A DTF printing business plan sets out what you'll print and who buys it, what a shirt and a transfer cost and sell for, the equipment and its upkeep, and the first year month by month. DTF, direct to film, prints a design onto film, coats it with an adhesive powder and cures it, so the transfer can be heat-pressed onto almost any fabric. That gives a shop two businesses from one printer: finished shirts for people and teams, and gang sheets, rolls of transfers sold to crafters who press their own. In the example below, a shop in Worcester sells single shirts online, team orders, gang sheets and hoodies, makes a profit from month 3, and ends the year about $24,800 ahead on $80,300 of sales, after paying $20 an hour for the work, which pays back the $16,800 of equipment and first stock within the year. Below is a description example, each part of the plan, the printer and the rights, the projection, the startup budget, and a free template.
The short version
- Describe the business in a paragraph: what you print, who buys it, the workspace, the goals.
- Cost a shirt: the blank, the transfer, the design proof, the pressing, the mailer and the fees.
- The blank costs more than the print; buy blanks by the case.
- Team orders leave less a shirt and more an hour; gang sheets sell to crafters with no blanks to stock.
- Budget for the printhead and for ventilation: curing the powder gives off fumes.
- Print only designs the customer has the rights to; children's shirts bring CPSC rules.
- TaroStack keeps blanks counted by style, size and color. More below.
Part 1: the business description
Canal District Print Co., a made-up shirt printer in Worcester, Massachusetts, I use in these examples, writes:
Canal District Print Co. prints custom shirts and hoodies with direct-to-film transfers, sold one at a time online, in bulk to teams, schools and businesses, and as gang sheets to crafters who press their own. Every order gets a proof before printing. In our first year we plan to fill 80 team and business orders.
Part 2: what a shirt costs
| Per unit | T-shirt, single, online | Team shirt, 24 and up | Gang sheet, 22 × 60 in | Hoodie |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Blank shirt or hoodie | $4.00 | $3.50 | $12.00 | |
| Transfer: film, ink and powder | $1.20 | $1.20 | $7.30 | $1.50 |
| Design proof, at $20 an hour | $1.67 | $0.21 | $1.67 | |
| Pressing and folding, or printing and cutting | $2.00 | $1.00 | $3.33 | $2.00 |
| Mailer, tube or box share | $0.60 | $0.15 | $1.20 | $0.80 |
| Selling and card fees | $2.00 | $0.42 | $2.00 | $3.60 |
| Variable cost | $11.47 | $6.48 | $13.83 | $21.57 |
A single shirt carries 5 minutes of design proof and 6 of pressing, trimming and folding; a team order spreads 15 minutes of proofing over 24 shirts and presses them in a run at 3 minutes each. A gang sheet is film, ink and powder for 22 by 60 inches, printed, cured and cut in about 10 minutes, with no blank. Online sales pay 8% in platform and card fees; team orders are invoiced at 3%. Blank prices move with the season and the supplier; a supplier price tracking template shows when. How to cost the mailer and box properly is in packaging cost per unit.
Part 3: customers and prices
| Product | Price | Variable cost | Contribution | Margin | A month at full speed |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Custom T-shirt, single, online | $25.00 | $11.47 | $13.53 | 54.1% | 100 |
| Team and business shirts, 24 and up, a shirt | $14.00 | $6.48 | $7.52 | 53.7% | 300 |
| Gang sheet, 22 × 60 in, to crafters | $25.00 | $13.83 | $11.17 | 44.7% | 150 |
| Custom hoodie | $45.00 | $21.57 | $23.43 | 52.1% | 30 |
A team shirt leaves $7.52, half a single shirt, but at 3.6 minutes of work it's about $125 an hour on top of the wage, against $74 for a single shirt at 11 minutes. Gang sheets need no blanks in stock, so they're the line that keeps the printer busy between team orders. A team or business that likes the shirts reorders next season; a wholesale order form template keeps their sizes and colors on file.
Part 4: the printer and the rights
The printer is the business, and it needs looking after: DTF white ink settles and printheads can clog if the printer sits, so the plan budgets $150 every month for maintenance and a printhead reserve, and prints something every working day. Curing the adhesive powder gives off fumes, so a fume extractor and ventilation are in the budget. Customers bring designs, and a sports team's logo or a cartoon character usually belongs to someone else: printing it without permission can infringe their trademark or copyright, so the order form asks the customer to confirm they have the rights, and the shop turns down obvious brands. Shirts designed or intended mainly for children 12 and under are children's products, which need third-party testing and a Children's Product Certificate (CPSC), so this plan sells adult sizes. This is general information, not legal advice.
Part 5: the first year, month by month
Fixed costs are $1,325 a month: workspace rent ($650), printer maintenance and a printhead reserve ($150), ventilation and power ($90), marketing and samples ($300), the website and online shop ($40), insurance ($60), and software and card fees ($35). Sales start at 15% of full speed and reach it by month 11, about 67 hours of work a month:
| Month | Single shirts | Team shirts | Gang sheets | Hoodies | Sales | Profit | Cash, year to date |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 15 | 45 | 23 | 5 | $1,805 | −$410 | −$410 |
| 2 | 20 | 60 | 30 | 6 | $2,360 | −$128 | −$537 |
| 3 | 25 | 75 | 38 | 8 | $2,985 | $189 | −$348 |
| 4 | 30 | 90 | 45 | 9 | $3,540 | $471 | $123 |
| 5 | 40 | 120 | 60 | 12 | $4,720 | $1,070 | $1,193 |
| 6 | 50 | 150 | 75 | 15 | $5,900 | $1,669 | $2,862 |
| 7 | 60 | 180 | 90 | 18 | $7,080 | $2,267 | $5,129 |
| 8 | 70 | 210 | 105 | 21 | $8,260 | $2,866 | $7,996 |
| 9 | 80 | 240 | 120 | 24 | $9,440 | $3,465 | $11,460 |
| 10 | 90 | 270 | 135 | 27 | $10,620 | $4,064 | $15,524 |
| 11 | 100 | 300 | 150 | 30 | $11,800 | $4,662 | $20,187 |
| 12 | 100 | 300 | 150 | 30 | $11,800 | $4,662 | $24,849 |
The year's sales are $80,310 and the profit $24,849, on top of $20 an hour for the work. The $16,800 of equipment and first stock in the startup budget is paid back by about month 11.
Part 6: the startup budget
| Item | Example |
|---|---|
| 24-inch DTF printer with powder shaker and dryer | $12,000 |
| 16 × 20 heat press | $1,200 |
| Fume extractor | $700 |
| RIP software | $500 |
| Film, ink and powder, first order | $800 |
| Blank shirts and hoodies, first order | $1,000 |
| Samples and photos | $300 |
| Website | $300 |
| Working cash | $3,000 |
| Total to start | $19,800 |
A smaller printer that takes sheets rather than a roll costs much less and can't make 22-inch gang sheets; a shop that starts with one can buy gang sheets from another printer and press them, and move up when the team orders justify it.
Get the template
Download the DTF printing business plan workbook. Four sheets: your products with price, variable cost and monthly volume at full speed; the year, month by month, with sales, profit and cash; your fixed costs; and your startup budget with working cash. It's an ordinary Excel file with no macros, and it works in Google Sheets, LibreOffice and Numbers.
Where this stops working
Blank tees in eight colors and seven sizes, hoodies in four, film and ink by the roll and the liter, a team order for 24 navy mediums due Friday, and gang sheets going out every day. A sheet can't say whether the navy mediums are on the shelf, when to reorder white ink, or whether team orders or gang sheets earn more.
How TaroStack does it
TaroStack keeps blanks counted by style, size and color.
Blanks and supplies in stock. Each blank, by style, size and color, is an item, counted on a phone and kept at what you paid, and units convert: film bought by the roll, used by the foot; ink by the liter.
Orders against the shelf. Team and business orders are sales orders that show whether the blanks to fill them are on the shelf while you're still typing, so a 24-shirt order doesn't find eleven mediums. Each printed product is a recipe of its blank, film, ink and powder, so a finished order takes them off stock at what you paid.
And what each line earns. The reorder list works in days of cover against each supplier's lead time, and margins are reported by product and by customer, so the team that orders every season and the gang-sheet buyers who keep the printer busy both show up.
| The job | Notebook | In TaroStack |
|---|---|---|
| 24 navy mediums for Friday | Count the shelf | Sales order, checked against stock |
| White ink before it runs out | Found short | The reorder list, in days |
| Team orders or gang sheets, which pays? | A feeling | Margins by product |
| Blanks by size and color | A spreadsheet tab | Stock by item, counted on a phone |
Recipes, sales orders, counting and margins by product and customer are on every plan, from $49 a month. The first 30 days are free, with no credit card. If you'd like a hand setting up, ask, and we'll do it with you.