When Should I Use UltraColor® Transfers? | Using Pricing Calculators & Color Counts

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Watch to learn when to use UltraColor® heat transfers instead of the other transfer types.

Use the pricing calculators and count colors to see when it is more beneficial to use one transfer type over the other.

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Hey friends! Dave here with Transfer Express and today, we're going to be talking all about when and why you should be using our UltraColor heat transfers over the other transfer types.

We're going to explore how to protect your profit margin when ordering all of those different transfer types, some simple tips on what transfer to use in a few different scenarios, and we'll even learn how to get accurate quotes at transferexpress.com to help run the numbers on your own custom scenarios.

So are you ready? Let's get started!

If you're unfamiliar with our UltraColor transfers, they're what we call a digital screen printed transfer. They allow limitless color and detail in a soft matte print that's durable enough to last just like our other screen printed transfers. There's no price per color or small detail limitations in your artwork. You could easily achieve gradients, textures, along with maintaining those knockout text areas where the garment still shows through.

Pretty cool, right?

Now there are several ways that you could order UltraColor. Of course, like all of our other transfers, you could order it by the gang sheet. And our UltraColor gang sheets are even a little bit bigger than our typical screen printed ones, clocking in at 11.5” x 18”. That gives you a little bit more room to maximize your profit.

In addition to the gang sheets, UltraColor is also available by the image size. This cuts down cost if you just need one specific image. It comes in clutch when you're ordering just like a small left chest design, and it makes your print cost very, very affordable, maximizing your profit margins on your retail price of your apparel.

Now let's talk about when it's best to use our UltraColor over our other transfer types, like a Goof Proof screen printed transfer.

Our UltraColor is the go-to transfer for when you've got a lot of colors in your design, like we talked about earlier, or lots of detail. The fades, transitions, or gradients, or even just straight up photographic reproductions.

This first pricing scenario that we'll explore today is dealing with those higher color counts. You could order a screen printed transfers like Goof Proof and as many colors as you want, however, once you get to that three or four color range, you may be able to reduce your print cost and protect that profit margin by switching over to the UltraColor transfers. That's because with the way that screen printed transfers are produced, each color needs its own actual physical screen, so the majority of the cost is in the setup of making sure those screens are ready to print, not the actual material cost of the transfer paper or inks when running the full job.

At higher quantities, that cost can tend to start to equal out where the screen printed gang sheets may still be more affordable.

So let's run this scenario using the pricing calculators on TransferExpress.com.

At the top of the home page in the blue bar, you can see the Help Center. From there, we'll click on the Pricing Calculators right here on the left hand side in this first column.

Let's see what a three color screen print will run us at 50 quantity. To simplify this example, we'll say our artwork could fit two images on one gang sheet. We'll select our ink formula as Goof Proof, set our quantity to 25 because we have two images per sheet, and need that 50 total, and set our colors to three. Say we're using Easy Prints art because we'll design this in Easy View online designer. This gives us a sheet price of $8.27. That's $4.14 per image, and a total print cost of $206.75.

Next, let's run the same scenario as UltraColor. At the top, we'll click the green button to move over to the full color screen print and select UltraColor Soft from this first drop down. You can see at the bottom we have our different image sizing. So since we could fit two on one Goof Proof gang sheet, let's say our artwork will fit in that 11.5 x 8.75 inch large image size. Let's click the large option for the image size, and set our quantity over to 50. Let's click calculate and it'll give us an image cost of $3.45 per image, and a total print cost of $172.

So you could see there's some pretty good cost savings right there. Of course, since we could gang sheet it, we should also check out what our full sheet pricing would be, so we'll adjust our image size and then switch our quantity down to 25 because we'll be fitting at least two up on the gang sheet.

Here in this option, it's not cheaper to do the gang sheet, that is of course, if you want to add a small left chest or some inside tag artwork that could fit in any vacant area on that gang sheet. So our sheet cost is $7.64 for an image cost of $3.82 and a total price of $191.

Now while it's more expensive than the single image UltraColor, it's still cheaper than that Goof Proof gang sheet print cost.

Of course, all of this pricing could vary with a specific quantity and details that you need for your order. So it's nice and quick to be able to figure out the pricing here for your specific project in the pricing calculator.

If you're designing or arranging your own custom artwork in our Easy View online designer, you could adjust all the product details on the right side to switch between the screen printed pricing and the UltraColor pricing. You could see in our menu, we could just select screen printed or full color in that first drop down at the top for print method.

If you fill out all the other details, you could switch back between them and see which one is going to maximize your print cost.

It is worth mentioning that UltraColor does have a different application than the Goof Proof. With a longer press time and then waiting for a cold peel, if you're doing large quantities, it may be worth your time to pay more with the Goof Proof print. Then, in turn, reduce the amount of time that it takes for you to actually press the order.

Goof Proof transfers press in that four second press with a hot peel. They are perfect for efficiently printing those large runs.

Next let's look at artwork limitations. Those fades, gradients, high detail and photographic art really can't be printed with the screen printed transfers. Artwork like this must be printed using the full color printing with the UltraColor product line.

Now that we've covered a lot of the main differences in ordering and pricing, let's look at the difference in the finished product. Here you can see how UltraColor excels with the high detail and color counts. While the print is not quite as soft as the Goof Proof, it still

moves easily with the fabric and is super soft to the hand with its matte soft finish. Now on UltraColor, you also have a very small clear outline around your artwork that is nearly invisible on most fabric colors, where Goof Proof transfers have no outline around the inks.

If you want to see the quality difference between the two transfer types for yourself, you could always request free samples at TransferExpress.com.

Thanks for watching today. I hope that we cleared up any confusion you have about when to use screen printed or our full color UltraColor transfers.

Make sure you like and thumbs up this video and subscribe to stay up to date on all of our weekly content here at Transfer Express.

We're always working on more inspirational educational videos along with some helpful t-shirt business tips that could help your t-shirt business out.

If you've got any suggestions for topics you'd like to see us cover in upcoming videos, just let us know in the comments section below. But until next time, I'm Dave and happy pressing!