Custom shirts for a small business — pricing reality at quantities under 12.

We get a lot of inquiries from new small businesses. Restaurant owner with 4 employees. Plumber with 2 helpers. Personal trainer who wants 8 logo tees for a launch. The economics are different at small quantity and we'd rather be straight about it.

Volume drives screen-print pricing. The screen has to get burned, the press has to get set up, the ink has to get mixed. That work happens whether you're printing 1 shirt or 100. Spread across 100 shirts, the setup is pennies. Spread across 6, the setup is the dominant cost.

Real numbers (single-color print on a stocked tee). 1 shirt: $35-50. 6 shirts: $20-25 each. 12 shirts: $16-19 each. 25 shirts: $13-15 each. 50+: $11-13 each.

What this means for a small business. If you're ordering under 12, your per-shirt cost is going to feel high. That's normal. The fix is one of three things.

One: order more. If you'll wear the shirts for a year and you'll burn through them, getting 24 instead of 12 makes the per-shirt price dramatically better and you have backups.

Two: switch methods. For 6 shirts of the same design, vinyl heat transfer is sometimes equal or cheaper than screen print because there's no screen setup. The hand is slightly stiffer but for a small staff that's working in them daily, fine.

Three: consolidate. If you can wait and combine your shirt order with hats, polos, or aprons — we can run them in the same workflow and the per-piece numbers improve.

Bring your design and a budget into the custom printing counter. We'll talk through the math and pick the method that fits your spend.