Need Cheaper Print Pricing For Your Start Up?

We often get similar enquiries:

Hi Alex,

It’s ***** here, from ******* ***** clothing, hope you’re well mate.

I just wanted to email with some questions I have about potentially starting to get my t-shirts printed.

So I know I paid £17.71 per t-shirt for my test prints (5 T-shirts) but what I wanted to know is if that price was because I ordered the Premium cotton t-shirts or was it because my designs where complicated to print?

As my company is still only a startup company, I’m looking to see if I can lower my printing prices.

Thanks very much, I look forward to hearing from you.

Our reply:

The answer to your question is simple – VOLUME
You had one of each design printed by the most expensive print method (though the cheapest for one off).

Some examples:
T Shirt prices – on say 100 off GD005’s White say £2.86 (you paid £3.26)
Printing – one colour black screen print 50+ £2.06 100+ £1.06, 1000+ 58p
Back Prints – DTF to A3 50 off £3.00, 100 off £2.50
Back prints – screenprint 3 colour 100+ £2.10 1000+ 80p
Back prints – screenprint 5 colour 100+ £3.04 1000+ £1.08

So whilst unrealistic for a start up – 1K of a design by screenprint could come in as low as £4.24 (plus vat) per shirt.

Some tips for you as a start up:
Use your sample shirts to decide which of your designs are strongest.
Allocate a budget for your initial stock run, print as many as you can of each design – do not spread this too thin.
Choose a flexible print method (probably DTF at start up) so that you can re-stock your most popular designs.
Know what price you can produce at so that if you get that fantastic one off opportunity you are ready to do the deal.