- What are the basic factors that go into screen printing pricing?
- Volume - the more shirts printed at a time, the lower the price. This is because it's all about overall time spent to produce shirts. Don't forget set up and break down / clean up time.
- Complexity - is it just one color on the front, or is it two colors on the front and three on the back with a sleeve print too? The complication of printing affects the amount of time spent to print the order, and that is a huge factor into how much it will cost.
- Apparel type - Are you using a regular shirt or something fancy? Gildan, the solid, affordable industry standard, or American Apparel, a higher-end shirt made in America? Our wholesale cost goes into determining our pricing.
At this time, we do not use traditional plastic ink for screen printing, although we will be trying it out soon. Instead, we use discharge inks for dark shirts and waterbased for lighter shirts. Medium colors, like some blues and greens among others, can be trickier. Discharge works by removing the shirt's color and replacing it. This is awesome in many ways, but for our purposes here, it allows us to print colors on dark shirts without an underbase. This saves a lot of time, both in set up and in production. With traditional inks, the printer would need to do a white layer and then the visible color on dark, to get something like a red on black. But with discharge we can add red pigment to the ink so that in one print we can produce a red on black, keeping it one color, and keeping it cheap! Waterbased inks are cool in that they are eco-friendly and result in a print that either has a very slight feel on the shirt, or more commonly, no feel at all on the shirt.
Printers charge anywhere from $10 to $35 to set up a screen, and you need a screen for each color and print location. We no longer charge to set up screens or mix inks
Visit Vacord Screen Printing to see our current pricing.
We are located in Philadelphia. If you're local, you can pick up your shirts at our shop during operating hours and save money by avoiding shipping. Need us to ship to you? Not a problem. We use UPS and it's very affordable. Orders usually ship the business day after printing, although if we can get the order done by noon we can probably ship it the same day we print it.
Want a different style than we have above? Visit 4logowearables.com and browse everything we can get from our distributor. Just note the style code of anything that strikes your fancy.
You can even request a quote on cheap screen printing online. Easy!