Best Sublimation Printers of 2026

The Artspira app isn't a bonus feature on the SP-1; it's the design desk. You import images on a phone or tablet, pick up a template, and send the job from there, and a desktop version has been promised rather than shipped. We found that trade easier to live with than we expected, because the built-in templates remove most of the guesswork from a first mug or tote, but if your artwork lives in Photoshop on a laptop, this is the machine that will make you fight it.

What arrives is light: 7.9 pounds, small enough to sit beside the heat press and move to a shelf when the table is needed for something else. The box carries four Brother inks and a starter pack of sublimation paper, so the first project doesn't wait on a second order, and setup is quick.

As a beginner's machine, we like it best of this group, and not only because of the app. Prints come out with sharp detail, jobs turn around fast enough to keep a small batch moving, and the whole thing is quiet enough to run in the same room as the television. Where we temper expectations is color: teal and navy are the shades to test on scrap before you commit a shirt, since strong blues are where this one most often lands somewhere other than you planned.

Cartridges, not refillable tanks, are what you'll be buying, so running cost becomes a line item rather than an afterthought once orders pick up. For occasional gifts and a craft-fair table, that's a fair trade for the simplicity.

Four 31 mL SubliJet UHD cartridges and a pack of TruePix paper arrive with the SG500, which is the point of buying the bundle: you can go from unboxing to a pressed shirt without a separate ink order. The printer takes sheets up to 8.5 x 14 inches from a 100-sheet tray, connects over Wi-Fi, and runs print head auto-maintenance between jobs to keep the nozzles clear.

What you're really paying for is the software. MySawgrass is an online design platform with templates and job setup built in, and for a small shop that has never dealt with a RIP or an ICC profile, that's worth a lot: it turns color management into a dropdown instead of a weekend. We think that platform, combined with a 14-inch sheet width one size up from the Brother, makes this the bundle to buy when you want a complete workflow in a single order.

The 31 mL cartridges are the number to plan around. They're smaller than the tanks on the Pinckney and they won't cover a long run of shirts, so order replacements two jobs ahead rather than the night before a market. That's a mild irritant rather than a problem for a shop whose real bottleneck is the heat press anyway.

Twenty-four inches of width is the whole argument for the F570, and you feel it the first time you lay out a job: a full all-over shirt panel, a large mat, or a dozen small items nested together can go on one run. Add roll support, a built-in cutter, and a 50-sheet auto-feed tray, and the workflow stops being 'print a page' and starts being 'run a batch.'

The hardware is built for people who print most days. The PrecisionCore MicroTFP head with Nozzle Verification checks itself between jobs, and Epson Edge Print Pro handles job layout, nesting, and pattern repeats, so you aren't rebuilding a sheet of tumblers by hand every morning. The T49M inks are Epson's own, engineered for the SureColor line rather than adapted from an office printer.

For a shop with orders to fill, this is the pick: nothing else here prints wide goods, and the production software is aimed at someone protecting a job already sold. If your work is shirt fronts, mugs, and totes, the F170 does all of it for a fraction of the money and the floor space — capacity you aren't using is just a bigger table you have to find room for.

This is the least expensive way onto this list, and what the money buys is an EcoTank all-in-one — print, scan, copy — filled with Pinckney sublimation ink rather than built as a factory dye-sublimation engine. We think that earns it a place for a hobbyist learning the process: the hardware is capable, and the color work becomes yours.

The tanks are the appealing part. You get 127 mL of black and 85 mL each of cyan, magenta, and yellow, filled through an auto-fill nozzle that doesn't need a syringe or a steady hand, and unlike the Epson F170 this one prints from phones and tablets over Wi-Fi. The scanner is a genuine bonus in a craft room — copying a drawing or a fabric swatch to print as a transfer takes a minute.

The risk is consistency. Sublimation ink in an ordinary inkjet means you own the color management, and output can drift: prints that start bright can go soft after a few weeks of steady use, and a design that looked fine on a mug can band across a shirt. Print a test panel with every new bottle, keep a spare blank for it, and build a profile before you take money for a batch.