Why would a print shop outsource DTF instead of buying a printer?

Because white ink does not wait for you. A DTF printer needs circulating and checking on a schedule whether or not you have orders, and a machine left idle for two weeks can need serious work before it prints again. Shops with steady daily volume should own one. Shops with bursts carry the full maintenance burden without the throughput that justifies it.

Do you print for shops that already own a DTF printer?

Regularly, and it is one of the more sensible reasons to hold an account. Overflow when your own line is at capacity, and cover when it is in service — a wholesale account costs nothing to keep open and turns a printhead failure from a crisis into an inconvenience.

Can you ship directly to my client without your name on it?

Blind shipping is available on a wholesale account. Tell us the ship-to and what should and should not appear on the packing slip when you set the account up, and it becomes the default for your orders rather than something you re-request each time.

How does trade pricing work?

A rate is set on your account rather than quoted per job, so every order prices the same way without anyone re-negotiating it. Apply through the wholesale page and we will talk about your volume and what makes sense.

Can I get one invoice for several orders?

Yes. Orders can be bundled onto a single invoice, which is usually what matters more than the unit price when you are reconciling a month rather than a job.

What is the turnaround for a GTA shop?

DTF orders ship in 24–48 hours and UV DTF in 1–3 business days. In before 11 AM ET on a business day and that day counts as day one; after the cut-off, day one is the next business day. Across the GTA it is then typically one to two business days by courier, and the exact ship-by date is on screen before you pay. That is what lets you quote your own client a date you can actually hold.

Guide · Trade

DTF Transfers for Toronto Print Shops

If you decorate garments in the GTA, DTF is either a machine you maintain or a component you buy. Both are legitimate. What decides it is not the price of a printer — it is whether your volume is steady enough to absorb a daily maintenance routine. We sell both transfers and printers, so read this knowing we profit either way.

Open a trade account →Should you buy a printer?

The real question

Consistency, not volume.

The instinct is to compare a per-transfer cost against a per-transfer cost and buy the machine once the arithmetic tips. That model is wrong, because the expensive part of owning a DTF line is not consumables — it is that the machine needs attention on days you have no work.

Counter-intuitively, sporadic high-volume work is a worse fit than steady moderate volume. The burden is the schedule, not the quantity.

A Toronto shop doing screen printing and embroidery with DTF as the third option usually sits in the middle two bars. That is the awkward zone: enough work that a printer looks justified on paper, not enough that it runs often enough to stay healthy. The honest maths on ownership →

What outsourcing changes

Two things get better, one gets worse.

Steady daily volume

Run your own line

Lowest marginal cost per print once running.
Full control over scheduling and priority.
No courier leg inside your lead time.
Capital, floor space and ventilation.
Daily maintenance whether or not you have work.
Downtime is entirely your problem.

Bursts and overflow

Buy transfers on a trade account

No maintenance, no ventilation, no capital.
Consistent output run to run.
No minimum, so a four-piece top-up is normal.
Cutting available so your staff do not trim by hand.
Higher per-unit cost than running your own.
The turnaround (24–48 hours) and a courier day sit inside your lead time.

The honest trade: you give up marginal cost and pick up a few days of lead time, and in exchange the machine stops being your problem.

The lead time is the thing to plan around

It is also the easiest to remove. Print ahead and press to order: transfers stored flat keep indefinitely, so the turnaround and the courier day only sit in your lead time for work you did not see coming. Planning around the lead time →

How a trade account works

The mechanics that matter to a shop.

Trade account mechanics for a GTA decorator
What you need	How it works here
A rate you do not re-negotiate	Set on your account, so every order prices the same way without a quote.
Your client never seeing us	Blind shipping on a wholesale account — set the ship-to and packing-slip rules once.
One invoice, not twelve	Several orders bundle onto a single invoice for reconciliation.
A date you can promise	DTF ships in 24–48 hours, UV DTF in 1–3 business days; in before 11 AM ET on a business day and that day counts as day one. The exact ship-by date is on screen before you pay.
No trimming by hand	Cutting at $0.25 per copy, so transfers arrive ready to press.
Files you do not re-upload	Your library holds the artwork; a repeat run is a couple of clicks at the same size.
Someone checking the file	A person opens every file before it prints, which is what stops a bad run reaching your client.

Margin

Where the money actually is.

Retail pricing is $0.0249 per square inch, published, so a 10 × 12 inch front print is a shade under three dollars before cutting. For a shop, the useful number is not that one — it is what you charge for a decorated garment minus the transfer, the blank and the ten minutes at the press.

You keep the garment margin

Buying the printed part means the blank is still your purchase at your trade price. That is margin a full-service decorator would otherwise take.

You keep the labour

Pressing is quick, repeatable work your existing staff can absorb between screen setups. It is the cheapest labour in the building.

You stop eating failures

A misprint on your own line costs film, ink, powder and press time. A misprinted transfer costs us, and you get a replacement.

You quote dates you can hold

Most client complaints are about dates, not quality. A stated turnaround — ships in 24–48 hours, with the exact ship-by date on screen before you pay — is what turns your quoted date into a date you control. What makes orders late →

If you already own a printer, none of this is an argument to sell it. It is an argument to hold an account you use on the weeks the machine is busy or broken. More on outsourcing overflow →

Quoting a client

How to build a price off a transfer cost.

The useful thing about a published square-inch rate is that your cost is known before you open a quote. Four lines and you have a number you can defend.

Building a decorated-garment quote from a transfer cost
Line	Where it comes from	Notes
The transfer	Width × height × rate × quantity	Fixed and known before you quote.
The blank	Your garment supplier at your trade price	Usually the largest single line.
Cutting	$0.25 per copy if you want them trimmed	Cheaper than paying staff to trim.
Press labour	Your shop rate × about two minutes a piece	The line most shops forget to charge for.
Shipping in	Flat per order, free over the threshold	Spread across the run it is pennies.
Your margin	Whatever the market bears	This is the only line the client is really buying.

Charge for the press time

Two minutes a shirt sounds like nothing until it is four hundred shirts and someone stands at a press for a shift and a half. Shops that treat pressing as free are the ones that cannot work out why a busy month did not make money.

One more thing worth knowing

Because transfers keep indefinitely, you can quote a client a repeat price and hold the stock rather than reordering each time. That turns a recurring job into something closer to inventory, which is generally easier to schedule around than a supply chain.

FAQ

Frequently asked questions

Why would a print shop outsource DTF instead of buying a printer?: Because white ink does not wait for you. A DTF printer needs circulating and checking on a schedule whether or not you have orders, and a machine left idle for two weeks can need serious work before it prints again. Shops with steady daily volume should own one. Shops with bursts carry the full maintenance burden without the throughput that justifies it.
Do you print for shops that already own a DTF printer?: Regularly, and it is one of the more sensible reasons to hold an account. Overflow when your own line is at capacity, and cover when it is in service — a wholesale account costs nothing to keep open and turns a printhead failure from a crisis into an inconvenience.
Can you ship directly to my client without your name on it?: Blind shipping is available on a wholesale account. Tell us the ship-to and what should and should not appear on the packing slip when you set the account up, and it becomes the default for your orders rather than something you re-request each time.
How does trade pricing work?: A rate is set on your account rather than quoted per job, so every order prices the same way without anyone re-negotiating it. Apply through the wholesale page and we will talk about your volume and what makes sense.
Can I get one invoice for several orders?: Yes. Orders can be bundled onto a single invoice, which is usually what matters more than the unit price when you are reconciling a month rather than a job.
What is the turnaround for a GTA shop?: DTF orders ship in 24–48 hours and UV DTF in 1–3 business days. In before 11 AM ET on a business day and that day counts as day one; after the cut-off, day one is the next business day. Across the GTA it is then typically one to two business days by courier, and the exact ship-by date is on screen before you pay. That is what lets you quote your own client a date you can actually hold.

Keep reading

Six things worth asking a Toronto DTF supplier before you send a file, and the one case where a walk-in shop genuinely beats ordering transfers.

Fast DTF Transfers in Toronto: Ships in 24–48 Hours

DTF orders ship in 24–48 hours, UV DTF in 1–3 business days. What the 11 AM ET cut-off gets you across Toronto and the GTA, and when a walk-in shop is the better call.

Printing Event Merch in Toronto Without Missing the Date

How to plan festival, concert and market merch backwards from the door time, what to print ahead, and how to restock a design that sells out on day one.

When Will My DTF Order Ship? The Cut-Off Rule

The 11 AM ET cut-off decides day one. DTF ships by day 2 (24–48 hours), anything with UV DTF by day 3 — whatever the size. The whole rule, with worked examples.

An account costs nothing to hold.

Open one before you need it. The week your own printer goes down is not the week you want to be setting up a supplier from scratch.

Apply for a trade account →Serving the GTA

Blind shipping · Bundled invoicing · No minimums