If you're ordering custom apparel for the first time, the biggest decision isn't your design — it's which printing method to use. Screen printing, embroidery, and DTF (direct-to-film) transfers all produce great results, but they're built for different jobs. Here's how we explain it to customers who walk into our Portland shop, based on the real minimums, pricing, and turnaround we run every day.
Screen Printing: best for bigger runs of simple, bold designs
Screen printing pushes ink through a mesh stencil, one screen per color, directly into the fabric. It's the most cost-effective method once you're ordering in volume, and the print has a soft, durable feel that holds up wash after wash.
- Minimum order: 50 pieces
- Typical pricing: around $8.87 per shirt at 100 pieces (pricing drops further as quantity increases)
- Turnaround: 7–10 business days from art approval
- Best for: team shirts, event merch, retail runs, and any design with a limited number of solid colors
Because each color needs its own screen, screen printing is most efficient when you're ordering enough pieces to spread that setup cost across the run.
Embroidery: best for a professional, stitched look on hats, polos, and workwear
Embroidery stitches your logo directly into the fabric using industrial multi-needle machines. It's the standard for a polished, corporate look, and it holds up extremely well on structured items like caps and jackets.
- Minimum order: 12 pieces
- Typical pricing: around $11.75 per piece at 100 pieces for a standard 6,000-stitch left-chest logo
- Turnaround: 7–10 business days from sew-out approval
- Best for: hats, polos, jackets, workwear, beanies, and bucket hats
We digitize your logo in-house and send you a sew-out sample before the full order runs, so you see actual thread on actual fabric first.
DTF Transfers: best for full-color designs, small runs, and tricky fabrics
DTF (direct-to-film) prints your design in full color onto a film, then heat-presses it onto the garment. There's no color separation and no per-color setup cost, which makes it the most flexible option for detailed or colorful artwork.
- Minimum order: 12 pieces
- Colors: unlimited, at no extra cost
- Fabrics: works on cotton, polyester, blends, nylon, and performance fabrics — including materials that are difficult to screen print
- Turnaround: typically faster than screen printing, since there's no screen setup involved
- Best for: photo-realistic designs, gradients, multi-color logos, small test batches, and athletic or performance wear
Which one should you choose?
A quick way to think about it: if you're ordering 50 or more shirts with a simple 1–4 color design, screen printing will usually give you the best price per piece. If you need hats, polos, or workwear with a clean logo, embroidery is the standard choice. And if your design is full-color, photo-realistic, or going on a fabric that's hard to screen print, or you just need fewer than 50 pieces, DTF is built for exactly that.
Not sure which fits your project? Send us your design and quantity and we'll tell you honestly which method makes the most sense — sometimes that means steering you away from the option you called about.
Explore each service in more detail: Screen Printing, Embroidery, or DTF Transfers. Or contact us for a same-day quote, we're at 17770 NE Riverside Pkwy in Portland, OR, and everything is produced in-house.