What $500, $1,000 and $1,500 Gets You in Custom Shirts
Real Numbers, Garment And Printing Included
Most people don't start an order with a shirt in mind. They start with a number. The booster club has $800, the company cookout has $1,500, the youth group has whatever's left after the bus. So the real question usually isn't what one shirt costs. It's how many shirts that number turns into, and which ones.
Below is the math using our own prices. Every number includes the garment and the printing together, and every total already has Virginia's 6% sales tax in it, because that's the money that actually leaves your account. All of it assumes Small through X-Large and a one-color print on the front unless we say otherwise. If you'd rather skip the reading, our budget calculator does all of this live for every shirt we carry.
How many custom shirts can I get for $500?
With a one-color front print, $500 gets you 64 Gildan 5000 tees. That's the classic heavy cotton shirt, and at 64 pieces it runs $7.30 a shirt. The Hanes 5280 lands in the same spot at 66.
Move up to the Comfort Colors 1717, the heavy garment-dyed tee people ask for by name, and $500 covers 35. That's a bigger drop than the shirt price alone explains. At 35 pieces you're in the 24 to 49 quantity tier, where the print costs $8.00 a shirt. At 50 pieces it drops to $5.00. Fifty 1717s come to $547.49, so $500 falls just short of the price break.
If you want hoodies, $500 covers 19 Gildan 18500s. Hoodies cost more to print than tees too, which we'll get to further down.
How many shirts can I get for $1,000?
A thousand dollars is where things open up. You get 144 Gildan 5000s, 112 BELLA+CANVAS 3001s, or 91 Comfort Colors 1717s. For hoodies it's 42 Gildan 18500s.
The 1717 is worth a second look here. A hundred of them come to $1,015.48, so you're about $15 away from the 100-piece tier, where the print drops to $4.25 a shirt. If your budget has any give at all, that's the number to push for. Fifteen dollars more gets you 100 shirts instead of 91.
How many shirts can I get for $1,500?
At $1,500 you're looking at 216 Gildan 5000s, 168 BELLA+CANVAS 3001s, 147 Comfort Colors 1717s, or 73 Gildan 18500 hoodies. If you want the Comfort Colors 1567 garment-dyed hoodie, which is about as nice as a hoodie gets, $1,500 covers 36 of them.
Schools, churches and nonprofits with a tax-exempt certificate don't pay the 6%, and on a budget this size that matters. The same $1,500 gets a tax-exempt group 156 Comfort Colors 1717s instead of 147.
What if my budget is small, like $250?
Two hundred fifty dollars gets you 19 Gildan 5000s or 15 Comfort Colors 1717s. That's a real order. It's a team, a small staff, a family reunion.
Our minimum is 12 pieces per design. The least you can spend with us is about $151 for 12 of our most affordable tee with a one-color print. If your budget is under that, screen printing probably isn't the right fit for the job, and we'll tell you so.
Why can 50 shirts cost less than 45?
This one surprises people, so here's the actual math. Forty-five Comfort Colors 1717s with a one-color front come to $635.84. Fifty of the same shirt come to $547.49. You'd pay $88 less and get five more shirts.
That's because pricing is set by quantity tier, and the tier is based on the total pieces in the order. Our breaks are at 24, 50, 100, 250 and 500. When you cross one, the print price drops on every shirt in the order, not just the extras. So if your count lands a few shirts under a break, round up. Sometimes the extras cost less than nothing, and you'll want them later anyway. We wrote more about that in why you should always order a few extra shirts.
How much more does it cost to add colors or a back print?
Every ink color is its own screen and its own pass on the press, so each one adds to the price. On 100 Comfort Colors 1717s, a one-color front is $9.58 a shirt. Two colors is $10.33. Three colors is $11.08.
A back print costs less than people expect. The location with the most colors bills at the full rate and the other one bills at 60% of its own rate. A one-color front plus a one-color back on that same 1717 order is $12.13 a shirt. Hoodies add $1.50 per print location.
Here's the useful part if you're trying to stretch a budget. Dropping from three colors to one saves you $1.50 a shirt on that order. Switching from the 1717 to the Gildan 5000 saves you $3.03. Either one works. It depends on whether you care more about the design or the feel of the shirt, and only you know that.
Should I buy cheaper shirts or fewer nice ones?
It depends on what happens to the shirt after you hand it out. For a 5K, a giveaway table or a one-day event, the Gildan 5000 is a good shirt at a good price and nobody's going to complain. For staff shirts, merch people are paying for, or anything you want showing up around town for years, the Comfort Colors 1717 or the BELLA+CANVAS 3001 get worn a lot more. A cheap shirt that ends up in a drawer isn't saving you anything.
If you're torn, a common move is to split the difference. Put the budget into a mid-weight tee like the Next Level 3600 or the 3001 and keep the design to one or two colors.
Can I mix tees and hoodies to reach a price break?
Yes. You can mix styles, colors and sizes toward one quantity tier, as long as the same artwork prints on every piece. Sixty Comfort Colors 1717s and forty Gildan 18500 hoodies add up to 100 pieces, and both get priced at the 100-piece tier. That order comes to about $1,394 with tax.
The one catch is heavily mixed orders. If an order is mostly one-offs, a single shirt in each of twenty different colors, it can carry an added fee for sorting and packing. A few styles in one order doesn't trigger that.
What else should I budget for?
Sales tax is the big one. It's 6% in Virginia, and it's already in every total on this page. If you're tax-exempt, send your certificate with the order and it comes off.
Bigger sizes cost a little more because the blank costs more. On the Comfort Colors 1717, XX-Large adds $1.37 a shirt and XXX-Large adds $2.67. On the Gildan 5000 it's $1.59 and $2.79. If a third of your group wears XX-Large, count it.
Shipping is free by UPS Ground anywhere in Virginia, so that part doesn't come out of the budget. Time does, though. Turnaround is 2 to 3 weeks from the paid invoice, so if the event is next Friday, the budget question is the wrong question.
Artwork is the last one. We prep your files for print, which covers cleanup, resizing, color separations and converting text to outlines. We don't design from scratch. If you don't have art yet, set some money aside for a designer before you spend it all on shirts.
One more thing. Blank prices move with distributor pricing, so the numbers here are current as of the date on this post. Your price gets locked in when we invoice you.
The fastest way to find your number
We built a budget calculator for exactly this. Put in your budget, how many shirts you need and your print colors, and it shows every shirt, long sleeve and hoodie we carry that fits, with what you'd have left over. If nothing fits, it tells you how many shirts your budget does cover. When you've found the one, the catalog lets you pick colors and sizes and send it over.
If you'd rather talk it through, tell us the budget and what the shirts are for and we'll tell you what we'd do with it. Call or text (804) 373-2590, or email orders@rvathreads.com.
See what your budget gets you
Slide in your number and every shirt that fits lights up, garment and printing included.