DTF Transfers UK: Trade Pricing, Turnaround Times & Application Guide
Trade pricing from £7.50/metre, no minimum order, same-day dispatch before 13:00 and a free sample pack — the complete guide to ordering DTF transfers from DTF.UK.
Everything a print shop, clothing brand or first-time presser needs to know before ordering DTF transfers from DTF.UK — printed at the SD Group production facility in Milton Keynes and shipped UK-wide by Royal Mail. Pricing, minimums, turnaround, artwork specs, press settings and wash performance, all in one place.
Gang sheet pricing — by sheet size or by the metre
Our gang sheets give you a 57 cm-wide printable area, so a "metre" is a full 57 × 100 cm sheet you can fill with as many designs as you can fit. Fixed sheet sizes are available for smaller jobs:
| Format | Printable size | Price |
|---|---|---|
| A4 DTF Sheet | 30 × 21 cm | £6.00 |
| A3 DTF Sheet | 42 × 30 cm | £7.50 |
| Gang sheet by the metre | 57 × 100 cm per metre | From £15.00 (1 m) |
Looking for A2? We don't sell a fixed A2 sheet — a 1-metre gang sheet (57 × 100 cm, £15) gives you more than three times the printable area of A2 for less than the price of two A3 sheets, so it's the better-value route for anything bigger than A3.
Let our AI create your gang sheet — 10× faster than manual layout
Skip the dragging and resizing: upload your artwork and the AI packs it into the tightest possible layout in seconds. Less wasted film means a lower cost per print, and it starts from just half a metre (£7.50).
Try the AI Gang Sheet Builder →Trade pricing — flat £10 per metre
The Trade Gang Sheet Builder gives approved trade accounts a flat £10.00 per metre — whether you order one metre for a rush job or ten for a production run. No tiers, no surprises at checkout.
Qualifying is straightforward: reach £750 (or 100 metres) in past DTF printing orders, or commit to hitting that threshold within three months. If the target isn't met in that window, the account simply rolls back to retail pricing — nothing else changes.
Ready for flat £10/m pricing?
Trade accounts get the flat rate on every order, plus priority production, wholesale rolls and dedicated support. Applications are reviewed within 1–2 business days.
Open a trade account →On the standard retail builder, volume pricing kicks in automatically as the sheet gets longer: £15 for 1 metre, £28 for 2 metres, £42 for 3 metres, down to £100 for 10 metres (£10/m) — so a single large order reaches the trade rate even without an account.
One-time wholesale bulk orders
Need volume without opening a trade account? Single-purchase wholesale rates go lower still:
| Bulk order | Rate per metre | Order total |
|---|---|---|
| 20 metres | £9.50/m | £190 |
| 50 metres | £8.50/m | £425 |
| 100 metres+ | £7.50/m | £750 |
Trade Builder
Flat £10.00/m
100 m Bulk Order
£7.50/m
Minimum order quantities — there aren't any
There is no minimum order. A single custom-size transfer starts from around £2 (e.g. a 10 × 10 cm logo), fixed-size singles run from £2–£7.50 up to A3, and the gang sheet builder starts at one metre. Order one transfer to test us, or a hundred metres for a season's stock — same film, same inks, same press-ready quality.
Turnaround times
Custom transfers and gang sheets are made to order on the press. Order before 13:00 UK time with a print-ready file and your job is printed and dispatched the same working day. Orders placed after the cut-off go out the next working day. Stocked consumables (film, powder, inks) and blank apparel have a later 15:00 cut-off because they're picked from the shelf rather than printed.
Every product page shows a live countdown to the day's cut-off and a production tracker (ordered → printed → pressed → shipped → delivered), so you always know exactly where your job is.
Delivery costs
All UK orders ship with Royal Mail, fully tracked end to end. Rates are flat per order, no matter how many sheets are in the parcel:
| Service | Cost | Delivery speed |
|---|---|---|
| Royal Mail Tracked 48 | £3.95 | 2–3 business days |
| Royal Mail Tracked 24 | £5.95 | Next business day |
| Royal Mail Special Delivery | £9.95 | Next day by 1pm, guaranteed |
Full details on the shipping & dispatch page.
Artwork requirements
- Format: PNG with a transparent background is preferred. PDF, AI and PSD files are also accepted.
- Resolution: minimum 300 DPI at the print size you want. The online uploader checks DPI automatically and flags fuzzy files before checkout.
- Colour profile: export in sRGB — our RIP software handles the conversion to the printer's colour space. Avoid supplying CMYK files, as the double conversion can shift colours.
- Transparency: anything transparent prints as nothing — no weeding needed. Remove stray semi-transparent pixels and hidden backgrounds before uploading.
- Large files: artwork too big for the checkout uploader? Send it through our file upload page with your order number and we’ll attach it to your job.
Short on time? Our artwork service arranges your designs into an optimised gang sheet for £5.
Heat press settings: temperature, pressure and time
Our standard film is an instant hot peel, and these are the settings we publish on every transfer product page. Always run a test press first — every machine reads slightly differently.
| Process | Fabric | Temperature | Time | Peel |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Hot peel | Cotton | 160°C | 10–15 s | Peel 5–10 seconds after pressing, while warm |
| Polyester | 110–125°C | 15 s | ||
| Cold peel | Cotton | 160°C | 10–15 s | Wait until the film is cool to the touch |
| Polyester | 130–145°C | 15 s |
Pressure: medium-to-firm — around 40–60 PSI on a press with a gauge. After peeling, re-press for 5 seconds with parchment or a Teflon sheet: it sinks the ink into the weave, improves wash durability and gives a softer matte finish.
Pre-press first. Before laying the transfer down, press the bare garment for 3–5 seconds to flatten the fibres and drive off moisture. Damp fabric is the single most common cause of transfers lifting at the edges — this one step prevents most peeling.
Hot peel or cold peel — which do you get?
Hot peel is the production workflow: press, peel while warm, straight on to the next garment — that's what our standard film is built for and why print shops prefer it. Cold peel runs at a higher temperature and requires the film to cool fully before peeling; it's more forgiving for beginners and for tricky placements. The free sample pack includes a cold peel transfer so you can try both processes side by side.
Wash durability
Pressed correctly, our transfers are rated for 50 washes with no cracking or peeling when washed inside out — the print stays soft-hand and stretches with the fabric. To get the full life out of a print:
- Machine wash inside out at 40°C or below
- No bleach or harsh detergents
- Tumble dry low, or hang dry
- Never iron directly on the print — cover with parchment if you must
Try before you buy: free sample pack
Not all DTF transfers are the same — film thickness, ink density and peel behaviour vary between suppliers. Our DTF sample pack is completely free (UK only, one per customer): press it, wash it, stretch it, and compare it against whatever you're using now.
Free DTF Sample Pack
£0.00 — UK only
Custom Size Transfers
From £2.00
Earn free gang sheet metres
Every bit of community activity earns DTF Credit: follow us, leave a review, post a story or write about your results and you bank between £2 and £15 per action — and every £15 of credit equals one free gang sheet metre. There’s no limit on how many actions you claim, and existing reviews count too. The full rewards table is on the free DTF gang sheet page.
Frequently asked questions
How much do DTF gang sheets cost in the UK?
At DTF.UK, fixed sheets cost £6 (A4) and £7.50 (A3). Gang sheets by the metre run from £15 retail down to a flat £10/m for trade accounts, and as low as £7.50/m on one-time 100-metre wholesale orders.
Can I combine multiple designs on one gang sheet without affecting trade pricing?
Yes. Gang sheet pricing — retail, trade and wholesale — is based purely on the length of the sheet, never on what's printed on it. Mix as many different designs, sizes and colourways as you can fit across the 57 cm width and the trade rate stays a flat £10 per metre. That's exactly what the builder is for: the tighter you pack the sheet, the lower your cost per print.
What do 100, 500 or 1,000 prints cost?
It depends on the print size — gang sheets are priced per metre, so your cost per print is simply how many fit. Three typical cases, with sizes from our DTF transfer size chart and counts assuming tight nesting across the 57 cm width:
| Design size | Transfers per metre | 100 prints | 500 prints | 1,000 prints |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 10 × 10 cm — chest, sleeve & neck-label logos | ~50 | 2 m → £20 trade (~20p/print) | 10 m → £100 (~20p) | 20 m → £190 wholesale (~19p) |
| Kids front prints (~20–26 cm) | ~9 | ~11 m → ~£110 trade (~£1.10) | ~56 m → ~£480 wholesale (~95p) | ~112 m → ~£840 wholesale (~84p) |
| Adult front prints (~26–30 cm) | ~7 | ~15 m → ~£150 trade (~£1.50) | ~72 m → ~£610 wholesale (~£1.20) | ~143 m → ~£1,075 wholesale (~£1.08) |
Ballpark figures at the best applicable rate (flat £10/m trade, £8.50/m on 50 m wholesale, £7.50/m at 100 m+). Mixed sheets work exactly the same — combine adult fronts, kids prints and pocket logos on one metre and the price doesn't change. The online builder shows precisely how many fit before you check out.
How many large front prints (28–33 cm wide) fit per metre, and what do they cost at trade rates?
A question we often get from apparel brands launching full-front designs. The key number is our 57 cm printable width: anything up to ~28 cm wide nests two across; anything wider runs one per row. At the flat £10/m trade rate, with ~5 mm spacing on a continuous multi-metre sheet:
| Print size | Across the sheet | Per metre | ~Cost per print |
|---|---|---|---|
| 28 × 36 cm (S–L) | 2-up | ~5.4 | ~£1.85 |
| 29 × 38 cm (XL) | 1 per row | ~2.6 | ~£3.85 alone / ~£2.00 mixed |
| 31 × 41 cm (XXL) | 1 per row | ~2.4 | ~£4.15 alone / ~£2.30 mixed |
| 33 × 44 cm (XXXL) | 1 per row | ~2.2 | ~£4.50 alone / ~£2.60 mixed |
Two things matter here:
- Mix your sizes on one sheet. A 29–33 cm print leaves a spare 24–28 cm column beside it — exactly the width of an S–L front, a kids print or a column of pocket logos. Fill it and the big sizes drop to the "mixed" cost above, because you only pay for the length, never the layout. Don’t want to puzzle layouts yourself? The AI gang sheet builder does this packing automatically.
- Watch the 28.5 cm threshold. If an XL design can be nudged from 29 cm down to 28.5 cm wide or less, it goes 2-up and the cost per print nearly halves (~£1.95). Worth checking before you lock your sizing templates.
- Black heavyweight tees are no problem. Every transfer is printed with a full white underbase, so colours stay vibrant on black and dark cotton.
At one-time wholesale rates the same numbers shrink further — multiply by 0.85 at 50 m (£8.50/m) or 0.75 at 100 m+ (£7.50/m). Planning ongoing repeat orders? That's exactly what the trade account is for, and you can send us your sample files for a free layout review before you commit.
What's the minimum order?
None — single transfers start from £2.
How fast is dispatch?
Same working day if you order before 13:00 UK with a print-ready file; delivery from £3.95 (Royal Mail Tracked 48) up to guaranteed next-day-by-1pm at £9.95.
What file should I upload?
A transparent-background PNG at 300 DPI in sRGB. PDF, AI and PSD are accepted too.
Ready to print? Build your gang sheet online — upload, arrange, and it ships the same day if you beat the 13:00 cut-off.
