How to lower the cost of getting printed T Shirts

Giving a quote for T shirt printing isn’t as easy as you might think. This is because there are so many different factors which are involved in creating a personalised t shirt and personalised clothing for an order.

One issue that is often overlooked when asking for a price is the original colour of the garment as this can actually have a big effect on the overall price of your order – especially if you’re getting your designs printed using Screen Printing or Direct to Garment printing.

It’s true, printing on white garments is actually cheaper than choosing coloured garments for different reasons. The first reason is that the base price of coloured garments is more expensive than white T Shirts. This is because the T Shirts are more expensive to create and therefore this cost is reflected in the price. Luckily, we get our T Shirts at cost price so we’re able to provide this saving for you, unfortunately, even at cost price, coloured T Shirts are more expensive.

Another issue is the setup costs which are incurred during the printing process. With white garments (100% cotton or at least an 80%-20% blend), they don’t require any pre-treatment prior to use printing your designs onto the garment. This means that we’re able to take your design and print it directly onto the T-Shirt and achieve a top-quality print quickly and easily.

Unfortunately, coloured garments don’t work out the same due to the colouring that they receive during the manufacturing process. As a result of this, each coloured T-Shirt requires a special layer of pre-treatment which allows the ink to settle into the fabric. This pre-treatment layer ensures that the colours not only remain on the T-Shirt and don’t instantly fade, but they ensure that the colours are bright and vivid from the moment your design is printed.

Take a look at the video to see the difference between a T-Shirt that has been pre-treated and one that hasn’t.

Without this unique pre-treatment layer, the ink will go into the fabric but it won’t stand out and it won’t look clear. This results in a poorly printed garment which doesn’t look good and will further fade after it’s been washed.

Different colours require different levels and layers of pre-treatment which have an impact the overall cost of the garment as more work is required to ensure that your designs look perfect. As white T Shirts won’t require the pre-treatment layer, they are the cheapest colour that you could choose. With black being the darkest colour, a specific type of pre-treatment is required which makes black the most expensive colour to print on.