Three methods, heavily overlapping marketing claims, genuinely different physics. The decision is almost always made by the fabric, then by quantity.
What each one actually does
Sublimation turns dye into gas with heat so it bonds inside polyester fibres. Nothing sits on top of the fabric, so there is no hand at all and nothing to crack. Only works on polyester or poly-coated surfaces, and only pale ones, because it adds colour and cannot cover.
DTG inkjets water-based ink into the fabric surface, with a pretreat layer to hold white ink up. Excellent on cotton, unlimited colours, superb for photographic art. Needs pretreat on darks and struggles on high-polyester fabrics.
DTF prints onto film, powders it with adhesive, cures it, and heat-presses it onto the garment. Fabric-agnostic and strong on dark garments, but there is a transfer layer with a perceptible hand and edge.
The decision table
| Requirement | Sublimation | DTG | DTF |
|---|---|---|---|
| Cotton garments | No | Yes | Yes |
| Polyester garments | Yes, pale only | Poor | Yes |
| Dark garments | No | Yes, with pretreat | Yes |
| Photographic detail | Excellent | Excellent | Very good |
| No hand at all | Yes | Nearly | No |
| Quantity of one | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Large runs on cotton | No | Costly | Costly |
| Edge-to-edge, all-over | Yes, cut and sew | No | Limited |
| Stretch garments | Excellent | Good | Check the film |
| Setup cost | Minimal | None | None |
Where none of them wins
Large runs of a simple design on cotton. 500 two-colour tees is screen print work. All three of these methods have a roughly flat cost per garment, so at volume they cannot compete with a fixed setup spread thin. See how to price screen printing for the crossover arithmetic.
Anything needing genuine premium feel on a dark cotton garment. A well-executed screen print with a soft-hand ink or discharge still beats a transfer on hand.
Structured caps. Embroidery, or a specialist transfer, not these.
Pick a primary, add a secondary
Small shops do best with one main method and one that covers what it cannot. Common pairings:
- Screen print plus DTF. Volume plus small orders and awkward fabrics. The most common combination for good reason.
- DTG plus DTF. All quantities, all fabrics, no screens at all. Attractive for a shop with no space for a screen room.
- Sublimation plus anything. Sublimation is a specialism for sportswear and all-over work rather than a general-purpose method.
Quote them differently
These methods have different cost shapes, so a single price matrix bent across all of them will be wrong for at least two. Cost DTG per garment by colour and coverage, DTF by sheet area, sublimation by substrate and press cycle.
Compare on total cost per garment, including labour
Material cost is where these comparisons usually stop, and it is the smaller half of the answer. The three methods differ enormously in how much operator attention each garment needs.
| Sublimation | DTF | DTG light | DTG dark | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Consumables per print | Low | Low to medium | Medium | High |
| Operator seconds per garment | 60 to 90 | 60 to 90 | 20 to 40 | 40 to 70 |
| Pre-process | None | Sheet printing and curing | None | Pretreat and dry |
| Fabric range | Pale polyester only | Almost anything | Cotton rich | Cotton rich |
| Hand feel | None | Noticeable film | Soft | Slightly heavier |
| Setup cost | None | None | None | None |
The pattern that surprises people: DTF often looks cheapest on materials and lands mid-table on total cost, because every garment needs a press cycle with someone standing at it. DTG on lights is materially dearer and labour-light. Whether that matters depends on which resource is scarce in your shop, and in most small shops the scarce resource is a person, not a machine.
Run the comparison on your own jobs
One afternoon settles this permanently. Take the same design, produce twelve garments by each method you own, and clock every stage: preparation, pre-process, the press or printer time, finishing.
With hours recorded against jobs, the job costing report shows labour cost and margin after labour per method, which is the number that should drive your quoting. It also settles the recurring internal argument about which machine to use for a borderline job, with evidence rather than preference.
Expect to find one method that is clearly your default for volume, one for awkward fabrics and one you are keeping alive for sentimental reasons. That third one is worth a decision.
Fabric first, always
When a job arrives, the fabric decides more than the quantity does:
- Pale polyester, performance wear, all-over prints. Sublimation, and nothing else comes close on hand feel.
- Dark polyester or poly blends. DTF, because sublimation cannot and DTG struggles with dye migration.
- Cotton or cotton-rich, photographic detail, small runs. DTG.
- Mixed fabric orders in one job. DTF, because one transfer type covers the lot.
- Large single-design runs on cotton. Screen printing, whatever the three methods above can do, on cost.
Watch the failure modes, not just the strengths
Each method has one characteristic failure that decides customer satisfaction. Sublimation fades on anything that is not properly polyester and cannot go on dark fabric at all. DTF fails at the edges when pressing is inconsistent, and the film can peel after aggressive washing. DTG on darks fails at the pretreat stage more often than at the print stage, which is why pretreat troubleshooting is a longer article than it looks like it should be. Knowing the failure mode of the method you chose is what lets you set expectations honestly before the order rather than defend them afterwards.
Printer's Friend prices each decoration method on its own model, with the pretreat, gang sheet and cure steps attached to the right jobs. See the DTG, DTF and sublimation pages, or look the terms up in the glossary.