Screen Printing, Embroidery, DTF or Sublimation: How to Brand Bulk Apparel Without Wasting Money
There are four realistic ways to put a logo on bulk apparel in India, and they are priced on completely different logic. Screen printing is priced per colour. Embroidery is priced per stitch. DTF is priced per print area. Sublimation is priced per garment. Choosing without understanding that is how buyers end up paying twice what they need to.
This guide compares all four on the factors that actually decide the answer: cost at real order quantities, how long the branding survives, the minimum quantity each needs to make sense, and which fabrics each one fails on.
How each method works
Screen printing pushes ink through a mesh stencil onto the fabric, one screen per colour. Setup cost is incurred once per colour, then per-piece cost is very low. That economics is why it dominates high-volume apparel.
Embroidery stitches the logo in thread using a digitised file. It reads as the most premium of the four, is effectively permanent, and is priced by stitch count, so a dense or detailed logo costs materially more than a simple one at the same physical size.
DTF, or direct to film, prints the design onto a film and heat-transfers it to the garment. It handles full colour and photographic detail with no per-colour setup, which makes it strong on short runs and complex artwork.
Sublimation turns dye into gas under heat so it bonds into the fibre rather than sitting on top. The result cannot crack or peel because there is no ink layer, but it only works on polyester and only on light base colours.
Cost and durability compared
| Method | Priced by | Best quantity | Durability | Main constraint |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Screen printing | Number of colours, plus per piece | 500 and above | Good, can crack over years | Uneconomic for few pieces or many colours |
| Embroidery | Stitch count | 50 and above | Excellent, effectively permanent | Poor on fine detail and small text |
| DTF transfer | Print area | 1 to 500 | Good with correct application | Per-piece cost stays flat, so it loses at volume |
| Sublimation | Per garment | Any | Excellent, cannot crack or peel | Polyester only, light colours only |
The single most important line in that table is the quantity column. Screen printing and DTF cross over somewhere in the low hundreds. Below the crossover, paying screen setup for a handful of pieces is waste. Above it, paying DTF's flat per-piece cost across thousands of pieces is a much larger waste.
Where each method fails
Screen printing fails on gradients, photographs and logos with many colours, because each colour is a separate screen and a separate setup charge. A six-colour logo on a 300-piece order can cost more in setup than the garments.
Embroidery fails on fine detail. Thread has a physical minimum width, so small text and hairline elements turn into an unreadable blob. As a working rule, text below roughly 4mm in height and lines thinner than about 1mm will not survive the stitch.
DTF fails on cost at volume and, if applied badly, on hand feel, because it leaves a film layer on the surface. On performance fabrics that film can seal the knit and reduce the breathability the fabric was specified for.
Sublimation fails on cotton entirely, and on dark garments, because the dye is translucent and cannot lighten the base colour.
Matching the method to the garment
For a polo or corporate shirt worn as daily uniform, embroidery on the left chest is the default. It survives years of washing, reads as professional, and the small logo area keeps the stitch count and therefore the cost contained.
For a large-volume event or campaign t-shirt with a simple one or two colour logo, screen printing is almost always cheapest and entirely adequate.
For a full-colour design, a photograph, or a short run under a couple of hundred pieces, DTF is the practical answer. For sports jerseys, all-over prints and anything on polyester where the branding must never crack, sublimation is the right tool.
For caps, embroidery dominates, because the curved structured panel does not take flat print well.
What to specify on the purchase order
Ambiguity here is expensive. Specify the branding method by name, the exact placement with measurements from a fixed seam rather than a vague description, the finished size of the logo, and for screen printing the number of colours.
For embroidery, ask for the stitch count once the logo is digitised, because that is what you are being charged on and it is the number that changes if the logo is resized.
Then ask for the branding on a physical sample on the actual fabric, not on a mock-up image. A logo approved on a screen and a logo approved on cloth are different approvals, and only one of them tells you what will arrive.
Why the branding decision carries real weight
Branded apparel is the largest category in promotional products, at 16.1% of industry spending according to the 2026 ASI Global Advertising Impressions Study. That research also found that a typical promotional product generates around 3,300 brand views over its lifetime, and that 85% of consumers remember the advertiser who gave them a logoed item.
Those impressions accrue only while the branding is legible. A cracked print or a distorted embroidery does not merely look cheap, it stops the item working as advertising while the garment continues to be worn, which is the worst of both outcomes.
Placement, and the mistakes that show up on delivery
Branding method gets the attention, but placement causes more delivered-order disputes than method does. The reason is that placement is usually communicated in words rather than measurements.
Left chest is not a measurement. Two suppliers will place a left chest logo differently, and across a size run the same instruction produces a logo that sits correctly on a medium and too low on an extra large, because the reference point drifted with the garment. Specify placement as a distance from a fixed point, typically down from the shoulder seam and across from the centre front, and state whether the measurement is to the top edge or the centre of the logo.
For back prints, state the distance below the collar seam. For sleeve branding, state the distance from the sleeve hem. It takes one extra line in the brief and removes an entire category of argument.
Combining methods on one garment
Mixing methods is common and often the cheapest route to a good result. An embroidered left chest logo with a screen printed back panel gives you the premium read where the logo is seen close up, and inexpensive large-format branding where it is seen at distance.
The constraint is that each method carries its own setup, so combining them on a small order multiplies setup charges across too few pieces. On a run of several hundred or more, the added cost is marginal and the result is noticeably better than either method alone.
Frequently asked questions
Frequently asked questions
- Is embroidery or screen printing better for a company logo?
- Embroidery for polos, shirts, caps and daily uniforms, where it reads as premium and lasts for years. Screen printing for high-volume t-shirts with simple logos of one or two colours, where it is far cheaper per piece.
- What is the cheapest way to print 500 t-shirts with a logo?
- Screen printing, provided the logo has few colours. Setup is charged once per colour and then per-piece cost is very low, so the cost per shirt falls sharply as quantity rises. For full-colour or photographic designs at that quantity, DTF is usually more practical.
- How long does screen printing last compared to embroidery?
- Embroidery is effectively permanent and typically outlasts the garment. Good screen printing survives many wash cycles but can crack over years, particularly if the garment is washed hot or tumble dried frequently.
- Why is embroidery priced by stitch count?
- Because machine time and thread consumption both scale with the number of stitches. A dense or detailed logo takes longer to run than a simple one at the same physical size, so resizing or simplifying a logo changes the price.
- What is the smallest text that can be embroidered on a uniform?
- As a working rule, text below roughly 4mm in height and lines thinner than about 1mm will not stitch legibly. Below that, thread width overwhelms the detail. Ask your manufacturer to run a stitch-out sample before approving.
- Can you sublimate a cotton t-shirt?
- No. Sublimation bonds dye into polyester fibres and does not work on cotton. It also only works on light base colours, because the dye is translucent and cannot lighten the garment underneath.