Screen Printing

Screen print pricing depends on a few factors:

Cost of the blank item being printed. Different items cost different amounts. Hoodies cost more than t-shirts (in general). Even within the general t-shirt category there is a wide amount of price variation. We work with an extensive variety of great brands. Some, like Hanes, make cheaper basic t-shirts. Others, like American Apparel, make high-end, retail-quality apparel that costs more. Our price quotes include the blank apparel being used for your project.
Number of items being printed. The more items being screen printed, the lower the cost per item. Why is this? Mainly because the amount of time it takes to set up and clean up a job is the same whether we are screen printing 1 piece or 10,000 pieces. People are surprised to learn that the actual screen printing of a t-shirt is very quick – just a couple seconds! But setting up and cleaning up are much more time consuming, it takes a couple hours regardless of order size. So, factoring in set-up and clean-up time, screen printing one t-shirt really takes around an hour and 31 minutes (91 minutes per tee). At the same time, screen printing 25 t-shirts, takes around an hour and 45 minutes (4.2 minutes per tee). 1,000 t-shirts takes closer to 6.5 hours (under 30 seconds per tee). This is why we charge more per t-shirt for lower quantities.
Number of colors of ink and print locations. Unlike an inkjet printer, each ink color is printed using its own screen. Each color therefore takes longer to set-up, clean-up, and print. Also, each print location (such as front of t-shirt, back of t-shirt, sleeve of t-shirt, etc.) is printed separately from other print locations. This requires additional time and resources.

We help you save money on screen printing by finding the best value apparel for your needs, identifying the ideal print quantity, and helping to achieve your design goals using the least amount of colors possible. We’d love to chat with you about all this. Give us a call (802 222 0344) or email.