Cost to Produce Direct-to-Film Transfers | Making Money with DTF Printing

Cost to Produce Direct-to-Film Transfers | Making Money with DTF Printing

How much money can you make with the new, compact direct-to-film printer, the DTF-12H2? We did an ROI study to let you see the potential.

For this study we are using a full color image of a Maine Coon Cat with an Attitude. The image is 9.26” wide by 13.8” tall. In this ROI article we did this job as a 100 shirt retail print job. But here we are going to base our calculations on a wholesale transfer order.

To see a full demonstration on how DTF Printing works, watch this video -    • How Does Commercial DTF Printing Work...  

To determine time and costs we did a run of 10 designs on the DTF-12H2 and then multiplied our numbers by 10 and added the costs and time associated with the lead out of the film at the end of the prints.

Ink, film, and powder costs are based on “one off” pricing, however, buying larger quantities will increase discount – thus reducing your Cost of Goods sold.

If you are looking for a way to greatly improve your profits, and print 300 shirts per hour, check out the 4 head DTF printer -    • Introducing the DTF-24H4 | 4 Head Dir...  

Print Materials Cost | Ink, Powder & Film

We processed the image (10 copies) through the PrintOptimizer software and the total calculated price for the prints (ink, film and powder) was $6.85 total for all 10 prints.
Job Cost for 10 Transfers:
$2.84 Film + $2.01 Powder + $2.00 Ink = $6.85 for 10 transfers
This means each transfer costs $0.69 to produce.
$6.85 / 10 = $0.69 per transfer
And to product 100 of the transfers, it would have cost $68.50 in material.
$6.85 x 10 = $68.50 for 100 transfers

At the end of the print job we send a film advance print file that takes just under 9:30 to print and uses $2.17 in ink, film and powder.
$68.50 (100 transfers) + $2.17 (film advance file) = $70.67 Total Transfer Costs

You can find DTF Printer Supplies for the DTF-12H2, DTF-24H2, and DTF-24H4 at https://colmanandcompany.com/DTF-Dire...

Print Time | DTF-12H2

Print time for these was just under 18 minutes for all. Based on our example we are printing 100 shirts so total print time would be 180 minutes or 3 hours.
18 mins (10 transfers) x 10 = 180 minutes (3 hours) to print 100 transfers
At the end of the print job we send a film advance print file that takes just under 9:30 to print.
We will add together the total print time, plus the print time to advance your film (which you only do at the end of day when you finish ALL your jobs).
It takes 3 hours and 10 minutes from the time the first print starts until the last image exits the shaker/dryer.
3:00 (print time for graphic) + 9:30 (film advance print file) = approx. 3:10
It is up to you as to how you candle things at this point. You can re-roll the prints and drop them into a shipping tube or trim them and ship them in an envelope or a box.
Either way it should not take over 30 minutes to do either.
Total Production Time:
3:10 (total print time) + :30 (preparing shipment) = 3:40 Total Job Time

Putting It All Together | Total Job Profits

On the low end, the going rate of wholesale transfers online is $0.04 per square inch.
Based on the size of the design in this article, each of these transfers has a retail value or $5.11.
So, an order of 100 transfers would sell $511. That would leave you with a profit of $440.33.
$511 (retail value) - $70.67 (cost) = $440.33 net profit

Even if we allow $76.67 for labor ($20 per hour) we net over $363 in profit for under 4 hours of work. And, in reality, the printer was only running for 3 hours of that.
It is fully conceivable that you could queue up another job and have it printing while you were processing this order after printing.

What Does My Return-on-Investment Look Like?

With a monthly lease payment around $340 on the DTF-12H2, you could make each payment by running one job like this a month!

See a full ROI on making a 100 shirt order in this article - https://coldesi.com/2022/10/digitalhe...