Print cost and wash life.
Ink cost, cure time and wash life come from ink sellers, in different units with no stated method. Side by side, the figures overlap, contradict or answer different questions.
Ink on a light shirt: 10 to 20 cents. Ink on a dark shirt: 75 to 85 cents, plus about 50 cents of pretreatment. A DTG print, per print: $3 to $8. All three describe the same class of machine, and the third is at least fifteen times the first. Nobody misquoted anyone. Each number comes from one seller, and each leaves out what it counts.
Sources: Graphics Pro · Transfer Superstars
Ink and running cost
The clearest basis comes from Graphics Pro’s pricing guide, written by Adam Tipre in March 2021. It splits the garment colour first. Ink on a white shirt runs 10 to 20 cents a print, because the printer makes one pass in CMYK. A dark shirt needs a white underbase as well, and the guide puts that at 75 to 85 cents a shirt. Pretreatment is a separate line at about 50 cents. YoPrint’s break-even study says a black shirt costs “almost triple” a white one, without saying which costs it adds up. Graphics Pro’s ink-only ratio is roughly four to eight times. How the RIP decides where that white goes, and what a file can do about it, is in the DTG guide’s white handling.
Sources: Graphics Pro · YoPrint
The $3 to $8 figure is a different kind of number. It sits in a cost table published by Transfer Superstars, a DTF transfer vendor, which marks it accurate as of October 2023 and gives no method. The same table lists DTF at $3 to $5 per print, screen printing at $2 to $5 and vinyl at $1 to $3. The DTF and DTG ranges overlap from $3 to $5, so the table does not show DTF cheaper per unit, and it never says what a “running cost” includes. Our verdict 53 rates the claim partly true for those reasons.
Sources: Transfer Superstars · Verdict 53
The fourth number is the one that does not survive multiplication. A packaging-industry buyer’s guide to DTG printers lists the energy to cure at 1.8 to 2.4 kWh per 100 garments, and says it adds 11 to 19 cents a shirt at $0.12 per kWh. Multiply it out: 1.8 to 2.4 kWh at $0.12 comes to 22 to 29 cents per hundred garments, a fraction of a cent each. The page’s own per-shirt figure is 38 to 88 times that, depending on which ends of the two ranges you pair. Verdict 84 first rated the claim confirmed, because the site states both figures. On 7 October we moved it to Figure unverified: the two do not agree, neither has a method behind it, and the multiplication is ours.
Sources: PackPrintMatrix · Verdict 84
Cure: one number, several recipes
Winnerjet’s curing guide calls 330°F (165°C) for 90 seconds the standard. Its own brand table, further down the page, lists 320°F for 90 seconds for Epson OEM and Kodak, 330°F for 60 to 90 seconds for DuPont, 330°F for 60 seconds for Firebird, and 350°F for 35 seconds for Image Armor. That is a spread, and the guide itself allows 320 to 340°F. Verdict 51 rates the single “standard” partly true: it is one point inside a documented range.
The table is also off against the maker. Image Armor’s own page gives its E-Series white ink a 35-second cure at 356°F with light to medium pressure, not 350, and warns that “hotter and longer is NOT always better”. Firebird sells a white ink on a 60-second cure and tells buyers to say goodbye to waiting 180 seconds. Verdict 80 confirms the conclusion that follows: there is no single white-ink cure rule. A shop that calibrates its press from a blog’s “standard” is calibrating to one row of a table whose neighbours disagree.
Sources: Winnerjet · Image Armor · Firebird (white ink) · Firebird (cracking and peeling) · Verdict 51 · Verdict 80
Wash life: three units for one question
Winnerjet’s curing guide says properly cured DTG prints stay durable “for over 50+ washes”. The page does give one test condition, a machine wash at 60°C (140°F), and says high-standard ink should withstand 50 cycles or more without fading. It names no standard and does not say what counts as fading. Verdict 50 rates it partly true: a vendor’s outcome claim, not a measured benchmark. Firebird’s white-ink page promises durability “even after 60 wash cycles”. INKBANK’s data sheet gives no cycle count at all. It reports washing fastness of grade 4 to 5, dry rubbing 4 and wet rubbing 3, on a 0 to 5 scale where 5 is best.
DTF sellers use cycles too, with different answers. Ninja Transfers says a DTF print typically lasts 50 to 100 washes. MTuTech reports two of its own tests: black prints washed about 52 times without fading, and shirts showed no cracking or peeling after about 20. A cycle count is only comparable if the water temperature, detergent, drying and the point at which a print counts as failed are the same, and none of these pages sets them.
Sources: Winnerjet (curing guide) · Firebird (white ink) · INKBANK · Ninja Transfers · MTuTech · Verdict 50
Sublimation has the one durability rule on this page that holds up as stated. SanMar’s decorator guide says that in a poly/cotton blend or tri-blend with less than 65% polyester, the dye will not bond to the cotton and will eventually wash out. Verdict 63 confirms it, with the note that SanMar is the only source in the check that names the number.
Correction, 21 October 2026. SanMar is not the only one. Sawgrass’s Ink Sets page names “polycotton (65/35)” for its Sublijet UHD ink, a blend at SanMar’s 65% floor rather than below it. Verdict 63 stays confirmed, with that line corrected.
Sources: SanMar · Verdict 63
Sidebar: the humidity number for DTF powder. Adhesive powder spoils when it takes on water, so every supplier gives a storage humidity. We opened nine vendor pages and a product listing. DTF Station lists the storage humidity for its Color Prime Flex powder as 35% or lower. DTFil and DTFTransfers say below 50% relative humidity, and DTFTransfers calls it the most critical variable. OBZIY and Winnerjet say 40% to 50%. DTF Sheet puts the ideal range for transfers at 40 to 55 percent. VisionSub and Bostonian DTF say 40% to 60%. Hanrun Paper says 45% to 60%, ideally 45% to 55%, and Mad Monkey Transfers gives 30% to 50% for storing finished transfers.
The ceilings cluster near 50%. The floors run from none to 45%, and DTF Station’s 35% ceiling is 15 points under the next lowest. None of the pages names a standard (ISO, ASTM, AATCC or SGIA) or a laboratory test behind its figure; we searched each page for those terms. DTFTransfers adds the one shelf-life figure on the list: 12 to 18 months unopened and 6 to 9 months once opened, stored at 15 to 25°C below 50% humidity. Use the figure printed for the powder you actually bought. The blogs do not average to a specification.
Sources: DTF Station · DTFil · DTFTransfers · OBZIY · Winnerjet · DTF Sheet · VisionSub · Bostonian DTF · Hanrun Paper · Mad Monkey Transfers
What to take from this. A usable per-print figure comes from inputs you can measure: millilitres of ink and pretreatment per shirt, kilowatt-hours at the dryer, seconds under the press. An all-in number from a vendor is a statement about that vendor’s floor. The same goes for wash life. Ask for the wash protocol with the number, or treat the number as a sales line. The EU now has a rule about one version of that sales line, and section 06 covers it.
“The standard DTG ink curing temperature is 330°F (165°C) for 90 seconds.”
“DTF running cost is $3–5 per print versus DTG’s $3–8 per print, so DTF is cheaper per unit.”