Screen Printing vs Embroidery vs DTG: Which Should You Choose?
Once your garment is made, how do you put your logo or artwork on it? The three main methods — screen printing, embroidery, and DTG — each suit different designs and quantities. Here's how to choose.
Screen printing
Ink pushed through a stencil, one colour at a time. The most durable and vivid method for volume runs, and cost-effective once you're making quantity. Best for bold logos and graphics with a few colours. Less suited to tiny detail or photographic, many-colour designs.
Embroidery
Your design stitched in thread. It looks and feels premium and durable, and is ideal for logos, lettering, and a considered, high-end finish on polos, caps, and hoodies. Not the choice for large or highly detailed artwork.
DTG (direct-to-garment)
A printer sprays ink directly onto the fabric, like an inkjet. Great for detailed, full-colour, photographic designs and small quantities, but generally less durable than screen printing and best on cotton.
- Bold logo, volume run → screen printing
- Premium, logo or lettering → embroidery
- Detailed/photographic, small run → DTG
Side by side
| Screen printing | Embroidery | DTG (direct-to-garment) | |
|---|---|---|---|
| How it works | Ink pushed through a stencil, one colour at a time | Your design stitched in thread | Ink sprayed straight onto the fabric, like an inkjet |
| Best for | Bold logos & graphics, few colours | Logos, lettering, a premium finish | Detailed, full-colour or photographic art |
| Colours | A screen per colour — best with a few | Thread colours; not photographic | Unlimited, including gradients |
| Durability | Excellent — the most hard-wearing | Excellent — stitched, not printed | Good; softer feel, fades sooner than screen |
| Run size | Higher setup, so cheaper in volume | Low–medium; digitised once | Low — ideal for small runs & samples |
| Best fabric | Most fabrics | Structured items — polos, caps, hoodies | Best on 100% cotton |
Match the method to the design and the quantity — not the other way around.
We offer screen printing and embroidery as part of full garment manufacturing, so your decoration is done on pieces we make to your spec. Tell us your design and we'll recommend the best method.
Frequently asked questions
What is the difference between screen printing, embroidery and DTG?
Screen printing pushes ink through a mesh stencil, one screen per colour — cheapest per piece at volume, most durable on cotton, and impractical for photographic artwork because every colour adds a screen. Embroidery stitches the design in thread, which outlasts every print and reads as the most premium, but it cannot do fine detail below roughly five millimetres or cover large areas without becoming heavy and stiff. DTG sprays ink directly onto the garment like an inkjet printer — it handles unlimited colours and photographs with no setup, which makes it excellent for samples and one-offs, but the cost per piece barely falls with volume and it is the least durable of the three. Rough guide: logo, use embroidery; simple design at volume, screen print; complex artwork in small numbers, DTG.
Which is best for printing t-shirts?
For most brands, screen printing. It gives the best cost per piece at production volumes, the widest ink choice, and the most durable result on cotton — a properly cured water-based print sits into the fabric rather than on it and ages well. The reason to choose otherwise is usually colour count or artwork type. A photographic design with gradients is impractical to screen print because each colour needs its own screen; that is where DTG or, on polyester, sublimation makes sense. Embroidery beats both for durability and reads as more premium on a chest mark, though it cannot do fine detail or large areas. Our advice is normally: simple design, higher quantity, cotton — screen print. Complex artwork or polyester — sublimation. Small logo, premium feel — embroidery.
Which printing method lasts longest?
Sublimation, by a wide margin, because there is nothing sitting on the surface to fail. The dye is inside the fibre, so it cannot crack, peel or lift — it will outlast the seams. The catch is that it only works on polyester and only darkens, so it is not an option for most cotton garments. Among methods that do work on cotton, a well-cured screen print is the durable choice; water-based and discharge inks sit into the fabric rather than on it and age better than plastisol, which is thicker and eventually cracks on high-flex areas. Embroidery outlasts every print, though it is not suited to fine detail or large areas. DTG is the least durable of the common options and is best treated as a low-volume or sampling method rather than a production one.
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Sources & further reading
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