Heat Transfer Vinyl (HTV)

Heat transfer vinyl, or HTV, is a colored film, usually polyurethane or PVC, roughly 80 to 100 microns thick, that a vinyl cutter plots and cuts on its backside rather than printing on it. After cutting, the excess film around the design is weeded away by hand, leaving only the letters or shapes stuck to a clear carrier sheet, which then gets pressed onto the garment at roughly 305 to 320°F for 10 to 15 seconds under firm pressure.

HTV is what puts a name and number on a Little League jersey or a single custom name on a birthday shirt, jobs too small to justify screens or a DTF print run. Polyurethane HTV runs thinner and softer against the skin, closer to how a printed shirt feels, while PVC versions cost less but sit stiffer and thicker on the fabric, something buyers notice immediately on a soft ringspun tee.

Shops price HTV mostly by design complexity and layer count rather than garment size, since each additional color means cutting, weeding, and pressing a separate layer, and most HTV jobs top out around two or three stacked colors before adhesion to the fabric starts to fail. For a single name or number in one color, HTV beats DTF or a screen-printed transfer on both price and turnaround.

Buyers occasionally treat heat transfer vinyl like a printed sticker that can hold any level of detail; because it's cut rather than printed, fine gradients, photographic detail, and very thin script letters either can't be cut cleanly or fall apart during weeding, and those jobs are better suited to DTF or a printed transfer instead.