Custom Heat Transfers

A custom heat transfer is your own artwork printed onto a carrier sheet and shipped to you ready to apply with a heat press. You position it on the garment, apply heat and pressure for a set time, peel the carrier away, and the design is bonded to the fabric. Because we print each order to your design, there is no screen setup, no inventory to buy up front, and no printing equipment for you to own.

DTF prints in unlimited color using CMYK plus a white underbase, so it reproduces photographs and gradients and works on any fabric color. Screen print transfers use pre-mixed solid spot inks, which gives a bolder, more opaque, more durable print with a softer hand — but limits you to a small number of flat colors. As a rule: full color or small runs, choose DTF. Simple logos in high volume, choose screen print, where per-piece cost drops sharply. We wrote a full breakdown on our DTF vs screen print transfers page.

Cotton is the most forgiving fabric and takes almost everything. For full-color art, DTF. For a soft retail hand feel in one color, Vintage screen print. For raised dimensional prints, Puff. The one format to avoid on cotton is sublimation — it needs polyester to bond and will wash out of cotton almost immediately.

Polyester is the fabric that causes the most trouble, because the dye in the garment can migrate up into your print and discolor it — usually turning white into pink. Athletic screen print transfers are our most opaque option and are specifically built to block dye migration. DTF also presses well on polyester. For stretchy technical polyester like compression wear, use Performance.

A heat press is strongly recommended. Transfers bond through a specific combination of temperature, time and even pressure, and a household iron cannot hold any of the three consistently across the design. A home press such as an EasyPress can work for small designs on flat garments. For anything you are selling, a proper heat press is the difference between a print that survives washing and one that peels.

A gang sheet is one large printed sheet with many separate designs arranged on it, which you then cut apart. Because we price by sheet rather than by design, filling the sheet efficiently is how you lower your cost per print. You can arrange your own layout in our online builder, or upload a print-ready file you have already laid out yourself.

A high-resolution PNG with a transparent background at 300 DPI at final print size is ideal for DTF, glitter, foil and sublimation. Vector files also work well. For screen print transfers, artwork needs to be separated into solid spot colors with no gradients or soft edges. Low-resolution images pulled from a website will print blurry — the file has to be sharp at the size you intend to press it.

Yes, with every format except sublimation. DTF, glitter and foil are printed with a white underbase that makes the design opaque on any garment color. Screen print transfer inks are opaque on their own. Sublimation is the exception — it is translucent and only works on white or very light polyester.

DTF, glitter DTF, gold foil DTF and sublimation have no minimum — order a single sheet if that is all you need. Screen print transfers have per-formula minimums starting at 8 sheets, because they are produced on a physical press rather than digitally.

Applied correctly, a quality transfer will last the practical life of the garment — commonly 50 or more wash cycles. Longevity depends far more on application than on the transfer itself. Under-pressing is the most common cause of early peeling. Wash inside out in cold water and skip the fabric softener.

DTF, glitter, foil and sublimation transfers ship in as fast as 24 hours. Screen print transfer turnaround varies by formula, from 1 to 3 business days after artwork approval. All times are production time and do not include transit.