Pricing shirts for that few shirts is hard.
The customer will be surprised as to how much they will cost.
You might want to do a minimum of 12 or 18 shirts to keep the price per shirt down.
Here is one way to look at pricing shirts.
You can break down shirt pricing into sections, to figure out how much to charge.
1) the shirts, cost of the shirts + a markup
2) the screens and artwork, screens should be between $17. a screen and $30 a screen.
I charge 22.50 each screen
3) printing, how long will it take to setup, register, and print
4) markup on the job for overhead, sales, rent commission
As the number of shirts goes up, the price per shirt goes down, alot!
Doing 5 shirts is hard to make money at.
Here are prices for 5, 12 and 24 shirts
These are estimates.
So for 5 shirts
($2 a shirt cost X 100% on the shirts (plus shipping if you order them alone)
$4 X 5 = $20
(4 screens X $25 a screen)
$100
(between 1/2 and 1 hour to setup, print, and cleanup) Shop time $50
$50
(Commission and markup X 15%
20 +100 + 50 = $170 X 15% = 195 / 5 shirts = $39 each
---- but for 12 shirts
So for 12 shirts
($2 a shirt cost X 100% on the shirts (plus shipping if you order them alone)
$4 X 12 = $48
(4 screens X $25 a screen)
$100
(between 1/2 and 1 hour to setup, print, and cleanup) Shop time $50
$60
(Commission and markup X 15%
48 +100 + 60 = $208 X 15%= 239.2 / 12 shirts = $20 each
---- but for 24 shirts
So for 24 shirts
($2 a shirt cost X 50% on the shirts (plus shipping if you order them alone)
$3 X 24 = $72
(4 screens X $25 a screen)
$100
(between 1 hour and 1 1/2 hours to setup, print, and cleanup) Shop time $50
$75
(Commission and markup X 15%
72 +100 + 75 = $ X 15%= 247 / 24 shirts = $10.30 each
You can see it takes just a little longer to print 24 shirts, than just 5 and you make lots more money, and the customer gets a better price per shirt.
I always give bids with the number of shirts the customers asks for, and bids for more shirts, so they can see the price breaks.
I send a customer with 5 shirts with a 4 color print to a Direct To Garment place.
I also give them a quote with 12, 18 and 24 shirts.
Hope this helps.
