The RushDTF Team · Updated 2026-05-20 · 9 min read
We run a DTF print shop in Regina and ship across Canada every day. Here is the real comparison between screen printing and direct-to-film — no hype, with the math.
If you've Googled this question, you've probably already read ten articles that read like they were written by someone who has never actually pulled a squeegee or peeled a transfer. We run a DTF shop out of Regina, Saskatchewan, ship to apparel businesses across BC, Alberta, Manitoba and Ontario every day, and got our start screen printing band merch in a garage. This is the comparison we wish existed when we were trying to figure out which one to bet on.
Short version: neither one is better. They solve different problems. The trick is knowing which problem you actually have.
| Screen Printing | DTF Transfers | |
|---|---|---|
| Best for | Large runs, 1–3 spot colors | Small runs, full color, mixed garments |
| Cost per print at 12 shirts | $$ (setup eats the order) | $ |
| Cost per print at 500 shirts | $ (cheapest at scale) | $ |
| Setup cost / screen fees | $25–$60 per color | $0 |
| Minimum order | Usually 12–24 pieces | 1 piece |
| Turnaround | 5–10 business days | 1–2 business days |
| Color count | Practical max ~6 | Unlimited / photo |
| Hand feel | Softest when done right | Very soft, slight film |
| Wash life | 50+ with cured plastisol | 50+ when pressed correctly |
| Fabric range | Mostly cotton & blends | Cotton, poly, nylon, blends, denim, canvas |
| Personalization (names/numbers) | Painful | Built for it |
Screen printing wins on big single-design runs. DTF wins on everything else — variety, speed, photos, mixed garments, and any order under about 50 pieces.
Screen printing pushes ink through a tensioned mesh screen onto a garment, one color at a time. Each color in your design needs its own screen, its own emulsion burn, and its own pass under the press. Cure the ink in a conveyor dryer at around 320°F and you've got a print that, frankly, can outlast the shirt.
When it goes well, screen printing has the softest hand on cotton of any method we've used. A waterbased or discharge ink print on a ringspun tee feels like nothing is there at all. Plastisol — the more common choice — sits a little heavier but holds color beautifully and survives commercial laundering.
The catch is setup. Burning screens, mixing Pantones, registering colors, taping off the press — that's an hour of labor before the first shirt is printed. Spread across 200 shirts, it disappears. Spread across 12 shirts, it crushes the math.
DTF prints your artwork onto a special PET film using CMYK plus white ink, dusts the wet print with a hot-melt adhesive powder, cures it in an oven, and then you press the finished film onto a garment at 290°F for about 8 seconds. The result is a full-color transfer that bonds to almost any fabric.
The thing that actually changed the game for small print shops isn't DTF the chemistry — it's the gang sheet. Instead of running one design at a time, you upload as many designs as you want onto a 22-inch-wide sheet, pay by the linear foot, and we print them all together. A wedding photographer can order one transfer. A team mom can order 30 different jersey numbers. A boutique can order 14 designs in 4 sizes each. There are no setup fees and no minimums, because the printer doesn't care what's on the film.
Before DTF, the only way to do full-color on cotton in small quantities was DTG, which is slow, fussy about pretreatment, and limited to light-colored cotton. DTF works on dark shirts, polyester jerseys, hoodies, hats, canvas bags, and just about anything you can fit a heat press onto.
These are honest ballpark prices for a Canadian customer comparing a screen shop quote to a DTF gang sheet from us. Every shop prices differently, but the ratios hold up.
Drag your artwork into our gang sheet builder and the price is on screen in under 30 seconds. No account, no minimum, no nonsense.
We've washed our own DTF samples 75+ times in a household washer (cold water, gentle, inside out) without meaningful degradation — slight softening of the edges and no cracking. Properly cured plastisol screen prints do the same. The honest difference is hand: a single-color screen print on a midweight cotton tee feels softer than even the thinnest DTF transfer.
DTF does have one feel advantage worth naming: because it bonds with the fabric instead of sitting on top of an underbase, photo prints on dark garments feel dramatically softer than the equivalent screen-printed simulated-process job, which usually needs a heavy white underbase.
Press at 290°F for 8 seconds, warm peel, then press again for 8 seconds with a Teflon sheet. Tell your customer to wash inside-out on cold and air-dry the first wash. Do those things and the print will outlast the garment.
Screen printing is the king of bold, opaque, perfectly-matched Pantone color. If your brand lives or dies by a specific PMS red, a good screen printer will hit it exactly. Screens also handle specialty inks DTF can't touch — high-density puff, metallics, glitter, glow, suede base, discharge.
DTF is the king of detail and gradients. Full-color logos, photo reproduction, fine 6pt text, distressed vintage textures, watercolor effects — all trivial. The trade-off is that DTF is a CMYK process, so neon pinks and electric oranges shift a touch on press. Bright fluorescents are the one place you'll miss a screen.
Screen printing is happiest on cotton and cotton-rich blends. It can be done on polyester with the right inks and a low-bleed white, but it's fussy. Nylon and waterproof fabrics need special adhesion promoters and a different ink chemistry.
DTF doesn't care. Cotton, poly, tri-blends, performance moisture-wicking jerseys, nylon, denim, canvas tote bags, fleece, terry cloth, twill ball caps, even leather patches — we have pressed all of them with the same film. If you can fit it under a heat press and it can handle 290°F, DTF works on it.
A reasonable screen shop will quote you 7–10 business days, longer in busy season, with a 12 or 24 piece minimum. That's not them being slow — that's the time it takes to burn screens, mix ink, wait for a press to free up, and run an order economically.
We ship DTF transfers from Regina in 1–2 business days. One transfer or two thousand. No minimum, no setup. For Western Canada that means a Calgary or Saskatoon shop can place an order Monday and be pressing Wednesday. Toronto and Ottawa are usually 3–4 business days door to door.
The print shops that print the most don't fight this debate — they run both. Here's the workflow we see win, over and over, from our customers:
You get the soft hand and unit economics of screen on your best-seller, and the speed and flexibility of DTF on everything else. The two methods aren't rivals; they're a tool kit.
Upload PNG, SVG, or PDF artwork, arrange your designs on a 22-inch sheet, and we'll print and ship from Regina in 1–2 business days. No account required to get a price.
On small orders, yes — significantly. Anything under about 50 pieces of a single design will almost always be cheaper with DTF because there are no setup fees or screen charges. On large single-design runs of 100+ pieces with 1–3 colors, screen printing pulls ahead on cost per shirt.
Not if they're pressed correctly. A properly applied DTF transfer (290°F, 8-second first press, warm peel, 8-second post-press) survives 50+ washes without cracking or lifting. Most failures we see are under-pressing — not enough heat, not enough pressure, or peeling too cold.
When pressed correctly and washed inside-out on cold, DTF transfers consistently last the life of the garment. Our own wash-test samples are past 75 cycles with only minor softening at the edges. Tumble drying on high heat is the single biggest thing that shortens print life.
Yes — this is one of the places DTF beats screen printing outright. DTF bonds cleanly to 100% polyester, performance moisture-wicking jerseys, and tri-blends without dye migration when you press at the recommended 290°F. For very heat-sensitive jerseys, drop to 265°F and add 2–3 seconds.
Most Canadian screen shops set a minimum of 12 or 24 pieces per design per color. Below that, the screen and setup fees make the per-shirt price impractical. DTF has no minimum — you can order a single 4-inch transfer.
300 DPI at the final print size, in PNG with a transparent background. Vector formats (SVG, PDF) are even better because they scale without quality loss. Avoid upscaling small low-resolution images — DTF will faithfully print the pixelation.
Yes, perfectly. DTF prints a layer of white ink underneath the color layer automatically, so the same transfer works on white tees, black hoodies, charcoal performance jerseys, or any other color garment with no adjustment.
A single-color waterbased screen print on a thin cotton tee is the softest finish in apparel printing, full stop. DTF is very soft and has improved noticeably in the last two years, but you can still feel the film slightly if you run your hand across it. For multi-color or dark-garment prints, DTF often feels softer than a screen print with a heavy white underbase.
We ship from our Regina, Saskatchewan facility in 24–48 hours. Most Western Canadian addresses (Saskatoon, Calgary, Edmonton, Winnipeg, Vancouver) arrive in 1–2 business days. Ontario and the Maritimes are typically 3–5 business days.
Absolutely, and a lot of premium brands do exactly this — a screen-printed front graphic for the soft hand and an inside neck label or sleeve hit done in DTF. Just press the DTF transfer last so the screen ink is already cured.