When I started out I priced jobs off a competitor's website and a gut feeling. Some made money, plenty didn't, and I couldn't tell which was which until the numbers came in at the end of the month.
A price chart is how you stop guessing. It's your print prices worked out ahead of time — every color count, every quantity — so you quote off a number you trust instead of one you pulled out of the air. Most charts float on nothing, though. This one's built on what your shop actually costs to run.
Start with what a print actually costs you
Not the ink. Everything. Rent, power, the light bill, a tube of emulsion, and your own paycheck. Two numbers get you there and you already know both — what your shop costs to run in a month, and how many shirts you print in that month. Divide one by the other. Spend $14k a month, push 4,000 shirts, and every print costs you about $3.50 before you've made a dime.
Then decide what you want to keep. Want 45%? Your base isn't cost times something — it's cost divided by 0.55. That $3.50 turns into $6.36. Write it down. That's the cheapest square on your whole chart: one color, smallest run. Everything else grows from it.
| Colors \ Qty | 25 | 50 | 100 | 200 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 color | $6.36 | $5.73 | $5.27 | $4.93 |
| 2 colors | $7.00 | $6.30 | $5.80 | $5.43 |
| 3 colors | $7.63 | $6.87 | $6.32 | $5.91 |
| 4 colors | $8.25 | $7.42 | $6.83 | $6.39 |
| 5 colors | $8.85 | $7.96 | $7.33 | $6.86 |
| 6 colors | $9.43 | $8.49 | $7.81 | $7.31 |
| 7 colors | $9.99 | $8.99 | $8.27 | $7.74 |
| 8 colors | $10.52 | $9.47 | $8.71 | $8.15 |
Price per print. Garment and markup are added separately.
Let percentages do the boring part
You don't type in 32 prices. You set two rules and the chart fills itself. Bigger runs cost less per shirt, because setup is the same whether you print 25 or 250 — so knock a chunk off at each size break, around 10% for the first jump and a little less each time after. More colors cost more, but not double. The first color's the expensive one; it carries the setup. Every color after is just another screen and another pass, so each one adds a slice — call it 10% — and that slice shrinks as the count climbs.
Build it this way and the chart moves as one. Want to bump prices 5% next year? Change your base. Beats retyping a spreadsheet.
Margin isn't markup (this one cost me)
Mark a $6 cost up 50% and you get $9. Feels like half of it's profit. It isn't — $3 out of $9 is 33%. If you actually want to keep half, you divide by 0.5 and charge $12. I priced a whole season on "cost times 1.5" thinking I was at 50 points. I was at 33. Don't be me.
The chart is half the shirt. Here's the rest.
Garment. You don't sell blanks at cost, but the markup slides down as they get pricier. Forty percent on a $4 tee is easy. Forty percent on a $30 hoodie makes you the priciest shop in town — so a hoodie gets maybe 15%. Keep it on its own ladder, away from the print chart. That's what lets you swap a tee for a hoodie without rebuilding anything.
Screens. Every color's a screen, and a screen is time — burn it, tape it, register it, reclaim it later. Charge a setup fee per screen. Three-color front, three screens. Reorder the same art and the screens already exist, so drop to a small re-setup rate. On 200 shirts it's pennies each. On a 12-piece job it's the whole difference between a profit and a thank-you card.
Extras and rush. A PMS match, a heavy discharge print, tags in the neck — all cost more, all get a line, some once and some per shirt. And if somebody needs 100 shirts in three days while everyone else waits, that's a rush percentage on the order.
Stack it up and a real quote is: print + garment×markup + screens + extras + rush. Say 100 shirts, two-color front, $4 tee — print's about $5.77 a shirt, garment's $5.60, two screens is fifty bucks (fifty cents a shirt). Roughly $11.87 each, call it $1,187, before rush. Leave the screens off and you just ran a hundred shirts for fifty dollars under cost. Nobody does that on purpose. Lots of new printers do it by accident.
Build it once
Set it up one time — a base you can defend, a couple of percentages to shape the rest, garment and fees kept separate — and stop guessing at the counter. That's the whole system.
Common questions
- What should the cheapest price on my chart be?
- One color, smallest run. That square is your cost per print divided by (1 minus your target margin). Spend $14k a month, push 4,000 shirts, and each print costs about $3.50 — at a 45% margin that base is $6.36. Every other cell on the chart grows from that number.
- How do I set the price breaks without typing in every cell?
- Two rules fill the whole chart. Bigger runs cost less per shirt because setup is fixed, so knock roughly 10% off at each size break, a little less each time. More colors cost more but not double — the first color carries the setup, so each color after adds a shrinking slice. Set the two percentages and the chart moves as one when you change your base.
- How often should I rebuild my price chart?
- You don't rebuild it — you change the base. Because the chart is built off one cost-per-print number and a couple of percentages, bumping prices 5% next year is a one-number edit, not a spreadsheet retype. Revisit the base whenever your overhead or volume shifts enough to move that cost-per-print figure.