It may sound like such a simple thing but sometimes forgetting to add the cost of Pretreating to your print jobs happens quite a lot. Not only are you adding pretreatment to your garment but it is also a time and labor that you should be covering. Over the last year or two even the pretreatment of light garments has become very popular. With this being said you should add this cost into all your print jobs.
The cost of the amount used can be debatable depending on how much you pay and the amount you use. We have found that on an average full print you will be using around 25- 35 cents per garment. You also have around 2 minutes labor to apply and dry the pretreat. Adding 50 cents per shirt will cover your costs and should help keep your numbers more realistic. However many printers are adding 75 cents to one dollar on top of their print costs to be safe and help ensure profit.
The main point is do not forget to charge for the pretreatment process of printing. There is more involved in each print cost than ink, garment and labor. This cost can also be covered sometimes by adding a basic set up fee for the print job. With DTG we don’t really have much set up so adding a basic $5 set up fee can help cover extra costs and is implemented by many printers.
