# Dtg price list what to charge for upgrades



## wdhockey (Oct 21, 2009)

Does someone have a DTG pricelist that they can email me ? I have a few I gathered from online but they are pretty generic. How does everyone determine the difference in price between lights and darks (percentage or certain dollar amount) Also, what percent extra is charged when someone wants an upgraded garment. Example: I would sell one t-shirt for lets say $20, and someone comes along and wants a polo that costs $5 more than a generic t shirt. Do you just add the actual $5 difference of that polo to the intial $20 to make it $25 per shirt ? Or do you take that $5 and add 20% to it and add $6 to the total per shirt ? Any help is much appreciated.


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## charles95405 (Feb 1, 2007)

I work off the total cost of material costs (ink and garment) labor and something to amortize the equipment..after all you have to replace something sooner or later..the cost you charge will depend on where you live and what is normal. I don't think you can charge the same for a shirt in Oxly, Mo ( a tiny town near the ozarks) as you would charge in San Francisco, CA or New York, NY.. If I cannot double my material cost, then I have just 'bought' a minimum wage job


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## wdhockey (Oct 21, 2009)

Appreciate the reply. So let's say I have my price list and generic t-shirts are included. 1 t shirt printed is $20. A regular shirt is $5 that is already included in the price. 

A customer wants me to print on a sweatshirt that is cost $15. So since there is a $10 price difference in the 2 you would double and add $20 to the print so that the one sweatshirt would be $40 ?

I am just struggling with deciding on what to charge for specialty garments.

Thanks again


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## Don-ColDesi (Oct 18, 2006)

Regardless of the method you use to calculate the pricing - bear in mind that if you aren't occassionaly losing customers because your price is too high, then your price is not high enough.


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## FatKat Printz (Dec 26, 2008)

Plus, we all have different expenses (different inks, utilities, employees, maintenance on the machine)
You need to find out how much you need to charge bare minimum per shirt in order to pay for all your expenses (overhead) then add in the shirt, have a calculation of dark shirts and white front and back (generic pricing). 

Since, you can't take in account for ink costs until you see the request that is when you determine your pricing. I have seen several DTG business think that they can undercharge the last DTG printer to try and make the customer happy. But why?? your costs could be 3 times that of the other printer. 

Its your business and your customers that have many factors beyond the normal day to day operations that you have to take in account. Your personal/business relationship to the customer, their loyalty, history and most of all how your end product results. 

Not every DTG printer is the same.. We could be using the same printers, inks, heat presses and processes and I guarantee the shirts will not be the same. It is very hard to reproduce another DTG printers work. I had a shirt come in and it wasn't the greatest you could see the shirt peeping through and the print was very dull. 
Our print came out vibrant with more detail and better quality.. guess what the customer was not happy. 
He felt our prints were too over the top and that he wanted us basically to downgrade how we usually print.
Yes, his very words so we did we reprinted them and used some short-cuts (less underbase turned downed the color) and still it wasn't good enough. 

So don't be afraid to charge your customers.. just because you want their business. Don't try and compete with screenprinters and most of all think of yourself and your pocketbook.


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## ROYAL SAVAGE (Feb 18, 2009)

FatKat Printz said:


> Plus, we all have different expenses (different inks, utilities, employees, maintenance on the machine)
> You need to find out how much you need to charge bare minimum per shirt in order to pay for all your expenses (overhead) then add in the shirt, have a calculation of dark shirts and white front and back (generic pricing).
> 
> Since, you can't take in account for ink costs until you see the request that is when you determine your pricing. I have seen several DTG business think that they can undercharge the last DTG printer to try and make the customer happy. But why?? your costs could be 3 times that of the other printer.
> ...


Good post FatKat Printz. It is amazing that some people just can't EVER be happy. I wonder why the guy left his last printer or did the throw him out?! Imagine having to do bad work to make some one happy. That's nuts!!


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## wdhockey (Oct 21, 2009)

Thanks alot for the responses and all of the info, it really was helpful and I will start tying it into my pricing.


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## Chapalahal (May 5, 2009)

Remember to charge for TIME. Material cost for shirts and ink are relatively low, but in the DTG world the number of shirts you can print per hour is low. You should be able to charge enough on a per shirt basis so as not to work for an uncomfortable price on a larger order. Sell the strengths of the process.


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## brice (Mar 10, 2010)

Why not share what you've gathered so far? I'm sure everyone would be interested in seeing the various methods you've gathered. You can strip vendor names and proprietary identifiers. 



wdhockey said:


> Does someone have a DTG pricelist that they can email me ? I have a few I gathered from online but they are pretty generic. How does everyone determine the difference in price between lights and darks (percentage or certain dollar amount) Also, what percent extra is charged when someone wants an upgraded garment. Example: I would sell one t-shirt for lets say $20, and someone comes along and wants a polo that costs $5 more than a generic t shirt. Do you just add the actual $5 difference of that polo to the intial $20 to make it $25 per shirt ? Or do you take that $5 and add 20% to it and add $6 to the total per shirt ? Any help is much appreciated.


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## spiderx1 (Oct 12, 2009)

Don't forget to include your waste into your cost, trashed shirts, and most of all ink used for head cleaning etc. I set my ink calculator in the rip to $300 per liter to account for this.


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## ROYAL SAVAGE (Feb 18, 2009)

spiderx1 said:


> Don't forget to include your waste into your cost, trashed shirts, and most of all ink used for head cleaning etc. I set my ink calculator in the rip to $300 per liter to account for this.


Spider How many standerd full fronts can you get out of a liter? I'm asking because I don't know what you guys typically use ink wise.


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