Outsourcing DTF: Running It as a Profit Centre

The jobs you are currently turning away.

Every screen shop has a category of enquiry it quietly discourages: too small to justify screens, too many colours, mixed garments, or needed too soon. Those calls are not marginal — for most shops they are a meaningful share of inbound enquiries, and they usually come from customers who would have come back.

Build the price from five lines.

The mistake shops make when they first outsource is quoting the transfer cost plus a markup, forgetting that pressing is now their labour rather than a supplier's.

At $0.0249 per square inch with no setup fee, the transfer line is exact and knowable before you quote — which is the part that makes outsourced DTF easy to price confidently. Full costing method →

Keep your screens. Add a lane.

This is not a replacement decision. The shops that do this well run both and route each enquiry to whichever is cheaper for that job — which is straightforward once you know the crossover.

The full crossover maths →

Building supplier lead time into your promise.

The operational objection to outsourcing is that you no longer control the schedule. That is true, and it is manageable with two habits.

1. Quote transit plus a buffer day

Transfers print the same business day when ordered before 11 AM ET and ship the next morning. Add your provincial transit and one buffer day, and quote that — not the minimum. The buffer absorbs a missed carrier attempt, which is the thing that actually goes wrong.

2. Hold stock of repeat designs

This is the one that removes the objection entirely. Transfers store flat indefinitely away from heat and sunlight, and a transfer has no size. For any design a customer reorders, keep a stock and press to order — shipping stops being in your critical path at all, and you can promise same-day turnaround on repeats.

What you tell your customer.

Nothing, generally — and not because it is a secret. Your customer is buying a finished garment on a date. How the graphic was produced is a production decision, the same way the brand of your ink or the source of your blanks is.

If it does come up, the honest answer is that you use the right process for each job and DTF is the right one for theirs. That is more credible than implying every method happens under your roof, which almost no shop can truthfully claim anyway.

If you would rather it never came up: blind shipping is available on a wholesale account, so packages arrive without our branding on them. Wholesale accounts →

Outsource first, buy equipment later.

Outsourcing is not the compromise version of owning a printer — it is the step that tells you whether owning one makes sense. Six months of outsourced work gives you real data on your DTF mix, your seasonality and your volume, which is exactly what you need before committing to a machine and a daily maintenance obligation.

Plenty of shops that own a printer still keep an account open for overflow, because a machine in service turns from a crisis into an inconvenience. The honest maths on buying a printer →

Outsourcing questions

Can I add DTF to my shop without buying a printer?

Yes, and for most shops it is the better first move. You buy transfers, press them on equipment you already own, and keep the customer relationship. The only new capability you need is a heat press, which most decorating shops already have.

How do I quote a DTF job profitably?

Cost the transfer exactly (printed area × rate), add your blank, add a realistic labour figure of about a minute per garment plus setup, add a waste allowance, then apply your normal decorating margin. The transfer is usually the smallest line.

Will outsourcing make me look less capable to customers?

Only if you frame it that way. Customers buy a finished garment on a date — the process behind it is your business. Plenty of established shops outsource one decoration method and always have.

What jobs should I send out rather than screen print?

Anything under roughly fifty pieces, anything full-colour or photographic, anything on mixed garments, and anything that arrives Thursday for Saturday. Those are the jobs screens price badly and DTF handles easily.

How do I schedule around a supplier lead time?

Order before 11 AM ET and transfers print the same day and ship the next morning, so build your transit time plus one buffer day into the quote. Better still, hold stock of repeat designs so shipping is off your critical path entirely.

Does outsourcing stop me buying a printer later?

No — it is the sensible sequence. Outsource while you learn what your real DTF mix and volume look like, then buy equipment when the numbers justify it rather than in the hope that they will.