Pricing

There are a number of different techniques used for decorating t-shirts, depending on the quantity of shirts, the color of the shirts, and the type of artwork. If you only need a handful of shirts, computer-printed "transfers" from your local office supply store may be just what you need. This is especially true if you need color photographs reproduced. Screen printing is a traditional printing process uniquely suited to printing on fabric, with excellent durability and wearability. Unlike reproducing a document on your office copier, it requires "set up" time to produce the printing screens, load ink, and print. It is not just "pressing a button."

Since screen printing is a process geared to mass production, there is considerable time required to set up the printing screens and the press on which they are used. For a simple 1-color design, this set-up time might be only a couple of minutes, but for more complex multi-color jobs, the set-up time can easily take an hour before we print the first shirt. Once set up, though, we typically can run between 5-10 shirts per minute--all day long--, regardless of the number of colors. In contrast, most other techniques for decorating shirts may require less time/effort/expense in preparation, but usually require much more time for the actual application to the shirt. Accordingly, the pricing for screen printing shirts is highly dependent on the number of shirts. And for very small quantities, the cost is usually prohibitive. We consider 10 shirts to be the minimum number of items that it is cost-effective to print, and we will freely suggest to you that there may be cheaper alternatives for small quantities and refer you to one of our customers/competitors who specialize in producing very small quantities.

Below is a chart showing our current prices for printing a 1-color design on one location (front, back, sleeve, etc.) on one of our most popular brands of t-shirts, first in a 5.6 oz. 50/50 cotton polyester shirt, and then in a heavyweight premium 100% cotton shirt. This shirt is one of the "standards" in the industry and serves as a good benchmark for comparing price quotes from different printers.

In addition to the above prices, there is a $20 set-up fee for each screen required. A separate screen is required for each color of the design or for each location that is printed on the shirt. We realize that this may be confusing. Many printers just lump in the set-up expenses to the "per shirt print charges" quoted. We believe it better for you, the customer, to understand the process and how it influences pricing. In the above example, 10 of the 100% cotton shirts would cost you $91.50 plus $20 set-up charges (91.50+20=111.50/10 or $11.15 per shirt). However, 500 shirts would be 500 x $4.15=$2075 Add the set-up charge of $20 to make a total of $2095. But that total divided by 500 shirts yields a "per shirt cost" of only $4.19. As you can see, the real "set-up" costs, are significant for small quantities, but when amortized over large number of shirts they are pretty insignificant. We will be glad to do the math for you and tell you a total "per shirt cost" based on your specific order.

We regularly monitor the market and believe that you will find our prices very competitive.