Financing apparel decoration equipment

Starting out, or scaling up

Apparel decoration covers the widest range in the print trade, from someone pressing their first run of tees to a shop running banks of embroidery heads, and the finance meets both.

If you're starting out, a heat press or an entry machine is a small-ticket way in, and financing it keeps your cash for stock, blanks and the first orders rather than sinking it into the machine on day one. If you're already established and you know the machine you want, there's no hand-holding, you tell us the machine and we get you an indicative figure and arrange it. Either way you're met where you are, not pushed up or down a track that doesn't fit.

Rent or buy across the three machine types

There are three ways most shops finance this gear, and the right one depends on how and when you want to own it.

Rent-to-Own spreads the cost as regular rentals and you own the machine at the end. A Chattel Mortgage means it's yours from day one and you finance the purchase. A Lease keeps the repayments steady over a set term, with the option to renew or move on at the end.

One honest distinction worth knowing: a DTG printer's technology tends to move faster than an embroidery machine, which can run well for many years. That's exactly the kind of thing an owner weighs when choosing between owning a machine outright and a structure that leaves room to step up to the next one. It isn't a reason to rush, just a real read on how each machine ages. You don't pick the lender; you tell us the machine and the shop, and someone from our team compares lenders and arranges the finance in the structure that fits.

What drives the repayment

Three things move the figure more than anything else: the price of the machine (ex-GST), the term you run it over, and the structure you choose. A multi-head embroidery machine or a DTG line costs more to finance than a single heat press, simply because it costs more to buy, and a longer term lowers the monthly figure while costing a little more across the life of the finance.

We work from the machine price (ex-GST), because that's how the finance is calculated; the GST and the tax treatment are your accountant's territory, and they'll walk you through how it sits for your business. We won't put a rate or a total against it on this page, because the only figure worth acting on is the indicative one for your exact machine.

Adding a machine as the orders grow

Growth in this trade usually looks like another machine: a second head to lift embroidery throughput, another press for the busy runs, or a DTG to sit alongside the embroidery line and catch the short, full-colour jobs. When the orders are there, the finance sits under the growth, funded over the years the new machine is earning, so the cash stays in the business for blanks and wages.

There's no wrong time and no rush; the right moment is when the extra machine pays for itself in work you're already turning away. If you're adding print and finishing alongside the garment side, there's financing the cutter and laminator and the wide-format printer too.

Who you'll deal with

You deal with a real person from our team, not a call centre and not a form that vanishes once you hit send. The same contact who arranges your finance is the one you can call when something comes up, before settlement and after. We compare the lenders so you don't have to, and we keep you in the loop in plain language the whole way through.