Every new print shop makes the same mistake in its first year: it quotes jobs on vibes. A customer asks “how much for 50 shirts with a one-color logo?” and the owner fires back “$8 each” without doing any math. Sometimes that number is fine. Sometimes it’s 30% below cost. The shop that survives is the one that builds a formula and uses it on every quote.
Here’s the formula we teach every customer who asks us how to quote apparel jobs. It works for screen printing, DTG, and embroidery. You don’t need a spreadsheet — a calculator and the cost of your blanks is enough.
The base formula
Per-shirt retail price = (Blank cost + Decoration cost) × Markup + (Setup fee ÷ Quantity)
Break it down:
- Blank cost:Your wholesale cost on the shirt itself. Get this from your supplier’s invoice, not the retail tag.
- Decoration cost: The per-shirt labor + ink + screen amortization. See the table below.
- Markup multiplier:How much margin you want to keep. 2.5x–3x is standard for print shops.
- Setup fee:A flat charge per design ($25–$50 is common). This covers art prep, screen burning, press setup, test prints, and the fact that screen printing has fixed startup labor no matter how many shirts you run.
Decoration cost table (2026 benchmarks)
Use these as starting points and adjust to your labor cost:
- 1-color screen print, 1 location: $0.80–$1.20/shirt
- 2-color screen print, 1 location: $1.30–$1.80/shirt
- 4-color screen print, 1 location: $2.40–$3.20/shirt
- Full-color DTG print:$4.50–$7.00/shirt depending on print size
- Embroidery, 5,000 stitches:$3.50–$5.00/shirt
- Embroidery, 10,000 stitches:$6.00–$9.00/shirt
A worked example
A customer wants 50 shirts with a 2-color logo on the front. They want them on BELLA+CANVAS 3001 in mixed colors and sizes.
- Blank cost: $4.80/shirt × 50 = $240
- Decoration cost: $1.50/shirt (2-color) × 50 = $75
- Subtotal: $315
- × 2.75 markup = $866.25
- + $35 setup fee = $901.25
- Quote the customer: $18.00/shirt ($900 total)
Your cost on that job is $315 in hard costs + ~$60 of your time. You’re clearing about $525. That’s a healthy job — not a giveaway.
Volume breaks
Your per-shirt costs go down as quantity goes up, and your customer knows it. Publish a tier-break structure so they don’t have to ask:
- 24–47 shirts: Full retail
- 48–99 shirts: 10% off
- 100–249 shirts: 18% off
- 250+ shirts: 25% off
The volume breaks come from two places: your blank cost drops with volume (every wholesaler gives case-pack pricing), and your setup fee amortizes across more shirts. Pass a piece of both to the customer.
Rush jobs
A “rush” for a print shop is any job that bumps other jobs off your press. Charge for it. A 25% rush surcharge on top of the quoted price is standard; 50% for same-day. Write it into your quote template so customers self-select out of rush jobs that aren’t worth the chaos.
Setup fees: don’t apologize for them
New shops often waive setup fees to “win” a job. Every time you do, you’re eating 30–60 minutes of labor plus the cost of a burned screen you’ll probably reclaim later. Customers don’t actually care about the line item — they care about the total. Keep the setup fee on the invoice, bundle it into the per-shirt price only for re-orders (where the screens are already burned), and use re-order pricing as an upsell to lock in repeat business.
Quote template you can steal
Here’s the exact email template we hand out to new shops:
Hi [Name], great talking with you. Here’s the quote for your [count] shirts with [design description]:
- Blank: [style] in [colors]
- Print: [#] colors, [location], [size]
- Quantity: [count]
- Per-shirt price: $[X]
- Setup fee: $[X] (one-time; waived on reorders)
- Total: $[X]
Production time is 7–10 business days after approval. Rush available at +25%. 50% deposit to begin, balance on delivery.
Reply “approved” and I’ll send the invoice.
The hidden lever: blank sourcing
The cheapest way to improve your margin without changing your quotes is to lower your blank cost. Most new shops pay retail because they don’t have a wholesale account set up yet. That’s a 30–45% self-inflicted wound.
Open a wholesale account with a dropship supplier on day one. Buy only what your open jobs need, have it shipped plain-packed directly to you, and you’ll never tie up cash in a stockroom. B2B Sportswear does exactly this — 200,000+ wholesale styles, volume discounts applied automatically, same-day shipping, zero minimums after your first order.