, print size matters most |
| Screen printing | Simple 1 to 3 color logos, bulk runs | Any fabric | Higher upfront cost, drops fast per shirt at volume |
Where DTG wins and where it doesn't
DTG is the right call when you've got a full-color or photo-based design, you're printing on cotton, and your order is small enough that a screen setup fee would eat your budget. That nonprofit's 15 dog-photo shirts are a textbook DTG job. So is a one-off birthday shirt or a small run of a gradient design that would otherwise need five separate screens to run through a press.
It's the wrong call in a few common situations. Order 100 polyester crew shirts for a construction crew and DTG either won't hold the ink the way you want or you'll pay a premium fighting the fabric. Screen printing or DTF handles that job better. Order 75 shirts of the same one-color logo and screen printing's cost per shirt will beat DTG once you're past a few dozen pieces, since DTG's price stays roughly flat instead of dropping the way screen printing's does at volume. And if you're printing on polos or anything that should read as premium rather than printed, embroidery holds up longer and looks like a finished product instead of an image sitting on fabric.
We'd steer a school spirit-wear order of 80 identical shirts toward screen printing every time. We'd steer that band's 12-piece tour run with a detailed, multi-color design toward DTG or DTF instead, and between those two, DTF wins if any of the shirts are polyester or a blend rather than straight cotton.
Common Questions
Is DTG printing more expensive than DTF?
They land in a similar range for small orders, generally $8 to $20 per shirt. DTF has an edge on fabric flexibility since it works on cotton, poly, and blends, while DTG is limited mostly to cotton and cotton-heavy blends. For a mixed order with different fabric types in it, DTF is usually the safer and sometimes cheaper choice.
Is DTG or screen printing cheaper for a simple logo?
Depends on the quantity. Under about two dozen shirts, DTG usually wins because there's no per-color screen setup fee to pay. Past that, screen printing pulls ahead fast on a simple 1 to 3 color logo, since its cost per shirt keeps dropping as the run grows and DTG's mostly doesn't.
What's the minimum order for DTG printing?
Conquer Printing doesn't have a minimum order, so a single DTG shirt is a real order, not something you have to bundle into a bigger run to get printed. You'll pay more per piece than you would at 50 shirts, since there's no volume discount kicking in yet, but a one-off is genuinely fine to print.
Does DTG printing fade or crack over time?
A properly cured DTG print holds up through normal washing, since the ink sits in the fibers rather than as a film layer on top of them. Fading and cracking usually trace back to under-curing during production, not a flaw in the method itself. If you're unsure about a shop's process, ask how they cure DTG prints or request a sample piece first.
Can DTG print on dark shirts?
Yes, but it costs more. Dark garments need a white ink underbase sprayed down before the actual design colors go on, which uses more ink and more press time. Expect $0.50 to $3 more per shirt on a black or navy tee compared to the same design on white.
Bottom line
DTG earns its keep on small, full-color orders printed on cotton, and it loses that edge fast once your order gets big or your fabric isn't cotton. Don't pick a method because it sounds newer or more high-tech than the alternative, pick it because the math and the fabric say so. Run your actual numbers through Conquer Printing's instant quote calculator and compare DTG against DTF and screen printing side by side before you commit to anything. If your order mixes fabrics or sits right on the edge between methods, reach out directly and we'll tell you straight which one we'd use if it were our own order.