Im trying to start my own clothing design line and I ordered 12 t-shirts to start small. I did it at a local place here in town and for 12 it was like 200$, does that seem right or a little to high? Thanks!
Im trying to start my own clothing design line and I ordered 12 t-shirts to start small. I did it at a local place here in town and for 12 it was like 200$, does that seem right or a little to high? Thanks!
When you start small, you pay more per t-shirt because the discounts only come with larger runs.
The best way to see if you got a competitive price is to call around to 2-3 different printers and get quotes on the exact same project. That way you'll find out which ones are low and high and have actual printers to contact if you decide to move forward.
Sorry here is some more info.; they are going to be black t-shirts with the sizes of 3 small, 3 medium, 3 large, and 3 extra large. The color of it is going to be Gold glitter. Here is my design:
Also they re-did the design since they used corel and I used photoshop for it so it was in the wrong format. And yes it is going to be screenprinted.
Last edited by Solmu; October 9th, 2008 at 11:22 PM.
Reason: changed image to thumbnail
Sorry here is some more info.; they are going to be black t-shirts with the sizes of 3 small, 3 medium, 3 large, and 3 extra large. The color of it is going to be Gold glitter. Here is my design:
Also they re-did the design since they used corel and I used photoshop for it so it was in the wrong format. And yes it is going to be screenprinted.
Hello. Did they charge you an art fee for re-doing your art into vector format? If you paid for that service, make sure they give you the art files. This way, when you price around for the next time, you will already have the art in vector format (Corel format), and you won't have to pay for that again. If they did it for free, you could ask them for it, maybe they will give it to you. Some will, some won't. Screenprinters on this board talk about having to re-do art, and sometimes they'll just give the file when the job is over.
You can also place an ad in the referrals and recommendation section of this forum. Folks can recommend a printer for you, or offer their services themselves, if they provide that.
As always, check out who you are thinking of using, samples of their work is always a good idea.
What shirt did you have this printed on? Did the screen printer provide them? Sometimes you can buy your own shirts at wholesale and supply them to the printer. Some printers will add a per piece fee when you bring your own, some will not. If this printer supplied the shirts, there could be a mark up on the shirts, adding to your costs.
There are a few ways to try to control your costs when having screen printing done. Knowing what fees are added helps you compare your printers prices. Quality comes first, but if you are comparing high quality printers, some questions are: who adds screen fees, what are the mins, are there art work charges, do they mark up the blanks? Things like these are variables. I see some screen printers here say they charge xyz, and others say they don't.
If you go to the screen printing section, and read the threads there on how to price jobs, they all talk about these things. Trust me, you can learn alot about the fees of screen printing that way. Then you will know if you are overpaying, and how to control those costs.
Fore screen printing there's a lot of initial set up to do the print. They have to prepare the image, get the screen ready, set up the printing press. I don't know of very many screen printers that would take a job of just 12 shirts it's just to much work such a small amount of shirts.
Could you have got it done cheaper? Maybe. Were you ripped off? No: printers who'll do a twelve piece minimum don't grow on trees.
Reading the pricing threads will tell you why printers charge what they charge, but it won't really help you with pricing jobs yourself. Jobs should always be compared on total cost, and how a printer breaks down those costs really doesn't matter to the end consumer.
A $20 screen fee and $30 art charge beats no charges, but triple the print price (well, depending on your quantity). Yet time and time again I see people getting caught up on the little fees a printer itemises.
Easier to just skip over all of that, and do what Rodney suggested: contact printers for actual quotes. An actual price you can actually get on your actual job beats the theoretical price a forum member would hypothetically charge if you were in their service area.
Compare actual available prices, go with the best option.
Sorry here is some more info.; they are going to be black t-shirts with the sizes of 3 small, 3 medium, 3 large, and 3 extra large. The color of it is going to be Gold glitter. Here is my design:
Also they re-did the design since they used corel and I used photoshop for it so it was in the wrong format. And yes it is going to be screenprinted.
I could have missed it, but I don't think you mentioned the type of shirt it is printed on. There are price differences between an American Apparel shirt VS a Gildan shirt.
Vendors are making it too easy to obtain a wholesale account with blanks. I notice more and more that some vendors don't even require a wholesale account and sell blanks at wholesale prices to the public (I wonder when vendors will figure out that it is the printers who purchase 100k-500k from them a year, I am so tired of people trying to bring in their own garments that I might even ditch my vendors and ALLOW my customers to buy their own) I sure as hell know my customers don't purchase more than I do from them!!
This ruins the printers bottom line, which means soon print prices will rise. So, the more people opt to bring their own garments in, the higher print prices will become to even their bottom line.
(This stems from a customer calling last week asking if we provide the blanks just so we can "make a profit").
Oh, by the way, YOU ARE NOT GETTING RIPPED OFF!! That is cheap cheap cheap dirt cheap.
Printers aren't out there to scam you for your money, we are here to earn your business. Do you ask retailers if their $99 memory stick is a rip off? Do you ask if that $1 hamburger at Mcdonalds is a rip off? (Why not suggest to McDonalds that burgerking is offering the hamburger for $0.99 cents instead of $1.00.) You know Mcdonalds most likely pays a nickle or less for there patties. WOAH, they can make a profit?!!?!?!!!?
There is nothing wrong with asking, but I hope you are not assuming your printer is out there to scam you. Some people expect printers to work for free. As you can tell, I am getting tired of it.
Last edited by TshirtGuru; October 10th, 2008 at 09:54 AM.
TshirtGuru: First of all I am not asking anything for FREE. If you ever studied economics "There is no free lunch." I was just asking a general question. Who would ever want to be ripped off? NO ONE. Second if you don't know something, it is better to ASK. Ignorance is BLISS.
Also of course the economy is bad.
Not only the manufacture should plan out on maximizing business but also consumers should shop around. Hence what I am doing. I'm not trying to start any problems but it is not worth taking it personal.
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