Hi there, welcome to Tshirthelpdesk.com.
My name is Gary. I have been working as a brand graphic designer for 20 years now, and here I am to share my wealth of knowledge with you. I teach people to design, market, and promote their t-shirt business.
Recently, I have been noticing a lot of questions related to the DTG printers, such as: “Why are DTG printers so expensive? What are the cost of the inks?”
Therefore, I met Chuck from OmniPrint International, and I asked him all the questions regarding DTG printers.
So, this blog is about DTG printers and a lot of information that will clear a lot of facts about the cost of DTG printing in the t-shirt Industry.
So, keep reading!
Question 1: What is the cost of a DTG machine?
“It is not about the cost of owning a machine. It is the cost of not having one. Like everything else, if it is paying for itself, then the cost becomes an immaterial thing. Even though these things might cost 10-20 thousand dollars for an overall package cost, the value you get from the production and sales would be more than the total cost of the machine in a short time”, answered chuck.
A long time ago, I heard something that I took to the heart that is “things are not what they cost, but what they are worth.”
The fact here is that when you have a good quality printer like a DTG machine, then you would be able to print great designs and, people recognize and quality and, it would sell. So, the initial cost is an investment that will pay you back in the future in terms of profit and revenue.
Question 2: What do you say about the ink cost?
“Ink is one of the things that people ask after they ask for the printer cost, and then they ask how much is the Ink. The ink is in-relationship with how much you are putting down on the garment. But, it also has to do with how much you are going to waste during the process, and the ownership of the machine. All of our machines use a bulking system. Remember that many times we may have a problem with desktop printers showing that they are out of ink, but when you shake the cartridge you’ll then see the inside ink shaking. The same thing is true with the other DTG printers, they all use cartridges.
When most machines are idle or in a dormant stage for a few days or so, they are still going to do what is called a ‘head clean’ in 24 hours. That will waste the expensive ink”, answered Chuck.
“In our machines, we have a wet-capping system, when the machines would shut down and, those ink levels will stay the same during that period. So, all of these things add up to the overall ink cost in a DTG machine. Coming to the cost, we have two different machines with a different cost for the ink. However, one thing that I can quote is that our inks relatively cost lower, and that will save 50-80% of costs in contrast to all of our competitors”, Chuck added.
Question 3: What is the cost of maintenance?
“The introductory cost of a machine is one thing, but over the time if you have to pay a lot on maintenance then it adds to the overall ownership of the machine. Typically, DTG machines are going to cost $80-$120 a month, which is due to the repetitive head clean that keeps the machine in operation. With ours, the cost is around $25-$30 a month. This makes a significant difference in the overall ownership of a DTG machine” answered chuck.
Question 4: How do I get a return on my Investment?
“When people call us, we are not initially interested in selling a machine. Our primary purpose is to make sure that this is a good investment for them. It needs to make good economic sense. And somehow if it doesn’t make economic sense, then they should not buy the machine. So, the things that they can look for are the maintenance costs, and ink costs combined with the upfront cost of the machine. So then, they’ll look at the cost of printing. So, let’s take an example: You have a black shirt spring cotton t-shirt with a 9 by 12 graphic (this can be more expensive than a commonly used white t-shirt). This machine is going to run you a cost of roughly around $5 as a cost. Most of our clients are selling these shirts at around 15-30 dollars. Now, you can do the simple math that you would be making a profit of $10-25 on an average sale. Let’s consider the initial investment for $30,000, now you need to sell 2000 shirts with a cost of $15 for t-shirts over 12-24 months. This will narrow down to 100 t-shirt sales in a month. Then, it makes good economic sense for you. If you’re unsure about making such sales, then you should not consider getting a DTG machine.” Answered chuck.
Question 5: How do I justify this purchase?
“So, to justify this purchase, I would like to go back to what we discussed about the return on investment. We mentioned at the beginning of this dialogue that it is not about the initial cost, because many machines will cost lower than this, but we should also consider the cost of maintenance, and the cost of the print. To put this into perspective, if you take our machine, and let’s just say that you sold 400 t-shirts a month and you did that for 5 years when you compare our cost to the cost of the other machines that we compete against every day. In many cases, you will find that there would be a significant difference of $37,000 in terms of out of pocket cost”, answered Chuck.
Now, one would think that you would have bought a couple of machines for this amount of money, which is true, but here is the primary difference: $37,000 shows that you could have printed 7,000 more t-shirts. Also, if you make $15-$20 out of each shirt, then you can do the math on that, because now we are talking about 80, 90, 100 thousand dollars worth of foregone profit that is out of your hands. So it is not just what you are paying for upfront, but what its paybacks do to own, run, and maintain it, and when you have a machine that has won awards over and over again, I can assure you that no one is going to come back and ask how much the machine costs, or what is the machine’s printing speed.
All they care about is what is the quality of print(s) that you deliver, and when you have high quality with a low cost of the print, then you can do the math, because you are covering both sides of the equation”, Chuck added.
Wrapping up
That’s it! This was my blog about the conversation that I had with Chuck from OmniPrint International.
I have tried my best to cover all the general questions regarding the DTG printers. You can watch the full video here: https://youtu.be/YnS3MtuhS4o
I hope this helps!
Let me know if you have any questions in the comments section down below.
If you want the price go right here Omniprint Freejet Price .
