What does band merch in screen printing really cost?
Run size, colours, textile — the three levers the unit price hangs on. And why the cheapest enquiry rarely yields the cheapest result.
The most common question in every first conversation: "What does a shirt cost?" The honest answer: it depends — but on surprisingly few things. Anyone who knows the three levers can size up any quote.
Lever 1: The run size.
In screen printing the biggest cost block sits in the setup: for each colour a screen is exposed, set up and test-printed — whether 50 or 500 shirts run through the machine afterwards. That is why the unit price drops so clearly as the run size grows.
Lever 2: The colours.
Each colour is a screen of its own — and thus its own setup cost. A one-colour motif on 100 shirts can be cheaper than a four-colour one on 200. Good merch designs for small runs are therefore often deliberately reduced.
The most expensive quote is the one renegotiated three times — because the wrong questions were asked at the start.
Lever 3: The textile.
Between the cheapest blank and a heavy premium shirt there can quickly be several euros — per piece. The question is not "cheap or expensive", but: what should the shirt cost at the merch stand, and what margin is left?
Anyone who fixes run size, colour count and textile before the enquiry gets comparable quotes — and pays less in the end. These are exactly the three questions we clarify in the first conversation, in ten minutes.
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