How Profitable are DTF Printing Machines?

One of the first calculations you SHOULD do as a business owner thinking about adding one of the new DTF printing machines to your shop is Return on Investment (ROI). Or even just simply working out the potential profits you’ll make on each dtf print That way you can balance the potential gains vs the cash out of pocket or your monthly finance payments and decide if worth the investment.

Roll to Roll DTF Printing Machines

There are 2 general types of direct-to-film printers:

Sheet Printers
Roll to Roll

Cheap DTF Printers – Sheet Fed

The cheap dtf printers that print 1 transfer at a time are typically adaptations of a common inkjet printer. The price is attractive, but actually producing a dtf transfer or custom t-shirt is slow and labour intensive.

Because it’s a multi-step process that includes loading a single sheet of PET film, printing and manually applying powder before you cure the transfer in a heat press.

If you’re printing just a few shirts or transfers per day, this might be a good option because of the lower cost and availability of your “free” labour.

But if you are doing production work for retail, taking large custom orders, converting from a screen printing shop or selling transfers wholesale it’s not a great option.

In addition to the time, because these printers use consumer printheads, maintenance and longevity are an issue at any kind of higher volume.

Industrial Roll to Roll DTF Printing Machines

On the other hand, industrial dtf printers are purpose built for volume, reliability and with ROI in mind!

The Digital HeatFX DTF-24/H2 is the perfect example of a mid-range roll to roll DTF printer.

These units provide an inline, end to end production system for direct to film transfers because of the following features:

24” wide PET film roll printing – this drastically reduces your per transfer cost because you’re buying the primary supply component, the transfer film, in bulk.
Built in, in-line adhesive powder application – as the film comes out of the printer it runs through a “shaker” that evenly applies the adhesive powder to the damp ink. As opposed to taking a single sheet to a powder bath of some sort and manually applying.
Heat tunnel dryer – while a sheet-fed system uses a heat press for this step, the ColDesi DTF printer runs the roll-printed transfer material through an attached tunnel dryer.

The result of this larger dtf printing machine set up is that you once you set up your print job you can produce high quality custom dtf transfers for pennies – at production speeds.

Plus, the use of commercial print heads, an industrial heat tunnel for curing and consistent powder application means you get a low maintenance experience all the while.

This question pops up periodically when people are switching from older DTG printers OR have read about the issues that some cheap inkjet printers converted to DTF currently have. Unfortunately, many people don’t know enough to make the distinction between a commercial product like the ColDesi’s Digital HeatFX 24H2 printer and a DIY dtf machine.

White ink recirculation, filtering and regular Maintenace combine to make this a non-issue for ColDesi DTFs.

As long as you keep up with the minimal maintenance that any industrial printer requires there’s no need to worry.

Getting to the Profitability – How much can you make with a DTF Printer?

Let’s break down the numbers on a Digital HeatFX DTF-24H2 including machine cost range, supplies and potential pricing. We’ll use a typical A5 sides single transfer as an example.

DTF Supply pricing

Literally the LARGEST cost in the direct to film printing process is the film itself.

This is the Digital HeatFX 100mtr dtf film roll which you can purchase for £199.00.

The roll is 60cm wide so you can fit 12 A5 sized prints in one linear meter. You’ll actually have some leftover space that you can gang print logos, tags or just smaller prints in general, but we’ll set aside that idea for the moment and focus on the A5 size only.

The other estimate we’re going to make is on ink and powder usage. The amount of dtf ink is going to vary by the design itself, and the amount of ink you choose to use in the design, so we’ve worked out an average estimate of £3.60 per meter of TOTAL supply cost per meter.

That means that a dozen A5 prints have cost you £3.60 to make, or about 30 pence each.

Selling Transfers

The pricing for an A5 transfer varies quite a bit, but we easily found quality transfers in that size for between £4.00 to £4.50 for small quantities, reaching as low as £1.99 for 90+ units.

Even at the low price of £1.99, the gross profit on a single transfer is £1.69 or 563.33% markup and almost 85% margin!

And at £4.00 per transfer, that’s a £3.70 GP or a 1233.333% markup and 92.5% margin.

(find the calculator we used here)

If you join the wholesale dtf transfers game, you’ll need to sell just under 4,600 A5 transfers at £4.00 each or 9,200 at the highest volume price of £1.99 each.

Already have a screen-printing business or doing embroidery for clients? Even 100 transfers per week have you breaking even in as little under 4 months!

Selling Shirts

There’s a lot that goes into calculating a successful retail price for a custom printed shirt. So, if you go the retail route, you’ll want to examine your niche market, your local market and the types of garments/shirts you’ll be selling.

But one of the best things about dtf printing machines is that you can apply the transfers to just about any kind of fabric. That means that the same A5 transfer can go on a t-shirt, a jacket, a pillowcase or some other type of material gift item.

And smaller sized transfers can be used for left chest logos, tags and even on caps and hats – and remember the empty space we highlighted in our A5 t-shirt transfer calculation? THAT’s where you fit those smaller designs rendering them virtually free if you’re already printing the A5s.

The math is simple for completed tees as well…

We found custom shirts for sale between about £8 and £30 depending on where they’re for sale, the quality of the garment and the design.

So, if you’re getting low-cost blank shirts for about £3, your total cost will be £3.30 including the transfer and your profit per garment will be £4.70

When you sell on the higher end you may pay up to £10 or £12/blank shirt. Selling for £30 each will give you around £20 gross profit each.

If you are selling custom t-shirts retail using dtf transfers, you’ll need to sell about 3,620 shirts to pay for your machine. And at the higher just 850!

Reality vs Theory

We’ve done a very simple calculation here because we can’t know your market, your overheads, your labour costs, etc. But the basics are sound.

Adding a DTF printing machine like the Digital HeatFX 24/H2 can be great investment with clear a clear return on investment.

And when you purchase one from YES Group you find a partner to help you get there with training, support and even regular business advice and articles, not forgetting the extra training videos you will have access for life.

Don’t wait! That ROI can’t start until YOU do!

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