So you’re considering starting up a business offering custom, personalized Tshirts, and you’re wondering which is the best machinery to get started with? In which case, you’ve come to the right place ;-), as this post is specifically for you.
Start with process first, ignore machines/equipment for now.
The first bit of advice I have for anyone starting any kind of garment and giftware printing business, is to start off first thinking about the Tshirt printing method, or process, you’re going to be using, rather than trying to figure out at this stage which is the best machine to start with.
From my experience of helping customers setup in the garment and gifts printing industry over a period of nearly 20 years, many people start off looking for Tshirt printing equipment before they’ve even decided on which method they’ll be using.
This is really a back to front approach, but many people do this because they’re not aware of the several different options when it comes to printing Tshirts.
You’re starting the right way, by educating yourself as much as you possibly can, by coming to blogs like this, so hopefully you’ll know exactly what kind of Tshirt printing business you’re getting into, and what method(s) you’re going to be using, before you start looking at buying any equipment.
In-house is the only real option for personalisation
The first thing to point out about personalized/customized Tshirt and giftware printing, is that there’s not really an alternative but to print in-house, in my humble opinion.
When it comes to trade Tshirt printing, and own brand development, then I think outsourcing is a very valid option, but the thing with personalized/custom tshirt printing is you’ll be usually doing just one, two, or a handful, for each customer, which doesn’t really work for outsourced printing.
I’ll now get into the various different Tshirt printing processes that you might want to consider. If you’re interested in finding out more about any particular method, just click on the title and you’ll get to a page with more in depth info about that process, including guidance on which specific equipment to consider.
Inkjet transfer Printing
This is Tshirt printing method which requires the lowest level of setup investment. You can really get setup quite cheap for inkjet transfer printing, so if budget is low, this isn’t a bad process to start with. The trade off though is that you don’t have a lot of scope available to you in terms of other items other than Tshirts, and it’s definitely not the cheapest in terms of printing costs.
CMYK laser transfer Printing
Similar to Inkjet transfer printing in terms of setup cost (slightly more, due to laser printers generally costing a bit more), but you have more scope when it comes to other products including Tshirts. You can also get laser transfer paper for hard substrates including things like candles, wood, glass and ceramic. There are a wider range of different kinds of transfer papers for Tshirts too with CMYK laser transfer printing Vs Inkjet.
Dye Sublimation Printing
If you’re getting into personalization printing, dye sublimation is definitely a process you’ll want to consider at some point, due to the HUGE range of other giftware items you can really easily print using this process. It’s not the best for garments though due to some restrictions re fabric type and colour, but it is one of the best choices for sports tops and other sports clothing. It’s generally slightly more expensive in terms of setup costs than inkjet transfer or CMYK laser transfer, but not a great deal.
Heat transfer vinyl
This involves cutting out colored transfer vinyl from a sheet or a roll, using an optical contour cutter, and then heat pressing onto the garment. It’s a popular method for customizing Tshirts with text and numbers, and it’s fine for fairly simple, single colour designs. You’ll just need a heat press and a contour cutter, so depending on which cutter you go for, the startup costs will be very similar to inkjet transfer and CMYK laser transfer printing.
Direct to Garment or DTG
If you have the budget for it, DTG/Direct to Garment printers can be a great way to print Tshirts, especially for vivid full color images and photographic images. DTG is way outside of the budget of most startup custom Tshirt printing businesses, though, at around $5,000 and upwards for the DTG printer alone, and when I say upwards, the sky is the limit!
One of the above, or a combination of one of the above is going to be the right method for you, depending on what kind of designs you’re likely to be printing, and your budget. Have a good read through each of the posts above (by clicking on the header link) in order to get a better idea of each method. Once you decide on which method or which combination of methods you’re going to work with, you can then start looking at the best Tshirt printing machinery & equipment.
By the way, you’ll notice I’ve not mentioned Tshirt screen printing above. This is because although screen printing is a brilliant method for printing Tshirts, is’t not one that really works for custom Tshirt printing.
This is because of how much time and effort goes into preparing the screen or screens (a separate screen is required for each color in the design), which doesn’t make it the sensible approach for a business which mainly entails printing just one Tshirt from each design.
