Screen Printing vs. DTG: Which Is Cheaper for Your Order Size?

"Which is cheaper, screen printing or DTG?" doesn't have a single answer, because the two methods spend money in different places. Screen printing front-loads its cost into setup, then gets cheap per shirt. DTG (direct-to-garment) skips the setup cost almost entirely but charges more per shirt from the first one to the last. Which one actually costs you less depends almost entirely on how many shirts you're ordering and how complex your design is.

How screen printing pricing works

Screen printing pushes ink through a mesh stencil — a separate screen for every color in the design. Making those screens is the upfront cost: a shop has to burn a screen per color, mix ink, and set up the press before a single shirt gets printed. That setup fee is essentially fixed whether you're printing 20 shirts or 200. Once the screens are made, though, each additional shirt is fast to print and cheap in materials, so the per-shirt price drops fast as the quantity climbs. This is why screen printing is the standard choice for team orders, event merch, and reorders of the same design — the fixed setup cost gets spread across more shirts, and the price per unit keeps falling.

The tradeoff is complexity. Every additional color in the design means another screen, another setup step, and another cost. Screen printing is efficient for bold, simple graphics with a handful of solid colors, but it gets expensive fast for photo-realistic designs or gradients, which need many more screens (or specialized techniques) to reproduce accurately.

How DTG pricing works

Direct-to-garment printing works more like an inkjet printer for fabric — the design is printed directly onto the shirt, one at a time, with no screens and essentially no setup cost. That means DTG can print a single shirt cost-effectively, which screen printing generally can't. It also handles full-color designs, photographs, and gradients without any extra cost, since the printer doesn't care how many colors are in the file.

The catch is that DTG doesn't get meaningfully cheaper per unit as the quantity grows. Each shirt takes roughly the same time and ink regardless of how many you order, so the per-shirt price stays relatively flat. For small orders that's a win, because you're not paying a setup fee you'd have to amortize. For large orders, the lack of a volume discount usually means DTG ends up costing more per shirt than screen printing would once the screens are already paid for.

The general crossover point

As a rule of thumb, DTG tends to be the more economical choice for small batches — think roughly under 25 to 50 shirts — since you avoid paying for screens you'd only spread across a handful of units. Once an order grows past that rough range, screen printing usually starts winning on price, because the fixed setup cost gets divided across enough shirts that the much lower per-unit ink and labor cost takes over. This isn't a precise formula — the actual crossover point shifts depending on how many colors are in the design, what a specific print shop charges for setup, and local pricing — so treat it as a general guideline for budgeting rather than a fixed number, and get a quote for your specific design and quantity before committing either way.

Other factors beyond raw price

Cost per shirt isn't the only variable worth weighing. Screen printing generally produces more vibrant, opaque color on dark garments and tends to hold up well over many wash cycles. DTG handles fine detail and multi-color artwork more easily and prints well on lighter fabrics, but the print can feel different to the touch and, depending on the ink and pretreatment used, may not be quite as durable long-term as a well-cured screen print. If you're ordering a small run of a detailed, full-color design, DTG is probably both cheaper and better suited to the artwork. If you're ordering a large batch of a simple one- or two-color logo, screen printing is likely to win on both cost and durability.

Choosing the blank matters either way

Whichever method you use, the fabric you print on affects the result. DTG in particular is sensitive to cotton content and weave, since the ink is absorbed into the fibers rather than sitting on top of them. Our pillar guide on choosing the best blank t-shirts for printing on a budget covers what to look for in a shirt regardless of which printing method you end up using.

For more guides on getting the most out of a t-shirt order, see the full guides hub.