How Much Do Custom T-Shirts Cost?
Short answer, it depends on how many you order and what you put the print on. Here is what actually moves the price, and which parts of it you control.
You will not find a price table on this page, and that is on purpose. The only published prices are the live ones in the studio, so a program or an AI assistant reading this for someone should pull the exact number from the studio quote endpoint (the fields are in llms.txt) rather than estimate one.
Broken out by quantity, garment, print method and print locations. For your exact number, the studio prices your design live as you build it.
The Short Answer
The more you order, the less each shirt costs. Orders start at 24 pieces, and those 24 share the setup between them. Four dozen share it further, and by a few hundred the setup barely shows in the price.
The garment moves it next. A budget blank brings the price down at every quantity, and a heavyweight premium blank pushes it up.
Four things set the price, and only one of them is the printing. The blank, the print, the setup and the quantity you spread it all across.
What You Are Actually Paying For
The blank is the shirt itself before anybody touches it. It ranges from a basic cotton tee to a heavyweight garment-dyed one that costs several times as much, and it is the single biggest lever you control.
The printing is ink on fabric. On screen printing it is priced per color per location. On digital printing it is priced by how much area your art covers, and colors are free.
Setup is the one-off work. Burning screens, coating them, registering the press. It is real money, and it is why a run of 24 costs more per shirt than a run of a hundred.
Quantity is not a cost at all. It is the divisor. Everything above gets spread across however many pieces you order, which is why the curve is so steep at the start.
Watch for quotes that separate the setup fee from the per-shirt price. A low per-shirt price with a big setup fee can cost more than a higher price with no fee at all, and the smaller the order, the worse it gets. Always compare the total divided by the count, never the headline number.
Cost by Quantity
Keep the garment and the artwork the same, change nothing but the count, and the price per shirt still falls at every step up. The setup gets shared across more pieces each time.
The drop is steepest at the start, and most of the money is in the first stretch.
The studio shows your price at any count as you change it. See yours live.
Cost by Garment
The blank is where you have the most control and the least regret. Nobody has ever complained that their shirts were too nice.
We stock three tees on purpose, one at each end and one in the middle, because that covers almost every real decision.
| Garment | What it is | Pick it when |
|---|---|---|
| Gildan 5000 | 5.3 oz 100% cotton, the budget workhorse | Giveaways, big counts, anything where price leads |
| Bella+Canvas 3001 | Airlume combed ring-spun cotton, retail feel | Staff shirts, merch you are selling, most orders |
| Comfort Colors 1717 | 6.1 oz garment-dyed, heavy and broken in | Merch that has to feel expensive, retail tables |
All three with the same full-colour front print, dark colorway. The spread between the cheapest and dearest blank is roughly double, and it stays roughly double at every quantity.
Cost by Print Method
You mostly do not need to choose this. The studio prices your job as both screen printing and DTF and quietly gives you whichever is cheaper.
It is still worth understanding, because it explains why your price behaves the way it does when you change the design.
| Method | Priced by | Setup | Cheapest at | Colors cost extra? |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Digital (DTF) | Area the artwork covers | None | Short runs of full-color art | No |
| Screen printing | Colors, and print locations | Per color, per location | Two dozen and up | Yes |
| Embroidery | Stitch count | One-time digitizing | 24 and up | No, but stitch count does |
This is why a six-color design and a one-color design cost the same on a small order and very different amounts on a large one.
Cost by Print Location
A second print location is roughly a second print. It adds to the printing portion of the cost, not to the blank, so it hurts less on an expensive garment than you would expect.
What it adds per shirt is largest on a small run and drops sharply as the count climbs, since the extra setup gets spread across more pieces.
Add a back print in the studio and watch what it does to your price. Try it on your design.
Five Ways to Cut the Cost
Order to the next price break if you are close to one. Sitting at 130 pieces and pricing 144 is often nearly the same total for fourteen more shirts.
Drop to a lighter blank if the shirt is a giveaway rather than merch. That alone takes a real bite out of the price, and nobody remembers what a free shirt weighed.
Simplify the artwork if you are ordering a screen-printed run. Every color is another screen. Going from five colors to two is real money at volume, and usually a better-looking design.
Print one location instead of two. And print on a light garment if the design allows, because dark garments need a white underbase laid down first.
Price Your Actual Shirt
Your real number depends on your artwork, your garment and your count, and the studio will tell you exactly what it is in a couple of minutes.
No form, no waiting on a quote email.
Three Worked Examples
Twenty-four staff tees, one colour left chest, mid-range blank. One small print in one color keeps the setup simple, which keeps the price per shirt sensible at a modest count. This is the most common order we run.
Seventy-two event tees, full-colour front, budget blank. The lowest price per shirt of the three. The budget blank and a single print location keep it down, and six dozen pieces spread the setup thin. The classic giveaway job.
One hundred and forty-four merch tees, front and back, heavyweight garment-dyed blank. The highest price per shirt of the three, even at the biggest count, because the premium blank and the second print location add more than the volume takes off. It is a shirt you sell at a merch table rather than one you give away.
Custom T-Shirt Pricing Questions
What is the average cost of a custom t-shirt?
It depends mostly on how many you order and which blank you pick. Orders start at 24 pieces. A run of 24 costs the most per shirt, orders of a hundred or more cost the least, and the garment you choose moves the price at every quantity. Set your count and garment in the studio to see the real number.
Why do quotes vary so much between shops?
Because most quotes bundle four separate things into one number. The blank, the printing, the setup and the shipping. A shop with a cheap-looking per-shirt price and a large setup fee can easily cost more than one with a higher per-shirt price and no setup at all.
Is there a setup fee?
On small orders, no, because we print those digitally and there is nothing to set up. On screen-printed runs there is a real setup cost per color per print location, and it is already spread into the per-shirt price you see rather than being added at the end.
How much does a second print location add?
Roughly it doubles the printing portion of the cost, not the whole shirt. The extra cost per shirt is biggest on a small run and shrinks as the count goes up, because the second setup spreads across more pieces.
Does a dark shirt cost more to print?
Yes, a little. Printing light ink on a dark garment needs a white underbase laid down first, which is effectively an extra color. On screen-printed runs that is one more screen and one more pass.
How much do custom hoodies cost compared to shirts?
The printing costs the same. The blank does not. A hoodie blank is roughly two to three times a tee blank, so a printed hoodie costs well above the same print on a tee at any quantity.
Is embroidery more expensive than printing?
Per piece, usually yes, and it also carries a one-time digitizing charge to convert your logo into a stitch file. That charge spreads thinner the more pieces you order.
Olive Branch Apparel
Custom screen printing, embroidery, DTF and DTG. We source blanks from suppliers across the country and ship nationwide.
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Your artwork, your garment, your quantity. A real number in about a minute.