How much does it cost to print 50 custom t-shirts?

What you are actually paying for

A 50-piece order has two moving parts and, at this quantity, one that has already stopped moving. The print is a per-shirt charge set by how many ink colors the design uses and how many locations get printed. The blank is the shirt itself, quoted live from the wholesale catalogs we buy from and billed at our standard markup, which is why a heavyweight cotton tee and a retail-fit ring-spun tee produce very different totals for the same artwork.

The third part, the one-time screen prep, is gone by 50 pieces. Screens, film and press setup only bill on runs of 24 pieces or fewer; above that they are waived, so a 50-piece run pays nothing for setup that a 24-piece run does.

Why 50 sits in a better tier than 24

Screen printing is mostly a setup business. Registering the press, mixing ink and pulling the first good print takes the same work whether the run is 24 shirts or 1,200, and once the press is moving each additional shirt takes seconds. That is why the per-shirt price drops as quantity climbs: a 1-color front goes from $7.04 at 24 pieces to $4.93 at 50 and $3.52 at 100.

The quantity tier is set by the total pieces on the order, not by each design separately. If you are ordering two designs at 25 shirts each, the whole order still prices at the 50-piece tier; the per-piece print charge is simply applied to each design.

What moves the number most

• Ink colors. Each color is its own screen and its own pass through the press, so a 2-color front costs more per shirt than a 1-color front at every quantity.
• Print locations. Front, back, sleeve and inside tag are each priced separately. A front-only print is the cheapest version of any design.
• Garment choice. On a 50-piece run the blank moves the total more than any other single decision you make.
• Dark garments. A white underbase goes down first so the colors read correctly, which adds to the print side of the quote.
• Extended sizes. 2XL and up carry a size upcharge on the blank, so a size run heavy in extended sizes prices higher than a straight small-through-XL run.

Screen print or DTG at 50 pieces

At 50 pieces screen printing is usually the cheaper route for a simple 1- or 2-color design, and it produces the most durable print. DTG earns its place when the artwork is full color or photographic, when you want a very soft hand on a cotton tee, or when you need a handful of shirts rather than a run. DTG has no minimum and no setup fee, so it is also the honest answer for anyone who came here wanting 50 shirts and left wanting 8.