Screen Printing vs. DTG: Which Is Best for Your Custom T-Shirts?

If you’re planning custom t-shirts – whether for your small business team, a school event, a design project, or a special occasion – you’ve likely encountered two popular printing methods: screen printing and DTG (direct-to-garment) printing. Both methods can produce high-quality shirts, but they have significant differences in terms of cost, quality, quantity, turnaround time, and even eco-friendliness. Choosing the right one can save you money and time and ensure your shirts look and feel just the way you want.

In this post, we’ll explain what screen printing and DTG are, break down the pros and cons of each (from cost and order size to print quality and sustainability), and help you decide which method is best for your custom t-shirt needs. We’ll also highlight why, in many cases, traditional screen printing might be the better choice for Custom Tees Now customers – and when DTG printing shines. Let’s dive in!

What Is Screen Printing?

Screen printing is a tried-and-true t-shirt printing method that uses a mesh stencil (called a “screen”) to apply layers of ink onto a garment. Each colour in the design is applied with a separate screen, one at a time, using a rubber squeegee to press ink through the stencil and onto the fabric. The ink is then cured (dried) with heat to ensure a durable print. This method has been in use for decades and is renowned for producing vibrant, long-lasting prints.

How it works: The process requires a significant amount of setup. First, a screen must be created for each colour in your design – a labour-intensive step where a light-sensitive emulsion on the screen is exposed and then washed to create the stencil openings. Once the screens are ready and aligned on a press, ink is pushed through the mesh onto the shirts. Finally, the printed shirts go through a high-temperature dryer to cure the ink, making the design permanent.

In traditional screen printing, a printer uses a squeegee to press ink through a prepared mesh screen onto the t-shirt fabric. Each colour requires a separate screen and pass. This hands-on process yields vibrant, opaque ink layers that sit on top of the fabric, imparting screen-printed designs with exceptional colour intensity and durability. However, the initial setup (creating and aligning screens) makes small runs less efficient, as much of the work happens before the first shirt is ever printed.

Key characteristics: Screen printing is most effective for simple or moderately detailed designs with a limited number of colours. Because the ink is applied in thick layers, screen-printed prints have a slightly raised, textured feel and very vivid colours – especially on dark shirts, since opaque inks can be used to achieve high contrast. Screen prints are also extremely durable; the design can withstand many washes (often hundreds if properly cured) without significant fading. The upfront effort is worthwhile when you need dozens or hundreds of shirts: once the screens are made and the press is running, screen printing can produce shirts very quickly and cost-effectively in bulk.

What Is DTG (Direct-to-Garment) Printing?

Direct-to-garment printing, often abbreviated as DTG, is a newer digital printing method where the design is printed directly onto the fabric using specialized inkjet technology. In essence, a DTG printer is like a large inkjet printer for shirts: the graphic is sent from a computer to the printer, which then sprays microscopically tiny droplets of ink onto the garment to form the image. The ink bonds with the fibres of the shirt, resulting in a smooth print that is integrated with the fabric.

How it works: With DTG, the shirt is usually pre-treated with a solution (especially if it’s a dark-coloured shirt) that helps the ink adhere and remain vibrant. The shirt is placed onto the printer’s platen, and the print heads move across the garment, laying down the design in a single process – including all colours and details at once. After printing, the shirt is heat-cured (often with a heat press or conveyor dryer) to set the inks and ensure durability. There are no screens or physical setups required for each design beyond loading the digital file, which makes preparation significantly faster than screen printing for one-off or small orders.

Direct-to-garment (DTG) printing uses a specialized inkjet printer to apply ink directly onto the t-shirt. In this image, a DTG machine is printing a full-color design onto a black shirt. DTG excels at creating detailed, photorealistic designs – the printer can mix thousands of colours on the fly, producing gradients and fine details that would be difficult or time-consuming to achieve with screens. Because there’s no need to create screens or change inks for different colours, DTG is ideal for printing small batches or even single shirts quickly. Each shirt is printed individually, which means the method is slower per shirt for large quantities but highly flexible for on-demand orders.

Key characteristics: DTG printing can reproduce virtually any image – from simple text to full-colour photographs – with a high level of detail and colour accuracy. It’s great for designs with many colours and as it doesn’t require a separate setup for each colour. Colour also has a soft feel (especially on light shirts) because the ink penetrates the fabric rather than sitting on top. The print quality is high, and the colours are vibrant and accurate, though on very dark garments, screen printing can sometimes achieve more opacity and “pop” due to the thicker ink layers. In terms of durability, DTG prints hold up well through dozens of washes, although they are typically not as long-lasting as screen prints. Some estimates suggest that they last around 50 washes before significant fading, compared to hundreds of washes for a well-executed screen print. One thing to note: DTG works best on 100% cotton or cotton-rich blends, and the process may be less effective on certain synthetic fabrics. For example, printing on polyester with DTG can be challenging, whereas screen printing can be done on a wide range of materials (cotton, poly, blends, etc.) with the appropriate inks.

Now that we’ve defined each method let’s compare them in the areas that matter most: cost, order size, print quality, speed, and sustainability. Below, we’ll examine the pros and cons of screen printing and DTG and then provide a quick comparison table for easy reference.

Pros and Cons of Screen Printing

Screen printing has long been the go-to method for printing custom t-shirts, especially for bulk orders. Here are its significant advantages and disadvantages:

Pros of Screen Printing:

• Cost-effective for large quantities: If you need a large amount of shirts (think dozens, hundreds, or more), screen printing is usually the most economical choice. The upfront cost of making screens is spread out over a large batch, significantly reducing the per-shirt cost. Screen printing is an affordable method for printing hundreds of shirts, while DTG is better suited for printing a few shirts. Bulk orders often enjoy volume discounts with screen printing, making it an ideal choice for school events, team uniforms, or business promotions where you’re printing the same design in high volumes.
• Fast production for large runs: Once set up, a screen printing press can produce shirts very quickly. Automated screen printing presses can print up to 1,000+ shirts per hour in optimal settings. This means that large orders can be fulfilled within a short timeframe after the initial setup. For example, printing 200 camp t-shirts or 500 charity event shirts is typically no problem for an experienced screen printer – the printing itself might be done in a matter of hours.
• Vibrant, durable prints: Screen printing produces vivid colours and excellent opacity, especially on dark garments. The inks are applied in thick layers, which can make colours “pop” against the fabric. The resulting prints are very durable – they resist fading and can handle frequent washing and rough wear. This durability is why screen printing is often chosen for workwear and school spirit wear that require long-lasting results. A well-done screen print can last for years; many screen-printed shirts remain bright and intact even after dozens of wash cycles.
• Versatility and special effects: Screen printing can be applied to a wide variety of fabric types and product styles – including cotton or blends, hoodies, performance polyester tees, and more. With the correct ink and technique, screen printing can also achieve specialty effects that DTG generally cannot, such as puff inks, metallic or glitter finishes, neon inks, glow-in-the-dark, and more. If your custom design requires a unique textured ink or exact Pantone colour matching (for precise brand logos), screen printing provides that control.
• Efficient for simple designs: If your design features only a few colours or solid graphics (e.g., a simple two-colour logo or bold text), screen printing handles it efficiently and produces crisp results. Minimalist and bold designs are a sweet spot for screen printing – the prints come out sharp and clear, and you’re not paying for more colours than you need.

Cons of Screen Printing:

• Not cost-effective for small orders: Due to the setup labour and materials required (such as creating screens and mixing inks), screen printing is usually not worthwhile for just a handful of shirts. Many print shops have minimum order requirements (often around 12 pieces or more) for screen printing or else charge a setup fee for small runs. If you only need one or a few shirts, the per-shirt cost with screen printing will be very high due to those fixed setup costs. For example, a school club ordering 10 shirts with a 4-colour design might find the screen setup fees make it pricey – this is where DTG would be a better option.
• Limited colour complexity (for budget): Each colour in a screen print design requires its screen and setup, making multicolour designs more complex and expensive to produce. While screen printing can technically print detailed images (using techniques like halftones or simulated process printing), it’s not usually the best choice for highly detailed, photorealistic images with numerous colours or gradients. Most screen printing jobs adhere to a limited colour palette (often consisting of 6–8 colours). If your design has, say, 20 colours or intricate shading, screen printing that design would be time-consuming and costly – or the printer might simplify it. In short, design complexity is a constraint: screen printing excels with bold, simple artwork but is less practical for, say, a full-colour photograph print.
• Longer setup and turnaround for small runs: Preparing screens and getting the press ready takes time. If you’re on a tight deadline and need multiple colours or small orders, screen printing’s setup can slow things down. For one-off needs or last-minute changes, it’s not very flexible – making a new screen for a small change is a hassle. The turnaround time for screen printing is speedy once printing starts, but the initial preparation means it’s not ideal for “I need this today” scenarios if the design isn’t already on screens.
• Environmental considerations: Traditional screen printing can generate more waste and use more chemicals. The process of cleaning screens uses water and often chemical solvents to reclaim the screens after a job. Unused mixed inks can be wasted, and printing large batches can result in surplus shirts (if you order extras or have unsold pieces), contributing to potential textile waste. The inks commonly used (plastisol inks) are durable but are made from plastic. However, many shops now use eco-friendly options (like water-based inks or phthalate-free inks), and the default screen printing setup has a larger environmental footprint per large run compared to DTG on-demand printing. (It’s worth noting that eco-friendly screen printing practices do exist – such as using water-based or discharge inks and proper waste filtration – but they require conscious effort on the printer’s part.)
• Design changes and customization are more challenging: With screen printing, one screen equals one design. If you wanted the same design in 10 different colour schemes, that’s 10 sets of screens. Similarly, personalizing each shirt (with a different name or number, for example) isn’t feasible via pure screen printing – you’d typically use vinyl or other methods in conjunction. In contrast, a digital method like DTG or transfers would handle variable data (like different names on each shirt) more easily. So, screen printing is less flexible for one-off variations; it’s best when every shirt in the run is identical (or very close to it).

In summary, screen printing is a workhorse for bulk orders and simple, bold designs. It offers superb print quality and cost efficiency at scale, but it’s less suited to small orders or ultra-complex, multicolour artwork. Now, let’s examine the pros and cons of DTG printing, which, in many ways, are the inverse of printing screen printing.

Pros and Cons of DTG Printing

Direct-to-garment printing is a relatively new technology that has opened up new possibilities for custom apparel, particularly for small-batch and high-detail printing. Here are the main advantages and disadvantages of DTG:

Pros of DTG Printing:

• No minimum orders (cost-effective for small runs): One of the biggest strengths of DTG is that you can economically print minimal orders – even a single shirt – profitably. There’s minimal setup cost or prep time; essentially, if you have the design file, you can load a shirt and print it. This makes DTG much more affordable for low quantities than screen printing, which would incur hefty setup fees for the same job. For example, if you’re a freelance designer who wants to print a one-off sample of a complex design, DTG allows you to do so without the overhead of screens. Small businesses or individuals who only need a dozen shirts or a few pieces occasionally will often find DTG the best value for those quantities.
• Prints detailed, full-colour images beautifully: DTG printing shines with complex, colourful artwork. Because it’s essentially a high-resolution inkjet, it can reproduce photographs, gradients, and intricate details exactly as they appear in the digital design. Unlimited color palette? No problem – you’re not charged per colour, unlike with screen printing, where each colour adds to the cost and effort. This makes DTG ideal for designs that feature many colours or fine details, such as artwork with shading, small text, or a wide range of tones. You don’t have to simplify your art for printing; the printer will handle all the colour complexity in one pass. For creative designers and merchandising artists who want their vision faithfully reproduced on a shirt, DTG is often the go-to.
• Fast setup and quick turnaround (for small jobs): If you need just a few shirts fast, DTG can be a lifesaver. There’s no need to burn screens or mix inks, so the preparation time is minimal – essentially, just prepare the digital file and pretreat the shirt (a step that can be done quickly or in advance for light shirts). Printing one shirt might take a few minutes, and once it’s done, you can immediately switch to a completely different design for the next print. This makes DTG great for on-demand orders and rapid prototyping. For instance, if you have an upcoming event and realize you need five extra staff shirts at the last minute, a DTG printer could produce those very quickly, whereas setting up a screen print for five shirts would be impractical. Many print shops use DTG to handle rush orders or replacement prints (like if one shirt in a large order got messed up, they can DTG a quick replacement rather than resetting the screen press).
• Each shirt can be unique: With DTG, switching designs is as easy as loading a new image file. This opens up possibilities for personalization and print-on-demand business models. For example, an online store could allow customers to customize a shirt (add their name or choose colours), and a DTG printer can print each order individually with those custom elements. Small businesses or school groups could use DTG for prototype runs of multiple designs to see which ones are popular before committing to a bulk screen print order. If you’re an artist selling designs online, DTG means you can offer dozens of designs without pre-printing any inventory – each shirt is printed when ordered, reducing the risk of excess stock.
• Soft feel and comfort: DTG prints tend to have a soft hand feel and feel, especially on lighter shirts where little to no white ink is required under the base. The ink essentially dyes the fabric fibres (particularly with water-based inks), so the result doesn’t have the thicker feel that some screen prints (with heavy ink layers) can have. This can be a pro for customers who prefer the print to feel as soft as the shirt itself. Modern DTG prints, when properly cured, also have good wash durability – they remain vibrant for many washes without cracking (since the ink is in the fabric, not a layer that can crack).
• Eco-friendliness (on-demand and water-based inks): DTG is often considered a more sustainable printing method for small-scale production. The inks used are typically water-based and eco-friendly. Since you only print what you need when you need it, there is far less waste in terms of unsold inventory. There are no screens to wash out, meaning almost no water is used in the printing process itself, aside from pretreating garments. Many DTG machines (for instance, the Kornit models) boast nearly zero wastewater and lower energy usage. Overall, if you’re concerned with sustainability and only need a limited number of shirts, DTG’s print-on-demand nature minimizes excess production and waste. (Keep in mind, DTG does use consumables like ink and some chemicals in pretreatment for dark shirts, but its environmental footprint per shirt is generally lower for short runs when compared to the material and chemical use of setting up a screen print.)

Cons of DTG Printing:

Higher cost per shirt for large orders: While DTG is king for small orders, it generally doesn’t scale as cheaply for big orders. The price per print remains relatively flat – there’s little economy of scale because each shirt’s ink usage and print time are the same. DTG ink can be expensive, and printing a large, full-colourful-colour design can use several dollars worth of ink on each shirt. For example, printing a dark shirt with a large, colourful image might use approximately $4 of ink and pretreatment fluid for that one shirt. If you need 500 shirts, the DTG method will require that amount of ink each time and take a considerable amount of time to print each one individually.

• In contrast, screen printing would spread the setup cost over 500 shirts, making the per-shirt ink cost just pennies. Bottom line: for large batches, DTG is usually more expensive per shirt than screen printing, often significantly so. Some DTG providers offer bulk discounts, but screen printing typically remains the more cost-effective option for large quantities.
• Slower for high volumes: DTG printing is essentially printing shirts one by one. Even on industrial DTG machines, the speed is on the order of a few minutes per shirt for a full-color print. Most DTG setups might manage 20–30 shirts an hour (depending on the image size and complexity). Compare that to the hundreds of hours of output from a screen printing press once it’s running, and you can see why DTG is not efficient for huge orders. If you tried to print 300 shirts with DTG, it could take all day on one machine, whereas a screen printing press could do that in an hour or two once set up. So, for high-volume jobs, DTG’s throughput is a limiting factor. It’s best suited for small-batch production unless a print shop has an army of DTG machines (and even then, costs might be prohibitive). Many custom apparel businesses employ both methods: they use DTG for low quantities or proofs but switch to screen printing for large runs to meet deadlines and cost targets.
• Potentially less vibrant on certain fabrics or dark colours: DTG has improved dramatically over the years, but there are still instances where screen printing can yield more vibrant results, especially on very dark garments. DTG printers use white ink as a base on dark shirts (after pretreating) to enhance colour visibility. Still, sometimes, colour saturation on DTG may appear slightly muted compared to the thick, opaque inks of screen printing. Additionally, because DTG ink is thinner and absorbed by the fibres, the colour “pop” on, say, a black polyester hoodie might not be as bright as a screen print, which sits on top. Screen printing can also utilize specialty inks (such as neon and metallic) that are difficult to replicate in DTG. For 99% of full-colour designs, DTG is excellent. Still, if you need an ultra-bright neon print, exact Pantone matching, or printing on a material that doesn’t take DTG ink well (such as 100% polyester or waterproof fabrics), screen printing may achieve better results. Essentially, DTG’s colour vibrancy is excellent in most cases; however, the method of applying ink in thinner layers means it may not always match the bold opacity of a traditional screen print on dark backgrounds.
• Fabric limitations: As mentioned, DTG works best on fabrics with high cotton content. If your custom t-shirts are made from 100% cotton (or even 50/50 cotton-poly), DTG printing will usually yield a nice result. However, on 100% polyester or specific blends, the ink might not bind as well, leading to faded-looking results or issues in wash durability. Some newer DTG technologies and inks are improving this. Still, generally, if you needed to print, say, bright yellow polyester sports jerseys or a nylon jacket, DTG would not be the recommended method – screen printing or other techniques (like dye sublimation for poly) would be used instead. For most standard t-shirts (which are often cotton or cotton/poly), this isn’t a problem, but it’s a consideration if you have specialty apparel. Additionally, DTG requires the garment to be smooth and laid flat; it cannot easily print over seams or zippers, and it’s not suitable for caps or other 3D items (where screen printing can be adapted to more item types or utilize transfers).
• Print durability slightly lower: We noted that DTG prints typically don’t last as long as screen prints in the wash. To quantify, some industry sources estimate that a DTG print might last approximately 50 washes before significant fading, whereas a well-done screen print might last 100+ washes. In everyday terms, both will last quite a long time for a t-shirt’s life, but if you’re printing something like work uniforms or sports jerseys meant to be worn and washed aggressively every week, screen printing’s extra longevity is a plus. DTG’s durability has improved and is usually more than adequate for fashion or occasional wear (and the prints won’t crack like old iron-ons; they just gradually lighten over time), but the absolute longevity and toughness of a screen print is tough to beat.
• Requires careful maintenance (for print providers): This last con isn’t so much for the customer as for the printer, but it does indirectly affect availability. DTG machines are sophisticated and require regular maintenance – print heads can clog, and the printers must be kept in controlled conditions. This is why not every print shop offers DTG, and those that do factor maintenance costs into their pricing. If a DTG printer isn’t well-maintained, quality can suffer (banding, colour issues). Reputable providers, like Custom Tees Now, ensure their DTG equipment is top-notch, so you get a great result every time. However, it’s worth understanding that DTG is a high-tech process behind the scenes (not just a “push button and go” process). In practical terms, if you’re ordering DTG prints, stick with a provider that has experience – which ensures you get that crisp detail and lasting print you expect.

To sum up, DTG printing is ideal for small orders, complex designs, and speedy on-demand printing, providing artists and organizers with considerable flexibility. However, it becomes less economical and efficient at large scales, and it has several limitations in terms of fabric and ultimate durability.

Now, let’s put all these points side by side. The following table compares screen printing and DTG on the key factors of cost, order size, print quality, design complexity, speed, and eco-friendliness:

Screen Printing vs. DTG: Key Differences at a Glance