# Buying DTG Printer vs Outsourcing Printing



## CDeady (Feb 28, 2014)

Hey all, as I mentioned in my previous post I am in the early stages of starting my own t-shirt company and am just beginning my research. I've been reading around the forum and appreciate all of the knowledge and experience of all the seasoned vets out there. Thanks in advance for any guidance you can offer. 

Since our company will be taking actual pictures uploaded by our customers requiring an unlimited amount of colors, we will need DTG printing. To my knowledge, DTG printers are the only printers capable of producing an unlimited amount of colors (please correct me if I'm wrong). 

To give a little insight on our design without giving away our idea, no two shirts that we print will be alike so we need to be able to transfer quickly and easily from image to image.

So here's the decision we are faced with starting out. Do we: 

A) Roll the dice that we will be successful and buy a machine outright for around $20K. We have adequate funds to purchase. 

or 

B) Hire a company to print our designs as we take on orders. If the business takes off, we will then make the commitment to buy the machine. If it flops, we will only be out the money that it took to design the website plus time invested. The obvious problem with B is that our cost per item will be significantly higher if we outsource the printing. 

Lastly, would another option be to lease the machine? The two companies I have spoken with so far (Col Desi and Ana-jet) only lease to buy. Would it be possible to lease a machine with the ability to get out of the lease and return the machine should we reach a point where we want to cut our losses? 

Thanks again for any responses.


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## danslave (Jun 26, 2013)

Outsource at first until you have consistent sales, then really look at ALL the numbers before you make a decision to lease or purchase.

I jumped into a DTG lease too soon because my apparel sales looked like it could support the cost of the machine and inks. Failed to take into account the amount of time it takes to really learn printing, the amount of wasted ink and shirts that go into a very steep learning curve, and the ongoing costs of maintaining the machine. 

DTG makers love to sell you on the ease of use and low maintenance of their machines, amd they may be talking about their machines compared to other DTG or other high end digital imaging systems, but yeah you are going to wind up spending more time doing upkeep on your machine than designing shirts.

Once you have your apparel line chugging along at full steam, then you can decide to go into your own DTG machine.


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## imarcnut (Sep 21, 2008)

Ditto. I have a dtg viper. Big learning curve. lots of dud t shirts when you start out. once you get going it takes 125 perfect shirts to pay the lease per month - after ink and shirt costs (app). After that you start to make money. If you are going to make individual designs, you can make 6 colour shirts an hour if the artwork is already done plus I can do other things between prints.


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## kenmich (Apr 6, 2011)

Do DTG printers need to be used everyday, I want to get one but will only be using on the weekend, is there problems with ink settling and lines blocking using it that way?


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## danslave (Jun 26, 2013)

Maybe not every day, but you need to be printing as much as possible to keep the ink moving and the white ink from getting separated.

As I mentioned above I bought our machine just to do our apparel line. Now I have to market my services as a contract printer so I can keep the machine printing five days a week. 

But, if you get to a point where you are moving 75-100 shirts a month you will be printing daily.


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## equipmentzone (Mar 26, 2008)

kenmich said:


> Do DTG printers need to be used everyday, I want to get one but will only be using on the weekend, is there problems with ink settling and lines blocking using it that way?




DTG printer like to be used. If you are only using it on weekends you should probably flush the printhead, dampers, and lines at the end of the weekend.
_


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## treefox2118 (Sep 23, 2010)

^^^ @equipmentzone knows and is 100% correct. Printing only on weekends is going to be costly. You'll be removing as much ink as possible every Sunday, losing quite a bit in the process, and replacing it with cleaning solution (which will get removed entirely every Saturday).

Start out by outsourcing your prints until you have a customer base. If you can't print at least every other day (3-4x a week, like clockwork), don't buy a DTG.

Also, consider things like what you'll do when you go on vacation, or get a flu bug, or have to be focused on your primary income. I've watched people lose thousands of dollars in repair costs just ignoring their DTG for 2 weeks.


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## Printzilla (Mar 22, 2007)

Two options......which looks better to you?

1. Spend $25,000 on a complete setup. Spend another $1000 and 100 hours becoming proficient (notice I did not say master) with it. Sell zero shirts, make zero profit, be $26,000 in the red.

2. Spend $26,000 and 1000 hours on developing your brand, marketing that brand, and finally growing the brand. Sell 5000 shirts, make $100,000 gross, and be $25,000 in the black. Use that to buy your machine, that will actually be turning a profit from day one, because you have a brand driving sales.

99% choose #1. Fine by me, as it makes #2 easier.

Zilla


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## Logosinstitches (Oct 22, 2010)

We added DTG printing to our embroidery business last year. After much trial and error, we decided it wasn't for us. You must dedicate yourself to learning and experimenting before you're ready to roll. Of course, we are embroiderers and had no printing experience of any kind, so that will make a difference if you have a printing background. We plan to outsource it if we start promoting it again. Hope our experience helps! Good luck!
Michele


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## kenmich (Apr 6, 2011)

Mmmm is there any other way of printing photo quality type prints? I looked at chromablast but didn't like it much and screen printing doesn't have the detail. Can these printers sit at all, if I was going to print on it only at weekends but then it would cost to much in cleaning the lines weekly would I be better to print monthly and then clean it!! I don't have t shirts as a focus, I'm interested in canvas, material panels etc. T shirts are done to death. Not that keen on outsourcing and I only want to buy a used printer so I'm not looking at spending $26k more like $5k. What about those roland type printers that feed material through them like a paper printer, does anyone know much about those and material printing?


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## KristineH (Jan 23, 2013)

@kenmich
Roll to roll printers can be great for printing full color on canvas and bolts of material. Roland, Mimaki and Epson are a few brands to check out as I am not familiar with the exact specs of each.


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