# if DTG ink costs per job are ~.30 cents, why are the DTG contract printing price higher?



## thatcampguy

so a general question on DTG pricing. When I go out to manufacturers website they say ink cost is around .30 a shirt to do DTG. When I go to the contractors to see about getting it done, I get $3.00 and $4.00 a shirt prices. I know there is some overhead, labor, cost of machine, ect, but what gives here? These mark ups sound a little high to me


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## FatKat Printz

*Re: pricing on contract work*

Ok, bit of a warning here this has been argued before. 

But, as a DTG printer you mentioned some of the overhead costs but as far as ink cost its more than just ink and maybe this is part of the .etc part. 

When printing a dark shirt there is pretreat and white ink to think about. A dark shirt requires a single pass of pretreat , white underbase and a pass of color (sometimes two) PER SIDE . A light shirt (sometimes requires pretreat) and a pass of colors (sometimes two) PER SIDE

If you are finding a range of prices to be fairly close then that is the gonna be the market and you need to price them in that market (not in the transfer or screen print market) 


You researched a manufacturers and you researched actual DTG Printers- so you answered your own question.. the manufacturer didn't give you all the information that you need.


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## Rodney

*Re: pricing on contract work*



> I know there is some overhead, labor, cost of machine, ect, but what gives here? These mark ups sound a little high to me


The biggest thing to consider is that you're still only adding up *costs*.

After the business covers all of those *costs* (ink, labor, maintenance, pretreat, electricity, etc), they also have to make a **profit**

So there will always be a gap between what something *costs* and the *profit* that it takes to keep company in business 

The actual *costs* to make the shoes you wear is probably pennies, but the *profit* that the brands make keeps them in business, employing more people, growing, adding more products, etc.


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## FatKat Printz

*Re: pricing on contract work*



Rodney said:


> The actual *costs* to make the shoes you wear is probably pennies, but the *profit* that the brands make keeps them in business, employing more people, growing, adding more products, etc.



DTG Manufacturers are salespeople just like DTG Printers


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## Pwear

Think about embroidery - how much does it actually cost in thread material to make a design? A few cents? You're not paying for the material, you're paying for the time, the expertise and the investment that your printer made when they went into business. You can go out and buy a $50,000 DTG machine and make your own prints for 30 cents a piece, or you can pay an expert for their knowledge and labor to do it for you at a fraction of the cost.


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## raise

Labor is the biggest cost incurred for our DTG printing. No matter how much or little the ink costs, you are still standing there for at least 35 secs to 180 secs waiting for the print to cure (depending on what inks you are using).

Dark shirts are even more of a labor cost as you end up doing a minimum of 2 "prints" for every side. First print is pretreatment, second print actually lays down the ink. When we cost dark prints, we double the labor costs and then add in the pretreatment and ink cost increases.

Depending on how you price your contract prints, that makes a big difference as well. If you are trying to use a charge by print size method ($$$ for 12 x 12 inch print) then you have to price assuming that the customer may want 12 x 12 inch solid black blocks. This leads to your pricing being higher than it needs to be for some prints but it's a hard job to educate the customer as to why his solid block of black is more than the 8 color, gradient design that uses half the ink volume.


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## tfalk

Wow, you're complaining about $3-4/shirt for DTG pricing? I wouldn't even power my DTG printer on for that price unless it was a single side design on a light colored shirt.

This questions strikes me as expecting us to not be able to recoupe the cost of the machine, shipping costs for ink, parts, setup, etc... 

Do you work for free? If so, I'll hire you to do my DTG printing for me.


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## chobay

$3-4 IS pretty cheap for DTG. Tell me who you got that quote from, so I can start contracting through them..


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## markc

thatcampguy said:


> so a general question on DTG pricing. When I go out to manufacturers website they say ink cost is around .30 a shirt to do DTG. When I go to the contractors to see about getting it done, I get $3.00 and $4.00 a shirt prices. I know there is some overhead, labor, cost of machine, ect, but what gives here? These mark ups sound a little high to me


 
Hi, 
Screen printing ink costs about 1 cent but for a 6 colour you will pay $4 in short runs now thats real mark up.
Its just like getting in a taxi the cost of the gas has nothing to do with what you are going to pay for the trip.


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## WholesalePrint

Are you serious?


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## zoom_monster

thatcampguy said:


> so a general question on DTG pricing. When I go out to manufacturers website they say ink cost is around .30 a shirt to do DTG. When I go to the contractors to see about getting it done, I get $3.00 and $4.00 a shirt prices. I know there is some overhead, labor, cost of machine, ect, but what gives here? These mark ups sound a little high to me


Time. 20 to 30 shirts per hour. If you look at the cost of the equipment amortize the lease, Pay for an operator, can you really say that? Think about it.


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## zhenjie

$3-$4? what a rip off thecampguy! They should be working for free and only charge maybe $1 per print. Maybe you should start a DTG printing business and charge $1. you'd make so much money!


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## TahoeTomahawk

thatcampguy said:


> I know there is some overhead, labor, cost of machine, ect, but what gives here? These mark ups sound a little high to me


I think your customers can ask the same question about the shirt they bought, especially if it was screen printed.

If it was so cheap to produce why are you charging $20+ dollars for it?

But to add on to what has already been said, there is additional overhead other than ink, such as pre-treatment the time and cost of pressing and prepping the shirts, wear and tear on the machinery.

On some older machines like the Kiosk and TJets, if you are doing 2 passes at 1440, those shirts could take up to between 8-12 min or so to complete.


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## splathead

$20,000 printer cost divided by the number of shirts it will print before permanently breaking down = $20 true printing cost per garment.


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## mrbigjack50

There is something called "human" cost of living, if you like to live off wal mart wages be my guest, I got abot 3k in expenses a month so I wont haggle a client about make $1 a shirt.

30 cent, please, you listen to chump sales people, look up word in dictionary, what that word means


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## vinyl signs

Campguy what do you charge for your designs? I think if you charge more than a nickel that is high price! What you have no coast of materials, all you are doing is doodling (the client give you the idea/guidelines), I know you had to buy software and may have some overhead but come on you could do that out of your car!


Now do you get what you are saying?????????????


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## WholesalePrint

Maybe you should by a DTG machine and you might change your mind lol


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## FatKat Printz

mrbigjack50 said:


> I got about 3k in expenses a month


Well, Sean..maybe if you answered your emails and phone 24-7 then maybe you wouldn't have expenses.. duh!!


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## ratdaddy

If we all worked for "Cost" there would be no point in being in business. Even Walmart makes a "Profit" when they sell you a shirt for less than our "Wholesale cost" becuase they buy a million at a time. 
The "cost" of .30 per shirt only means the cost of the ink on the shirt. Nothing else is covered in that .30. No pretreat, no labor, no other supplies, they strictly mean .30cents worth of ink. You have to figure in your printers, Labor, eletric bill, rent, taxes, supplies, advertisement, insurance, overhead, and much more.

Look at it this way. If you bought a car for $500 and turned around and sold it for $500 what was the point?


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## chobay

i think we made our point, LOL.


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## thatcampguy

Boy, did know I would stir up such a storm. I was just trying to get at what the true cost of ink in DTG was. .30 or 1.20 each manufacturer talks about how DTG is the best way to go. I understand labor cost, benefits, taxes, workmen s comp, not to mention replacement and maintenance on the machine. So, what is the real ink cost in the field?


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## zhenjie

If you want ink cost do a search through the forums. There are threads already discussing this.


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## sunnydayz

Here is a great thread that Mark/Daguide started about true ink cost. This has answers from actual owners and not the distributors who tend to give unreliable costs. http://www.t-shirtforums.com/direct-garment-dtg-inkjet-printing/t106164.html. That price of .30 cents is far off from what the true cost is.


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## Dtgman

Alot of people seem to think that T-shirt printing is cheap. Its not the material value your looking at it is all the middle men getting their cut of money before anything gets to the printer shop. Dtg ink is not cheap at all. 

People who complain about my prices, I send to officemax and tell them to get transfer paper and Iron them on at home..


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## loloxa

thatcampguy said:


> Boy, did know I would stir up such a storm. I was just trying to get at what the true cost of ink in DTG was. .30 or 1.20 each manufacturer talks about how DTG is the best way to go. I understand labor cost, benefits, taxes, workmen s comp, not to mention replacement and maintenance on the machine. So, what is the real ink cost in the field?


(worked up mode)


What is the real cost of your product before sale? I mean We do not even know what are you trying to print, 14"x16", 2"x2". If you want cost times 2 pricing, that's in the realm of DIY, if you contract, ask for a quote and deal with the offers, you are paying my food, my housing, my setup, my craftsmanship, my late night hours fixing crap that does not work, fights with my partner because I'm working all the time, and eventually my coffin. So pay up or find something better. And .30c ink cost? mmm that would be the cost of the wear of my CPU opening up your file. Please get real If I wanted to work non profit there is better causes than printing shirts for you.

addendum: 

If you want true ink costs to be able to go to your printer and push them in to a lower margin, you can guess this is not the place where you will find that kind of help. Did you seriously think you could lam-bast our margins and ride happy all the way to your 1st million?, young and naive much?


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## zoom_monster

thatcampguy said:


> Boy, did know I would stir up such a storm. I was just trying to get at what the true cost of ink in DTG was. .30 or 1.20 each manufacturer talks about how DTG is the best way to go. I understand labor cost, benefits, taxes, workmen s comp, not to mention replacement and maintenance on the machine. So, what is the real ink cost in the field?


 Campguy,
ultimately, DTG is a slow process. whether my ink cost is .30 or .90 and I'm printing 8 or 30 shirts per hour(that's fast), I have to make sure that I'm making enough to not answer the phone, do artwork or procure my next job. The article that Sunnydays mentioned is great because it shows some of the assumtions that people have about their costs. If we could count on every print costing the same, that would be fantastic, but logic will defy that because not all prints use the same amount or take the same time to print. I can all show you a print that uses 5 cents of ink and takes 5 minutes to print or one that uses 4 bucks and prints in 3 minutes. It all comes down to throuput and what we have to make to pay ALL the costs.

Ian


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## mrbigjack50

I don't them you can measure value of something, based on cost to do it.
It is based on how much of a specialty thing it is/demand for it...

Think of it this way, Diamonds seem to pertain that they are super rare and valuable, but do some research and you'd see that they aren't worth anymore than a hunk of glass as a mine in Africa was producing so much of the stuff that the value of it would be zilch.

Value on a product aint the based on "cost" in consumables to produce it but what its worth to you and all the background foot work that goes into having it done. - screenprinting cost pennies in ink.

Buy a machine, heat press,computer and 10 years of art back ground, than add cost of electricity, taxes, rent for space, lease ect. and lets see some of these cheap scapeswho coplain about price do shirts in full color for $1ea and I'd be driving by drinking my Mikes hard lemonade laughing at them 6 month later when I see bank auctioning off everything they got : )


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## Justin Walker

mrbigjack50 said:


> I'd be driving by drinking my Mikes hard lemonade laughing at them 6 month later when I see bank auctioning off everything they got : )


Drinking and driving is a bad idea.


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## BStreetHill

$3-$4 is pretty good. I've paid from $1.50-8.00 but it all depended on quantity.
DTG is slower and takes more man hours, there are no set up fees.


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## raise

I'm not sure how anyone could justify charging less than $4.00 per print aside from just wanting to undercut the market.

Some general printing assumptions after owning both an Epson product and Brother product:

1 minute fold, un-wrinkle, pre-press t-shirts or charge it to machine wear
1 minute to cure, load and unload shirts
1 minute to print
$1.00 in ink to cover the print, the head cleaning and daily maintanence

If you target bringing in $60.00 per hour in labor for your shop, then you just used $3.00 in labor and $1.00 in ink.

Sure some will say it doesn't take nearly as long to do some task I listed above or that its possible to lower those costs but I think for contract printing, dropping below $4.00 is just asking to get caught on the wrong side of cost overruns.

To be clear, this is for CMYK printing as printing white ink pretty much doubles all of the above plus the material cost of pretreatment.


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## Justin Walker

I would disagree with you strongly; I don't think it is possible to put a "cap" on what people can charge for a product - on the high end or the low end. Sure, if you stick with a one-machine mentality, maybe it doesn't make much sense to charge less than $4 (even then, it could be argued otherwise)..... But since you are not competing with companies who ONLY have one machine, that is a dangerous mentality to have!

.... But then again, if I only had a single embroidery head in my shop, my embroidery would cost a lot more for my clients, and I would be astonished at some of these contract shops that will do 6,000 stitches for about $2 / ea unit (which seems way, way less than I would have to charge with only one head unit) - would it be fair for me to say that anyone who charges that low is just trying to undercut the market? I think business is business - if person A has one machine, but person B has ten machines, person B can go lower on cost and still make more money. We have multiple embroidery heads in our shop, for this exact reason!

I am approaching this industry with an embroidery mentality; if my target profit is $60 per hour, it is my job as the business owner to make sure I have enough equipment in my shop to keep up with order demand, and to ensure that my hourly productivity rate stays above a magic number. There are shops out there with 10+ digital printers - these are guys who can compete seriously in the contract printing market, and these are the guys who will eventually force the cost for DTG printing DOWN to a more reasonable level; it will start with motivated business men and women increasing productivity rates to increase profitability and lower per-unit costs, which will lead to a war between the DTG companies to bring prices down, which will (hopefully) eventually prompt the ink manufacturers to lower the ink costs so we can ALL be more profitable!

Stating that the "cost per print" could (or should) never go below a particular dollar amount (regardless of who's business model you are applying the statement to) is a fairly static mentality, which would seemingly leave little room for imagination, improvement and innovation. Raise - I am sure that was not your intention, so I don't want you to think I am picking on you! I just wanted to offer my perspective on the matter.


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## raise

Actually it is because DTG doesn't scale well like screen printing does that I think the costs will be pretty similar across all DTG printers using similar equipment.

The labor cost might differ and thus create some flux but overall the steps for producing DTG prints has been fairly well documented and most of them can't be automated due to the outright design of DTG printers (1 or 2 platens and print heads, no loading up multiples like on a multi-head screen printing unit).

One area that might lower cost is using a conveyor dryer which would cut the wait time on the press but for darks you are still pre-treating unless using a Kornit.

Adding more machines doesn't scale your production rate simply due to travel time between presses and platens. I do speak from some experience as I have run multiple machines and platens in my shop and know that even with the best layout, getting a straight product with as little spoilage as possible does take a certain amount of time.

As I stated in my post, I know someone will say they can do things more efficiently or at a lower labor cost or use cheaper ink but in truth, DTG's biggest downside for now is the inability to scale using the machines on the market right now.

I greatly respect your opinion Justin as I know you have run the gauntlet with your machines. As a matter of fact I was thinking of several of your reviews/rants on the different machines when I thought to share my opinion on the costing. DTG rocks for a lot of things but when trying to lower cost I think it has quite a few more hard bottoms than other print processes. Ink is just one of those floors that factor into the print costs.


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## Justin Walker

I agree that ink cost is currently one of the most critical factors of DTG production, and it prevents us from being able to flex below a certain point for most jobs. However, in the 5 or 6 years I have been digitally printing, I have seen a very, very high percentage of prints that had low coverage and used little ink, so there will always be jobs where your ink cost is not so much of a factor. Heck, I have printed words on shirts that were fairly large, but covered very little print area because they were just words; if my ink cost is .25-.30 on a light shirt, I don't see how the cap would remain at $4 (your sample number) minimum.

I understand that you think the process can't really be automated right now, and that multiple machines won't speed production, but I strongly disagree on both counts; hopefully soon, I will be able to start showing you what I mean.  Just a few more things to get into place!

Now, people should be strongly cautioned to not misunderstand what I am saying; I am not claiming that DTG printing is cheap! Its not! haha. I am simply asserting that, through carefully managed production practices, proper software implementation and good solid machine choices, you can operate a DTG printing business while keeping your overhead at a razor minimum! Additionally, I am pointing out that not ALL DTG jobs are going to have a high ink cost, especially when coverage is limited (or even on light garments in general, if you are using the right inks). I lost a VERY large contract, a few years ago, due to my inability to "streamline" production and lower my overhead (which was out of control, at the time) - I learned VERY quick that it was MY responsibility as the business owner to squeeze the most out of these machines, and I set out figuring out how to do that.... The first step was finding a machine I was happy with: you can't streamline ANYTHING if you spend all day making the stupid machine work right!


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## raise

I totally agree that ink will fluctuate with each print and with time my idea of a $4.00 floor will seem completely outdated and overpriced.

However, until someone innovates and shares that innovation instead of using it as competitive advantage (something I'm completely guilty of doing as well just so I'm not making it seem like that it is bad thing) I don't think costs are going to change much. I'll probably hear someone jump in and say I am trying to price fix the market but for people reading this forum and buying single printers or even double platen printers and trying to find out where their bottom is or shoppers looking for a price idea; I still think that today $4.00 for a 12 x 12 CMYK print is reasonable and pretty close to the bottom end. We have at least a herd of dead horses going over the variables in what ink costs are for XX by XX print but the labor involved is pretty much the same. Shirts still have to be loaded, shirts still have to be cured, and there will still be shirts that need to be pre-pressed because an elephant stepped on them and the sleeves and creases are so out of shape that the shirt isn't recognizable or will not lay flat.

I am interested in seeing if anyone has successfully cured and wash tested CMYK prints in a conveyor. We don't use one due to space and power consumption even for our darks, the heat press just out right costs less in space and electricity. As I understand it second hand since I don't have a dryer to compare it with, CMYK still needs a pressure component to properly affix the ink whereas pre-treatment and underbase take care of that for the dark color prints.

I realize that I have said in my two follow up posts that labor and ink will fluctuate which take some of the wind out of my position. My only point is that each market will be somewhat different in the rough cost estimates but that the overall price is still in my experience probably a pretty good average for today's machines, with today's inks and today's workflows.


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## damdesigns

Please give me the person's name who is printing shirts for $3-$4 and I'll give up my DTG business and use him... I could save so much time and money.


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## binki

*Business 101 day 1, lesson 1: Always sell your product for the highest possible price. *

Cost has about Zero to do with selling price. Anyone that prices on cost is leaving money on the table. If the demand were high enough we could sell the prints for $100 each. Actually, we sell some for $40-$50.


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## Sector 9

I think $3-$4 isn't bad. I've paid as much as 7 dollars it all depends on the quantity.
DTG isn't that fast and takes a long time but, there aren't any fee's for setting up.


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## FulStory

damdesigns said:


> Please give me the person's name who is printing shirts for $3-$4 and I'll give up my DTG business and use him... I could save so much time and money.


ya u can. others country but not US. lol


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## WholesalePrint

LOL. The question of the thread starter is funny.


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## sandmanbjj

Binki hit the nail on the head. Cost has nothing to do with selling price. 
I have bought a plastic part for my kids toys that cost 2 or 3 cents to make, but I paid $3.25. For 2 reasons, 1. I needed/wanted it. 2. I couldn't make it myself. 
Supply and demand.


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## mrbigjack50

30 cents sure, and add cost of labor, machine leases, insurance, ect.
I got about 8k a month in over head, so don't cost me 30 cents t0 do a shirt : )


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## kamakaz

chobay said:


> $3-4 IS pretty cheap for DTG. Tell me who you got that quote from, so I can start contracting through them..


I found somebody for $4 for white shirts, 14x18 but I would never tell no one who/where lol. Even though I have a dtg machine, i still go to it on large jobs so i dont have to work to hard. lol.


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## Justyl

You Realize that by $3 - $4 per shirt he's more than likely talking about the shirts themselves, like before being printed? Meaning costs according to his estimate would accrue to around $4.30/ per shirt, but they're probably charging $43 as I've seen [http://www.melco.com/blog/what-charge-dtg-printing], which is ten times the cost. I'm looking into buying a dtg printer, and I hope to only be charging around ten to twenty, but honestly in a store it usually doesn't cost me less than $30 on average for a t-shirt, so $43 for a custom shirt isn't all that bad.


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