Printing Tips. Understanding Print Costs. What You Need to Know

Because there are endless print+shirt+quantity combinations, each job is unique and with our experience of printing hundreds of thousands of custom tees, pricing can vary wildly from job to job and there is no simple one size fits all pricing. It can be overwhelming knowing where to start, like how many shirts should I order? how many colours should I have in my design? and which shirt is best for me?

If you want to get best bang for your buck, understanding how our pricing works will help narrow down the best combo for your next project. Here are the basic factors that each will effect your end price.

PRINT SIZE AND COLOURS.

How many colours in my design and what print size?

Using loads of colour can be great idea on paper, but on shirts can make your shirt expensive or may limit the available print options. We offer several digital and screen print options, and the best method will depend entirely on how many colours in your design and order size. Digital prints require minimal set up, ideal for small runs. However unlike our digital options, screen prints require a film and screens for each colour. So when additional colour is added, another screen must be made, which means more labor, materials, etc. Once set up, a screen printer can print 100 shirts, by the time our digital printer finishes up 10 shirts. Because screen-printing is like an assembly line, the sharpest pricing will be for 100's shirts all with the same one colour screen print.

Size is also a factor and larger the print more materials we need to use, so price will increase the larger the print. But amount of colours in your print will have more impact on cost.

PRINT LOCATIONS.

Do I want to add a back or sleeve prints?

Majority of our jobs are a single front print on a t-shirt, but we offer sleeve prints, back prints and more. Just keep in mind if you want to print a logo on the front and a slogan on the back you will essentially be doubling your print cost as these are two unique print runs. We do economise on the set up costs, by sharing screens when possible (example top and tail front and back prints on a single screen)

QUANITIY

How large is your order?

When it comes to cost, we focus on the time and cost to set up each design. What we are printing on is secondary, so you can mix different garment types for the best price break! For example, if you’re ordering 25 t-shirts, you can add 15 hoodies and 10 singlets to reach the price break for 50 prints as long as the design on both the sweatshirts and t-shirts remains the same. Keep in mind however when ordering adults and kids sizes, the kids sizes cannot be included in the adult order due to the kids needing a smaller print and new set up just for the kids print size.

If you have a design and unsure how many to order, we do have an article explaining minimums along with our suggested minimum orders. This mainly applies to small orders under 50 units as extra colours won't make as big of difference when you order 500 shirts.

APPAREL OPTIONS.

What kind of apparel is best for my design?

Not all shirts are created equal and the base price is dependent on the fabric weight, quality, and size of different garments. Prices will start with a 180gsm carded cotton and go up to our super heavyweight 240gsm garment dyed tees. Sweatshirt prices are also dependent on how thick the fabric is.

If you know exactly what style you want, awesome! But if you need help, we can help find the right garment for your print and budget.