Pricing guide
How much does screen printing cost?
The honest answer from a shop that's been printing since 1983: it depends on a handful of things - and sometimes the right answer is “don't screen print it at all.” This guide explains what actually drives the price, when screen printing beats digital printing (and when it doesn't), and why we'll never sell you a $600 t-shirt.
Written from the production floor at Koala-Tees in Sandy, Utah · Reviewed by the production team · Updated July 2026
Get your real number in about 60 seconds
This quoter runs on the same pricing grids we use at the counter, for both screen printing and digital printing, and it automatically quotes whichever method prices better for your exact job. Pick your shirts, colors, and quantity and the price builds as you go. Treat it as a very close estimate rather than a final quote - garment prices move, the tool can briefly lag a counter update, and we always confirm your number before anything prints.
One honest caveat: the quoter covers standard tee orders. Oversized prints, specialty inks (puff, metallic), multi-process jobs, and unusual garments need a human - request a quote or call 801-566-1867 and we'll price it properly.
What actually drives the price
No mystery math. Every screen printing quote in the country comes down to these seven levers - here's how each one moves yours.
Quantity
The biggest lever. Setup is a fixed cost, so it spreads thinner as the run grows - per-shirt pricing drops fast between a dozen shirts and a hundred.
Color count
Every ink color needs its own screen, its own setup, and its own station on the press. A one-color logo and a six-color illustration are different jobs entirely.
Specialty inks & techniques
Discharge, puff, and simulated process can cost more than a regular six-color spot job - the artwork alone demands more of the artist, and the printing takes real attention to detail. Specialty inks like metallics can add cost too.
The garment
A budget Gildan and a premium AS Colour can differ by several dollars before any ink touches fabric. Garment choice moves the total more than most people expect.
Print locations
Front only costs less than front plus back plus sleeve - each location is its own setup and its own pass through the press.
Artwork readiness
Print-ready art keeps things moving. Art that needs cleanup, redrawing, or color separation adds prep time by a real artist before anything prints.
Turnaround speed
Standard production is the best price. Guaranteed rush options cost more but exist for real deadlines - see our turnaround times for the tiers.
When screen printing makes sense - and when it doesn't
Screen printing has a setup cost that digital printing simply doesn't: separating the art, burning screens, and dialing in the press. That setup is why screen printing gets cheap per shirt as quantity grows - and why it makes no sense for tiny runs.
| Your job | Where the math usually lands |
|---|---|
| Under ~12 pieces | Digital printing, nearly always - the setup cost of screens can't spread across a run that small. |
| 12+ pieces, simple 1-2 color design | Screen printing starts to make sense - simple setups pay for themselves quickly. |
| 5-6 color design | The crossover rises with every color - screen printing often doesn't beat digital until around 36 pieces, and for very complex artwork sometimes 50 or more. |
| In between | It genuinely depends - so we run your job through both pricing grids and quote you the cheaper one automatically. |
That last row isn't a slogan - it's how our instant quoter actually works. You don't have to know which method your job needs; the math picks the better price for you.
A true story about setup costs
Why we'll never sell you a $600 t-shirt
Imagine bringing us a photograph you want screen printed on a single shirt. To do that right, an experienced artist spends a couple of hours color-separating the image into six printable layers. Then six screens get burned - one per color. Then the press gets set up: six stations loaded, inks mixed, registration dialed until every layer lands exactly on top of the last.
And there's risk in every step: a separation that doesn't translate the way the artist intended, a screen with a loose mesh, an unforeseen problem you only discover once ink hits fabric. When the run ends, the whole thing reverses - the job comes off the press, inks go back, everything gets cleaned, and the screens get reclaimed.
Do all of that for one shirt and it would honestly cost somewhere in the neighborhood of $500-600. For one t-shirt. Meanwhile our digital printers produce that same photographic image - the perfect print, exactly as intended - usually within one to three sample prints. A single digitally printed shirt usually lands in the neighborhood of $20-40, depending on the shirt itself and how many print locations you need.
And the opposite extreme is just as real. On a simple one-color job with no flash cure, at truly enormous quantities - think 5,000 pieces and up - the per-print cost (what printers call cost per impression) can land well below a dollar, because at that scale the garments themselves carry enough of the job. You'll almost never see quantities like that. But that's the full span of screen printing economics: the same setup that makes one shirt cost $600 becomes nearly invisible spread across five thousand.
That's exactly why we brought digital printing in-house at Koala-Tees: not to replace screen printing, but so custom shirts make sense at every quantity - one shirt or a thousand.
The flip side: most jobs are simple spot color
That neon green ink laying down is a real job - crew shirts for a South Jordan landscaping company. It's what printers call a spot color job: each color is its own ink, mixed as that exact color and printed through its own screen. Nothing has to blend with anything else on the shirt - no halftones, no simulated process, no CMYK blending.
That simplicity is worth money. The artwork is much faster to prepare - clean flat shapes instead of hand-tuned separations - and there are far fewer steps where something can go wrong between the file and the finished shirt. It's also the only way to get a color like that neon: spot inks are mixed to the color, not built from blends.
Most orders that come through our shop are one-, two-, or three-color spot jobs exactly like this one - and that's why screen printing gets affordable so quickly once your quantity clears the crossover point in the table above.
The setup you're paying for
Watch a simulated-process job on our floor: the color-separated file on screen next to the finished shirt. That separation work - done by a real artist, by hand - is the invisible half of every multi-color screen printing quote, along with the screens, the press setup, and the teardown afterward.
That one print took six screens: a white base, then red, blue, gray, and yellow, and finally a white highlight on top. Six separations to draw, six screens to burn, six stations to load and register - for a single image on the front of a shirt. That's the same six-screen math behind the $600 t-shirt above, and it's why quantity matters so much here.
It's also why repeat orders are where screen printing shines: the separations stay on file, so the next run of the same design skips straight to the press. Read more on our screen printing page or compare all four methods in the printing methods guide.
Four honest ways to lower your price
- Simplify the color count. Every color you can live without removes a screen, a setup, and a chunk of the price. Great designs happen in one or two colors every day.
- Consolidate the order. One run of 48 beats two runs of 24 - setup spreads across more shirts, and quantity discounts kick in.A couple of our long-time customers take this to its logical end. They walk in about once every five years, print several hundred shirts of the same design for themselves and a small crew, and then just pull from the box as they need them. They get the deepest quantity break we offer, they never pay setup twice, and they don't think about shirts again until the box runs low. If your design isn't going to change, that's the cheapest way to buy printing there is.
- Reorder the same design. Your separations and setup stay on file, so round two skips the prep.
- Give the deadline room. Standard turnaround is the best price - rush options exist when you need them, and cost more because they should.
Common questions about screen printing cost
What is the minimum order for screen printing?
Garments ordered through Koala-Tees have no hard minimum on most styles - but because of the setup involved, screen printing usually makes the most sense around 12-36+ pieces depending on colors and artwork. Below that, DTG or DTF printing is almost always the better value, and we'll tell you so.
Why does each additional color cost more?
Each color in a screen-printed design needs its own separation, its own screen burned, and its own setup and registration on the press. More colors means more artist time, more screens, and more press stations - that's real work, not a markup.
Is digital printing lower quality than screen printing?
No - it's different, not lesser. Modern DTG and DTF print photo-level detail and full color beautifully, and they usually nail the print within one to three sample prints. Screen printing wins on bold color, wash durability, and per-shirt cost at volume. We run both in-house and recommend whichever serves your job - see our printing methods comparison and the full digital printing cost guide.
Do reorders of the same design cost less effort?
The expensive prep - separations and artwork setup - is already done and kept on file, so repeat runs of the same design skip straight to production. That's why repeat orders are where screen printing's economics shine brightest.
Ready for your number?
Run it through the instant quoter above, or tell us the job and a real person from our Sandy shop will price it properly.