What's the difference between DTG and DTF?

DTG prints ink straight into the fibres of the fabric, so the print is soft, breathable and blends into the material by touch — but it needs cotton. DTF prints the design onto a film and then transfers it to the fabric, creating a thin layer on the surface, but it holds on practically any material including polyester and dark fabrics. Put simply: cotton → DTG, everything else → DTF.

Which print lasts the longest?

Sublimation, because the colour is part of the fibre and has nothing to peel off — but it only works on light polyester. Right behind it is embroidery, which lasts as long as the garment itself. Screen print holds for years, though very heavy ink coverage can crack over time. DTG and DTF handle dozens of washes when washed inside out at up to 30 °C.

Can I have just one piece printed?

Yes, the minimum is one piece and you pay no set-up surcharge. That applies to both DTG and DTF, so to everything you design straight in the catalogue.

How big can the print be?

On men's and unisex cuts up to 35 × 40 cm front and back, and with DTG up to 40 × 53 cm across the whole panel. On women's the maximum is roughly 25 × 30 cm, on kids' 18 × 20 cm. On the chest 15 × 20 cm, on the sleeve 10 × 12 cm. We don't print over a zip, a pocket or a heavy seam, so on hoodies with a kangaroo pocket count on roughly 30 × 30 cm.

Does the print crack after washing?

With normal care, no. DTG on light fabric sits inside the fibre, so there's nothing to crack; on dark fabric there's a white base layer under the design that can crack with poor care. DTF is a flexible layer that bends with the fabric — it can crack if you iron directly over the print or repeatedly wash it hot. Sublimation and embroidery don't crack at all.

Why is there a lighter rectangle around the print on a dark shirt?

That's a trace of the pre-treatment DTG needs on dark cotton so the white base grips the fibre. After the first wash it usually disappears or fades substantially, though on some dark shades a faint trace can remain. If you want the garment clean straight away, let us know — we can print the same design with DTF, which needs no pre-treatment.

How many colours can the design have?

With DTG and sublimation as many as you like, with photos and subtle gradients included. DTF also handles unlimited colours, but the white base means it won't do semi-transparent gradients and soft edges. With screen print every colour means its own screen, so it directly affects the price. With embroidery the colour count stays in the low single digits.

Can you match our brand colour exactly by Pantone?

With digital printing, not exactly. DTG and DTF build a shade from inks, so they can differ slightly from Pantone — and the same file looks different on cotton than on polyester. Bear in mind too that a colour on a monitor never matches fabric exactly: a display emits light, fabric doesn't. If you need a colour to a brand manual, the route is screen print, where ink is mixed to order. Send us the Pantone code with your quote request.

Can you print on 100% polyester?

Yes, with DTF. DTG doesn't hold on pure polyester because the ink needs a cotton fibre to grip. For jerseys and performance tees we therefore reach for DTF, and for larger runs we can also offer sublimation.

Do you do screen printing?

Yes, but on request, not through the catalogue. On smaller runs digital comes out cheaper because screen print needs the screens prepared. From a higher volume the ratio flips — send a quote request and we'll cost both options side by side.

Can I have my own neck label instead of the manufacturer's?

Yes. We can print your own label into the neck with DTF, or sew in a woven label or add a hang tag with your brand. It's useful when you sell under your own name and don't want someone else's logo on the garment. Arranged in the quote request.

Do I have to choose the technology myself?

In most cases, no. For catalogue products we pick the technology by fabric for you, so you're choosing a product, not a print method. It's only worth thinking about for special requirements — neon, metallics, all-over designs or a large run. In that case, write to us in a quote request.

Print methods for apparel: DTG, DTF, sublimation, screen print and embroidery

Five technologies, five different results. We'll show you how they differ, which fabric each one suits, and which to pick for a single piece or for three hundred.

Printing isn't one single thing. Whether your design peels after twenty washes, whether you feel the print against your skin, and how much you pay for two hundred pieces all come down to the technology that puts the design on the fabric.

At Bontee we print straight from the catalogue using two digital technologies — DTG and DTF. They handle any number of colours, photos and gradients, and they make sense from a single piece. Sublimation, screen print and embroidery we do on request, mainly for larger runs and special materials.

Comparison

Print methods compared

If you don't want to read everything, here's the whole page in five rows.

Comparison of print methods by suitability, fabric, minimum quantity, limits and durability
Method	Best for	Fabric	Min. quantity	Where it stops	Durability
DTG	Cotton tees and hoodies, photos, gradients	Cotton and cotton-rich blends	1 piece	Needs cotton or a cotton-rich blend. No neon or metallics, and we can't guarantee an exact brand shade. On dark cotton the pre-treatment can leave a lighter rectangle, which usually disappears after washing.	High — on light cotton the colour sits in the fibre; on dark garments there's a white base under the design that can crack
DTF	Jerseys, dark fabrics, bags, logos with clean edges	Practically anything, including 100% polyester	1 piece	Can't do semi-transparent gradients or soft blurred edges. Lines under 1 mm can peel. You can feel the print on the surface.	High — a flexible layer on the surface
Sublimation	Sports jerseys, all-over prints, mugs	Light polyester and coated items only	On request	Light polyester only. It won't hold on cotton and won't show on dark fabric. White in the design means the colour of the fabric.	The highest — the colour is part of the fibre
Screen print	Large uniform runs, neon, metallics	Cotton and blends	On request, from larger runs	Set-up doesn't pay off on small runs. Every extra colour costs. Photos and gradients only via halftones.	High — a thick opaque layer of ink; very heavy ink coverage can crack after years
Embroidery	Logos on polos, caps, workwear	Sturdier fabrics, not fine knits	On request	No photos or gradients. Text under 5 mm blurs together. It puckers fine knits. One-off fee for digitising into stitches.	The most durable — lasts as long as the garment itself

Durability in the table assumes normal care — washed inside out at up to 30 °C. How to get the most out of your print is covered below.

DTG

Pigment wraps the fibre just below the surface. Nothing sits on top of the fabric, so you can't feel the print and there's nothing to crack.

DTF

The colour forms a continuous layer on the fabric surface. That's where the punch on dark fabrics comes from — and why you can feel the layer.

Sublimation

The dye is fused inside the polyester fibre. It isn't a layer, it's a dyed fibre.

Cross-section of the fabric at the print. The circles are the knit's fibres, orange is the colour.

DTG

DTG printing: digital printing straight into the fabric

DTG (direct to garment) works like a giant inkjet printer for textiles. Water-based pigment ink is sprayed straight into the fibres of the fabric, dries inside them and becomes part of them. On dark garments a white base is laid down first — without it the colour would be transparent.

Because nothing is prepared in advance — no mesh, no plate — the first piece costs the same as the fiftieth. That's why DTG is the backbone of our catalogue.

A DTG printer printing a design directly onto a cotton t-shirt

Best for: Cotton tees and hoodies. Photos, illustrations and subtle gradients. From a single piece.
Strengths: Unlimited colours at no extra cost. A soft, breathable print — by touch you can barely tell it from the fabric. On light cotton the colour sits right in the fibre, so there's nothing to crack.
Things to consider: It wants cotton — ink won't grip 100% polyester, and on blends colours come out lighter, a slightly vintage effect. On dark fabrics there's a white base layer under the design that can crack over time if you iron over the print. Neon and metallics are out.

How to order: Straight from the catalogue, from 1 piece.

DTF

DTF printing: a film transfer that holds on almost anything

DTF (direct to film) takes the scenic route. The design is printed onto a special film, dusted with powder adhesive, cured, and the finished transfer is then pressed onto the fabric with heat and pressure. The result is a thin flexible layer bonded to the fabric surface.

That makes DTF almost fabric-agnostic. Cotton, polyester, blends, and most bags, backpacks and caps — it holds everywhere. The price you pay is the white base layer: the design always has a hard edge, so DTF won't do semi-transparent gradients or soft blurring.

A printed DTF film ready to be transferred onto fabric

Best for: Polyester jerseys and performance tees, dark fabrics, bags and backpacks. Logos with clearly defined shapes.
Strengths: Fabric is barely a concern. Colours are richer on dark garments than with DTG. No set-up, so again from a single piece.
Things to consider: It won't do semi-transparent gradients or soft edges — the white base gives the design a sharp edge every time. Lines under 1 mm and text under 4 mm can peel. With nylon and membranes we test first. And you can feel the print on the surface.

How to order: Straight from the catalogue, from 1 piece.

Sublimation

Sublimation printing: colour fused straight into the fibre

In sublimation, heat turns the ink straight from a solid into a gas, which penetrates the polyester fibre and solidifies again inside it. No layer forms on the fabric — the colour becomes part of the material.

That's both the greatest strength and the greatest limitation. You can't feel the print, and it can't crack or peel. But it only works where there's polyester, and only on a light base — white sublimation ink doesn't exist.

A sublimation calender fusing colour into polyester fabric

Best for: Polyester sports jerseys and performance tees, all-over designs. Mugs and other items with a polymer coating.
Strengths: You can't feel the print at all, and the shirt stays exactly as breathable as it was. The highest durability of any print technology.
Things to consider: Polyester only, and light fabric only — it won't hold on cotton and won't show on dark garments. White in the design means the colour of the fabric. All-over designs across seams are sewn from pre-printed panels, so they take longer and have their own minimum.

How to order: On request — we'll put a quote together.

Screen print

Screen printing: the classic for large uniform runs

Screen printing pushes thick ink through a stretched mesh with a burned-in stencil. Each colour in the design needs its own screen, which costs time and money — but only once. Once set-up is done, every additional piece is fast and cheap.

That's why screen printing isn't worth it for ten pieces and is unbeatable for a thousand.

A screen printing carousel – a squeegee pushing ink through the mesh

Best for: Large runs of a single design — festival tees, corporate collections, merch in higher volumes.
Strengths: The price per piece drops sharply with quantity. Maximum opaque colour on dark fabrics. And it does what digital can't: neon, metallics, reflective inks and puff effects.
Things to consider: Every extra colour means another screen and more set-up cost. Photos and subtle gradients are handled with halftones. On small runs the set-up doesn't disappear into the price.

How to order: On request for larger runs — we'll work out whether it beats DTG or DTF for you.

Embroidery

Embroidery: the most durable way to put a logo on fabric

With embroidery nothing is printed. The design is first digitised for the embroidery machine — stitch order, direction and density are set — and then needles stitch it straight into the fabric with thread.

It looks more expensive because it is. In return, an embroidered logo outlives the garment itself.

Best for: Logos on the chest, sleeve or a cap. Polos, fleece hoodies, caps and workwear.
Strengths: The highest perceived value — it reads as more premium than print immediately. It doesn't crack or peel and outlasts printing.
Things to consider: Not for photos, gradients or large solid areas. Text under 5 mm blurs together. It puckers fine knits, and on membrane jackets the needle holes compromise water resistance. Digitising the design into stitches is a one-off fee.

How to order: On request — send us your logo and the fabric.

Deciding

How to pick the right technology

In most cases the fabric and the quantity decide it. Here are the four most common situations.

1 piece

I want one piece or a few

Decide by fabric: cotton → DTG, polyester or dark performance fabric → DTF. You order both straight from the catalogue and pay nothing for set-up.

10–30 pcs

We're doing tees for a team or a class

At ten to thirty pieces screen print set-up doesn't pay off, so digital it is. It also lets every piece carry a different name or number. Use a group order — everyone picks their own size.

Business

We need company merch with our logo

DTG or DTF for tees and hoodies. For polos and caps embroidery works well and immediately reads as more premium. For softshells and jackets printing is the safer choice — the needle pierces the fabric and can compromise water resistance on membranes. Tell us what and how many in a quote request.

100+ pcs

We're planning a run of over a hundred

Here it's worth comparing digital against screen print — for one design with a few colours and a high volume, screen print comes out cheaper. Send a quote request and we'll cost both side by side.

Care

How long a print lasts and how to look after it

Durability comes down less to the technology than to how you wash it. These three rules add dozens of washes to a digital print; sublimation and embroidery last practically as long as the garment itself.

Wash inside out, up to 30 °C

That protects the print from rubbing against the drum and the rest of the laundry. Higher temperatures speed up fading on DTG and screen print, and can damage the layer on DTF.

No bleach, no fabric softener

Bleach breaks down the pigment, and softener leaves a film on the print that changes how it feels over time. Ordinary detergent is enough.

Skip the dryer and the iron

Ironing directly over the print damages it. When you have to, iron inside out or through a cotton cloth. A tumble dryer shortens the life of both DTG and DTF.

Artwork

What artwork we need from you

Print quality is made or broken by the artwork. This is all you need to know.

Vector is the safest bet — we can scale an SVG to any size without losing sharpness. Ideal for logos and text.
We print from PNG too — we want a transparent background, RGB and 300 DPI at the actual print size. For a design 35 cm wide that's roughly 4,100 px.
A transparent background is a must. A white square around the design prints as a white square, and on a dark shirt it shows immediately.
You'll see a preview right in the designer. If the resolution is weak for the size you picked, the designer will flag it before you order.

Limits

Technical limits: how big a print can be and what each technology can't do

The hard numbers in one place, so you don't have to guess whether your design fits and whether it lasts.

Technical limits of the individual print methods
Method	Largest print area	Artwork	Smallest text and line	What we can't do
DTG	35 × 40 cm front and back 40 × 53 cm oversize 15 × 20 cm on the chest 10 × 12 cm on the sleeve	SVG or PNG with transparency, RGB, 300 DPI	text from 3 mm line from 0.8 mm	Neon, metallics, reflective inks; we can't guarantee an exact Pantone shade
DTF	35 × 40 cm front and back 15 × 20 cm on the chest 10 × 12 cm on the sleeve neck label on request	SVG or PNG with transparency, RGB, 300 DPI	text from 4 mm line from 1 mm	Semi-transparent gradients and soft edges, neon, metallics; we can't guarantee an exact Pantone
Sublimation	35 × 40 cm all-over print across the whole garment on request	Agreed in the quote request	text from 2 mm line from 0.5 mm	Dark fabrics, cotton, white in the design
Screen print	Depends on the tooling, confirmed in the quote request	Vector with separated colours	text from 4 mm line from 1 mm	Photorealistic gradients without a visible halftone
Embroidery	Roughly up to 15 × 20 cm, depending on the machine and placement	Vector or a sharp raster	text from 5 mm line from 1.3 mm	Photos, gradients, large solid areas

Dimensions apply to men's and unisex cuts; on women's the maximum is roughly 25 × 30 cm, on kids' 18 × 20 cm. We can't print over a zip, a pocket or a heavy seam, so on hoodies with a kangaroo pocket count on roughly 30 × 30 cm above the pocket. Placement has a tolerance of about ±1 cm, and the minimum text and line sizes are recommendations, not hard limits.

Print method FAQ

What you ask us most often when choosing a print technology.

: DTG prints ink straight into the fibres of the fabric, so the print is soft, breathable and blends into the material by touch — but it needs cotton. DTF prints the design onto a film and then transfers it to the fabric, creating a thin layer on the surface, but it holds on practically any material including polyester and dark fabrics. Put simply: cotton → DTG, everything else → DTF.
: Sublimation, because the colour is part of the fibre and has nothing to peel off — but it only works on light polyester. Right behind it is embroidery, which lasts as long as the garment itself. Screen print holds for years, though very heavy ink coverage can crack over time. DTG and DTF handle dozens of washes when washed inside out at up to 30 °C.
: Yes, the minimum is one piece and you pay no set-up surcharge. That applies to both DTG and DTF, so to everything you design straight in the catalogue.
: On men's and unisex cuts up to 35 × 40 cm front and back, and with DTG up to 40 × 53 cm across the whole panel. On women's the maximum is roughly 25 × 30 cm, on kids' 18 × 20 cm. On the chest 15 × 20 cm, on the sleeve 10 × 12 cm. We don't print over a zip, a pocket or a heavy seam, so on hoodies with a kangaroo pocket count on roughly 30 × 30 cm.
: With normal care, no. DTG on light fabric sits inside the fibre, so there's nothing to crack; on dark fabric there's a white base layer under the design that can crack with poor care. DTF is a flexible layer that bends with the fabric — it can crack if you iron directly over the print or repeatedly wash it hot. Sublimation and embroidery don't crack at all.
: That's a trace of the pre-treatment DTG needs on dark cotton so the white base grips the fibre. After the first wash it usually disappears or fades substantially, though on some dark shades a faint trace can remain. If you want the garment clean straight away, let us know — we can print the same design with DTF, which needs no pre-treatment.
: With DTG and sublimation as many as you like, with photos and subtle gradients included. DTF also handles unlimited colours, but the white base means it won't do semi-transparent gradients and soft edges. With screen print every colour means its own screen, so it directly affects the price. With embroidery the colour count stays in the low single digits.
: With digital printing, not exactly. DTG and DTF build a shade from inks, so they can differ slightly from Pantone — and the same file looks different on cotton than on polyester. Bear in mind too that a colour on a monitor never matches fabric exactly: a display emits light, fabric doesn't. If you need a colour to a brand manual, the route is screen print, where ink is mixed to order. Send us the Pantone code with your quote request.
: Yes, with DTF. DTG doesn't hold on pure polyester because the ink needs a cotton fibre to grip. For jerseys and performance tees we therefore reach for DTF, and for larger runs we can also offer sublimation.
: Yes, but on request, not through the catalogue. On smaller runs digital comes out cheaper because screen print needs the screens prepared. From a higher volume the ratio flips — send a quote request and we'll cost both options side by side.
: Yes. We can print your own label into the neck with DTF, or sew in a woven label or add a hang tag with your brand. It's useful when you sell under your own name and don't want someone else's logo on the garment. Arranged in the quote request.
: In most cases, no. For catalogue products we pick the technology by fabric for you, so you're choosing a product, not a print method. It's only worth thinking about for special requirements — neon, metallics, all-over designs or a large run. In that case, write to us in a quote request.

Design it and leave the technology to us

Pick a product in the catalogue, upload your design and see a preview straight away. We print from a single piece and ship within 3 working days.