We get this call every week. Somebody has a logo, a number in their head, and a date they need it by, and they want to know which method to use. There isn’t one right answer for everybody, but there is usually a right answer for your job, and it comes down to three things: what the garment is, how many you need, and how much detail is in the artwork.
Here’s how we think about it, in plain terms.
Screen printing: the workhorse for quantity
Screen printing pushes ink through a mesh screen, one screen per color in your design. Making those screens is real work, and it happens once. After that, every shirt off the press is fast. That’s the whole economics of it: the setup is fixed, so the more pieces you print, the less each one costs.
That’s why we tell people screen printing starts making sense somewhere around a dozen pieces and keeps getting better from there.
Good for: tees, event shirts, spirit wear, fundraisers, festival runs. Anything where you want a bold print you can read across a parking lot. Full front, full back, multi-color, and exact color matching if you can give us Pantone numbers.
Where it struggles: very small runs, where the setup is most of the cost. Photographic artwork with hundreds of blended colors is possible but rarely worth what it takes. Some performance fabrics need a specific ink, which we’ll tell you about before we quote it.
There’s one more advantage nobody thinks about until the second order: once we burn a screen for your design, we keep it. That’s a whole post of its own: why we still have your screen from 2019.
Embroidery: for the things you want to look permanent
Embroidery is stitched thread, not ink. It doesn’t crack and it doesn’t wash out. On a collared shirt it reads as uniform instead of merch, which is exactly why offices, crews, and clubs ask for it.
Your logo has to be converted into a stitch file first. That’s digitizing, and it’s a one-time setup. After that your logo is on file here forever and reorders go straight to production.
There’s no minimum. One cap or three hundred polos, both are normal days. We run two six-head machines, so twelve heads can be stitching your job at once.
Good for: polos, caps, jackets, bags, workwear, left-chest logos, monograms.
Where it struggles: hairline detail and very small text, because thread has a minimum size it can hold. Big full-front designs get heavy, stiff, and expensive, since embroidery is priced by how many stitches it takes. Thin or stretchy fabric needs the right backing, and we’ll flag it if yours is risky.
DTF transfers: small runs and complicated art
DTF stands for direct-to-film. The artwork gets printed onto a film and heat pressed onto the garment. No screens, so there’s no per-color setup to pay for.
Good for: a handful of shirts instead of a case of them. Full-color or photographic art. A few one-offs, or names on the back of a short list of pieces.
The tradeoff: the per-piece cost doesn’t drop much as the count goes up, so somewhere on the way to a real quantity, screen printing passes it on price. A transfer also sits on top of the fabric, so it feels different in your hand than a screen print does.
When somebody calls asking for six shirts, this is usually what we recommend — even though it’s the smaller job.
The short version
- A dozen or more of the same design on tees → screen print
- Polos, caps, jackets, anything with a collar → embroidery
- Under a dozen, or full-color artwork → DTF transfer
- A mix of all of that → one order, mixed methods. We do it constantly.
All three work on garments you bring us, too. We’re one of the only shops around that decorates customer-supplied goods, and we’ll walk you through the risks before we start.
When in doubt, just ask
We’d rather talk you out of the expensive method than sell it to you. Send your artwork and your count through the quote form and tell us what the shirts are for. If you’re not sure your file will work, the artwork guidelines page covers what prints cleanly and what needs prep first.
You’ll get a quote in writing and a proof. Nothing gets printed or stitched until you approve that proof, and typical turnaround is 10–14 business days after you do. Need it faster? Ask. Rush is often possible, and we’ll tell you up front what it takes.