I would highly recomand trying with essence, draely essences are usualy in the cheeper range and using dye on a pet to get them the right color may not be worth it. Knowing that one lesser dye cost 60k on average in the broaker and that you will nead at least one by color/trait, you will nead to spend a minimum of 10 dye to fix one pet witch roughly translate to at least 600k while a regular essence would cost you around 20k.

Unless you are working with boosted stats from the lost grove or if you want to start a project that involve restricted traits, making a dye project may not be the be the best for you at your level unless you already have enough dye to do so. ^-^