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Rotary or Digital: Where the Two Cost Lines Actually Cross

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Both routes are quoted as a cost per metre and only one of them is. Rotary falls with every metre; digital does not move at all.

What Rotary Costs Before the First Metre

All of it is per colourway, which is the reason the crossover moves

One screen per colour, and a fresh set for every colourway

Including the ones the buyer rejects, which is what makes this larger than people expect

Mounting, register, and cleaning down afterwards

What Each Route Costs per Metre

Everything that scales with length. The ink figure is at full coverage and is scaled per design

Paste, steam, wash-off and labour — not the screens

Pretreatment, steaming, wash-off and labour — not the ink

What a metre costs at 100 per cent coverage, scaled down per design

Digital's only real fixed cost, and small — which is the point

The Book, One Row per Design

One row per design, with the metres being the run for that design across all its colourways rather than per colourway. Colours is the number of screens a single colourway needs; colourways multiplies both the engraving and the setup and is the thing most often left out of the comparison, because a four-colourway design needs four sets of screens on rotary and nothing extra on digital. Coverage is the share of the ground the design actually inks — a small placement print on a light ground may be under ten per cent, and it is the number that decides digital's variable cost.

DesignMetres mColoursColourwaysInk Coverage %Screens NeededRotary, Before the First Metre costRotary Total costDigital Total costRotary per Metre cost/mDigital per Metre cost/mDigital Wins 1/0They Cross At mThey Cross at All 1/0Choosing Right Saves costRow actions
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Textile SchoolRotary or Digital: Where the Two Cost Lines Actually Crosswww.textileschool.com
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