How to Price Screen Printing Jobs
Screen printing cost has two parts: fixed setup that happens once per job — screens, preparation, registration, cleanup — and costs that repeat on every shirt, like blanks, ink and printing labor. Add both, plus shop overhead and waste, then divide by the shirts you can sell to find cost per shirt.
Fixed setup vs. per-piece costs
Fixed / semi-fixed (once per job)
- Screen material and preparation
- Film and exposure, where applicable
- Registration and press setup
- Test prints
- Cleanup and reclaiming
Variable (every shirt)
- Blank garments
- Ink
- Printing labor per impression
- Press and dryer / curing use
- Waste and remakes
Shop overhead — rent, insurance, software, admin — is separate from both and is allocated to the job.
How quantity dilutes fixed setup
Hypothetical example. These are not suggested market prices. Say a 2-color front print needs 2 screens at an example $6 of screen material each ($12), plus 1.5 hours of setup, registration and cleanup at an example production wage of $18/hour ($27). That's $39 of fixed setup.
| $39 fixed setup ÷ 12 shirts | $3.25 / shirt |
| $39 fixed setup ÷ 48 shirts | $0.81 / shirt |
| $39 fixed setup ÷ 100 shirts | $0.39 / shirt |
Only the setup share drops. Blanks, ink and printing labor are still paid on every shirt, so a larger order lowers cost per shirt without making the variable costs disappear.
Full example: 48 shirts, 2-color front
Hypothetical example. These are not suggested market prices. The shop prints 50 to cover possible misprints and sells 48.
| Fixed setup (screens $12 + setup labor $27) | $39.00 |
| Blank shirts (50 × $4.00) | $200.00 |
| Ink (50 × $0.25) | $12.50 |
| Printing labor (1 hr × $18/hr example wage) | $18.00 |
| Allocated shop overhead for this job (hypothetical) | $24.00 |
| True Job Cost | $293.50 |
| Cost per sellable shirt ($293.50 ÷ 48) | $6.11 |
| Price at 40% margin (cost ÷ 0.60) | $10.19 |
| Price at 50% margin (cost ÷ 0.50) | $12.23 |
The two extra blanks are part of the cost of delivering 48 good shirts. Use your own production history to estimate waste. If you don't have enough history yet, start with a clearly identified estimate and update it as you collect real job data.
Enter your own quantity, colors, locations, blank cost and shop numbers to see your True Job Cost and cost per shirt.
Calculate My Screen Print JobWhat another color adds
Each added color can mean another screen, more preparation and registration, more ink, an extra impression on every shirt and more cleanup. Some of that is fixed setup; the extra impression repeats on every piece.
Front only vs. front + back
A second location is close to a second setup: its own screens, registration and cleanup, plus another pass through the press and dryer for every shirt. Front + back is not the same job as front only on the same blank.
Keeping overhead separate from wages
The $18/hour above is an example production wage, not a shop rate. Rent, insurance and software belong in overhead. Know Your Shop estimates overhead per productive hour, and the methodology explains how PriceMyPrint combines them.