# T-shirt printing cost calculator for DTF, DTG and screen printing

A free t-shirt printing cost calculator: choose DTF, DTG or screen printing, enter your own costs and margin, and see the cost and price per shirt for 1, 10, 25, 50, 100 and 250 shirts, with screen printing’s set-up shared over the run. Nothing leaves your browser.

**A printed t-shirt costs its blank, the ink, transfer or film of each print, your time at your hourly rate and extras such as packing; screen printing adds a set-up for each colour, divided between the shirts of the order.** With the calculator’s example figures, which show the sums and are not market prices, a shirt costs 8.30 before set-up, and screen printed in 2 colours its 40.00 set-up makes one shirt cost 48.30 and each of 100 cost 8.70.

## How the calculator works

1. **Cost per printed shirt.** The blank, plus the ink, transfer or film for one print, plus your time (minutes ÷ 60 × your hourly rate), plus extras such as packing.
2. **Set-up.** For screen printing, the set-up for one colour times the colours, once for each order. DTF and DTG have none here: count any work you do once per order in the time.
3. **Cost per shirt for an order.** The cost per printed shirt plus the set-up divided by the shirts in the order.
4. **Price.** Price = cost ÷ (1 − (margin + payment fee) ÷ 100). The payment fee is a share of what the customer pays, so the price covers it as well as the margin: what is left after the fee and the cost is your margin of the price. An order’s total is the price per shirt, rounded to the cent, times the shirts.

## A worked example

With the example figures, which show the sums and are not market prices: a 4.00 blank, 2.50 of ink for the print, 3 minutes at 24.00 an hour (1.20) and 0.60 of packing make a shirt cost 8.30. Screen printed in 2 colours at 20.00 a colour, each order carries 40.00 of set-up, and with a 40% margin and a 3% payment fee:

| Shirts | Cost per shirt | Price per shirt | Order total |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 48.30 | 84.74 | 84.74 |
| 10 | 12.30 | 21.58 | 215.80 |
| 25 | 9.90 | 17.37 | 434.25 |
| 50 | 9.10 | 15.96 | 798.00 |
| 100 | 8.70 | 15.26 | 1526.00 |
| 250 | 8.46 | 14.84 | 3710.00 |

## Questions

### How much does it cost to print a t-shirt?

What you pay for the blank and for the ink, transfer or film of each print, plus your time at your hourly rate and extras such as packing; screen printing adds its set-up, shared between the shirts of the order. With the example figures a shirt costs 8.30 before set-up; screen printed in 2 colours at 20.00 a colour, the 40.00 set-up adds 40.00 to a single shirt and 0.40 to each of 100.

### Why does screen printing cost less per shirt in larger orders?

Its screens are made once for each design and colour, whether the run is 5 shirts or 500, so their cost is divided between the shirts. DTF and DTG have almost no set-up for each design, so their cost per shirt stays about the same at any quantity.

### When is screen printing cheaper than DTF or DTG?

When the order is large enough that its set-up per shirt, added to its cost per print, falls below the other method’s cost per print. Enter each method’s own figures in turn and compare the cost per shirt at the same quantity: where screen printing becomes the cheaper one is your crossover.

### What is the difference between margin and markup?

Margin is profit as a share of the price; markup is profit as a share of the cost. A 40% margin is a 67% markup, and a 50% margin is a 100% markup: the price is double the cost. The calculators ask for the margin you keep after the payment fee.

### Why is the payment fee part of the price?

Card and payment fees are a percentage of what the customer pays, so they grow with the price. The calculators divide the cost by one minus the margin and the fee together, so that once the fee is taken, the margin left is the one you chose.

### Is anything I type sent anywhere?

No. The page does the sums in your browser: nothing is sent to printblob.com or anyone else, and nothing is saved.

## Putting the price in your shop

In a WooCommerce shop with [PrintBlob](/), the shirt’s price is the product’s price and you set a print price for each printed side, which the designer adds when that side has a design, so customers see the total change as they design. The free plugin prints the front; back and sleeve printing are [PrintBlob Pro](/docs/pro/). [How to price custom t-shirt printing](/guides/price-custom-t-shirt-printing/) explains splitting the price into the shirt and each side. For DTF bought or printed on gang sheets, the [DTF pricing calculator](/tools/dtf-pricing-calculator/) works out the cost per transfer from the sheet; how the three methods differ is in [DTF vs DTG vs screen printing](/guides/dtf-vs-dtg-vs-screen-printing/).

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Page: https://printblob.com/tools/t-shirt-printing-cost-calculator/

See also: [docs](https://printblob.com/docs/index.md), [guides](https://printblob.com/guides/index.md), [features](https://printblob.com/features/index.md), [situations](https://printblob.com/situations/index.md), [compare](https://printblob.com/compare/index.md), [demos](https://printblob.com/demos/index.md), [themes](https://printblob.com/themes/index.md).