Is It Cheaper to Print Front and Back?
By The Velocity Wear Team
No, printing front and back is not cheaper than printing one side, and it is certainly not free. In screen printing each location needs its own screens and its own pass through the press, so a two-location job carries setup for both. DTF is priced by print area, so a second transfer costs roughly what its size suggests. There is a real saving in doing both within one order, but it comes from sharing the run, not from the second print itself.
A Location Is a Job, Not a Bonus
The most common misunderstanding in apparel pricing is treating the garment as the unit of work. It is not. The unit of work is the print. A front and back tee is two prints on one garment, handled twice, aligned twice and cured twice. That is why quotes go up when you add a back, and why the increase is usually not trivial.
Screen Printing: Setup Per Colour, Per Location
In screen printing, every colour in a design needs its own screen, and every location needs its own set of screens. A three-colour front plus a one-colour back is four screens, not three. Setup is a one-off cost spread across the run, so it stings far more on twenty pieces than on two hundred. If you are doing a small run and weighing up a back print, that setup is the number to look at hardest.
DTF Charges for the Area You Cover
DTF has no per-colour setup, which is why it suits detailed and full-colour work at low quantities. It does still charge by print size, so a large back panel costs meaningfully more than a small chest mark, and adding a back means another transfer and another press. Full-colour on both sides of a short run is one of the more expensive combinations people stumble into without realising it.
Where the Savings Actually Live
If the goal is a lower unit cost, the levers sit elsewhere.
- Increase the quantity, since screen printing setup spreads across the run and bulk discounts reach up to around 40%.
- Reduce the colour count in the design rather than the number of locations.
- Combine everything into a single order instead of two smaller ones weeks apart.
- Keep any second location small, because in DTF the area is exactly what you are paying for.
- Reuse the same artwork across garment types where you can, so the setup is shared.
The Small Second Location Is the Value Play
A large full back print is expensive and, on staff clothing worn under a jacket, frequently invisible. A small nape print, a sleeve hit or a hem mark is far cheaper, adds a lot of perceived quality, and is what makes a garment look designed rather than decorated. If you want a second location on a budget, that is where to put it.
“"Two locations, one garment, two jobs. The press has no idea it is printing the same shirt twice."”
Think About Whether the Back Gets Seen
Backs work brilliantly on event tees, crew shirts and anything worn in a crowd where people mostly see each other from behind. They work badly on staff polos under a fleece, on anything worn with a rucksack, and on garments that spend most of the day under a jacket. Before paying for a back print, picture the garment in use rather than on a flat lay.
Embroidery Is a Different Calculation
Embroidered fronts and backs are priced by stitch count rather than by screens, and a back logo is normally much larger, so it needs its own digitised file at that size. That makes an embroidered back a substantial addition rather than a small one. For most uniform, a stitched left chest paired with a printed back is a more sensible mix than embroidering both locations.
Deciding If the Second Print Earns Its Place
Ask what the back print is for. If it carries information people need, a job role, a website, a squad number, it earns its cost. If it is there because the space looked empty, it does not. Plenty of the best-looking custom garments have one small mark and nothing else, and that restraint reads as confidence rather than as a cut corner.