US guide
US fixed sheet sizes: one long sheet or several short ones
Many US DTF printers sell a set menu of sheet lengths, each at its own price, instead of a rate per foot. That changes how you should order: sometimes two short sheets cost less than one long one.
What a fixed sheet is
It is one length from the printer's own list, for example 24 in, 60 in or 120 in, all on the same film width. You buy one of the sizes on the list at its price; you can't ask for any length. UK printers more often charge a rate per metre instead.
If you buy a sheet longer than your job, you pay for the empty part too.
One long sheet or several short ones
Longer sheets usually cost less per inch, but not at every step, because each size has its own price. So the cheapest way to cover your job isn't always the fewest sheets: two short sheets can cost less than one long one.
What common sizes cost at each US printer: 22 × 24 in, 22 × 60 in, 22 × 120 in and 22 × 240 in.
How we choose the sheets
For your designs, we work out which of the printer's sheet sizes to buy, and how many of each. We try:
- one size only, for every size the printer sells
- the longest sheet first, then the cheapest sheet that holds the rest
- for small jobs (8 copies or fewer), every way of grouping the copies onto sheets
- for bigger jobs, a limited search over mixed sizes that stops once a much cheaper plan is unlikely
We keep the plan with the lowest total. If two cost the same, we keep the one with fewer sheets. The search for big jobs is limited, so we call the result an efficient plan, not a proven cheapest one.
Inches and millimetres
All the maths runs in whole millimetres. Inches are converted once, when a size is entered or shown, and rounded to the nearest millimetre: 12 in is 304.8 mm, which becomes 305 mm.
Worked example
20 copies of a 10 in × 12 in design (254 × 305 mm after rounding), 5 mm spacing and a 10 mm edge margin, printed on Transfer Kingdom's 559 mm (22 in) film.
Our plan uses two sheets:
- Sheet "24in" (559 × 610 mm): 2 designs placed.
- Sheet "120in" (559 × 3048 mm): 18 designs placed.
That places all 20 copies, at a total of $88.98 before sales tax. One 180 in sheet would also hold every copy (559 × 4572 mm), but it costs $94.99. Across the two sheets, 24.2% of the film is unused, because you pay for whole sheets.
Checked 5 Nov 2026 from the printer's own page: Transfer Kingdom's price list. Prices change; check the source before you order.