Screen Printing Pricing: The Complete Guide to Quantity Breaks
A practical guide to setting up quantity break pricing for screen printing. How to calculate your real per-piece cost, set profitable break points, and stop undercharging on large orders.
James Bateman
· 4 min read
Quantity breaks are the most important pricing tool in a screen printing shop. Get them right and you reward volume buyers while protecting your margins. Get them wrong and you're printing 500 shirts at a loss.
The problem is most shops set break points based on gut feel — "50+ gets a discount, 100+ gets a bigger one." That works until you actually run the numbers and discover you're losing money on your biggest orders.
#Understanding your real per-piece cost
Before you set break points, you need to know what a shirt actually costs you. Not the garment cost — the total cost to produce one printed piece.
Fixed costs per order (spread across quantity)
- Screen setup: Burning screens, mixing ink, registering the press. For a 3-colour front print, this might be 45 minutes at $85/hour = $63.75 in labour, plus $15 in screens and emulsion. Total: ~$79.
- Art/pre-press: File prep, separations, film output. Budget 30-60 minutes per job.
- Teardown/cleanup: 15-20 minutes per run. Screens, press, squeegees.
Variable costs per piece
- Garment blank: Your wholesale cost. A Gildan 5000 might be $3.50.
- Ink: Roughly $0.10-0.30 per print depending on coverage and colours.
- Labour per piece: At production speed (60-100 pieces/hour), that's $0.85-1.42 per piece at $85/hour.
The math
For a 3-colour front print on 100 Gildan tees:
| Cost | Amount |
|---|---|
| Setup (fixed) | $79.00 |
| Blanks (100 × $3.50) | $350.00 |
| Ink (100 × $0.20) | $20.00 |
| Print labour (100 pieces ÷ 80/hr × $85) | $106.25 |
| Total cost | $555.25 |
| Cost per piece | $5.55 |
At 50 pieces, the same job costs $6.83 per piece — because the fixed setup cost spreads over fewer units. At 200 pieces, it drops to $4.82 per piece.
#Setting profitable break points
Here's the principle: your discount should never exceed your cost reduction.
Your discount should never exceed your cost reduction. When quantity doubles, your fixed cost per piece roughly halves — but your variable cost stays the same. The maximum justifiable discount is the percentage that the fixed cost represents in each tier.
A practical starting framework:
| Quantity | Suggested discount | Why |
|---|---|---|
| 1-24 | 0% (base price) | Small runs don't benefit from setup amortisation |
| 25-49 | 8-12% | Setup starts spreading meaningfully |
| 50-99 | 13-18% | Sweet spot for most shops |
| 100-249 | 18-22% | High volume, good efficiency |
| 250+ | 20-25% | Maximum — don't go below your variable cost + margin |
#Three common pricing mistakes
1. Discounting too aggressively at the top tier
If your variable cost per piece is $4.50 and you want a 40% margin, your minimum price is $7.50. If your 500+ tier discount brings the price to $6.80, you're below your margin target. The volume doesn't make up for it — you're just doing more work for less profit per piece.
2. Not charging setup fees separately
Some shops bury setup cost in the per-piece price. This works at 100+ pieces but kills you on 12-piece orders. Charging a transparent setup fee ($25-75 depending on complexity) means your per-piece price doesn't need to subsidise setup.
3. Inconsistent pricing across customers
When you price by gut feel, Customer A gets $8.50/piece for 50 shirts and Customer B gets $7.25/piece for 45 shirts. Neither of you knows why. Use a consistent break table and every quote is defensible.
#Putting it into practice
- Calculate your actual fixed and variable costs using the framework above. Do this once and update it quarterly.
- Set 4-5 break tiers with discounts that track your real cost reduction at each level.
- Add a transparent setup fee instead of burying it in per-piece pricing.
- Use a screen print pricing calculator that applies breaks automatically. Enter the quantity, and the right tier price appears. No mental math, no inconsistencies.
- Review your break points every quarter. Material costs change, your efficiency improves, and your break points should reflect reality.
#The payoff
Shops that use systematic quantity breaks instead of gut-feel pricing typically recover 8-15% margin on their mid-to-large orders. On $400,000 in annual revenue, that's $32,000-60,000 in profit you're currently leaving in the spreadsheet. A margin calculator can put exact numbers on what each job is really earning you.