Pricing is the decision that determines whether your t-shirt business is profitable or just busy. Get it right and every sale builds toward something sustainable. Get it wrong and you can sell hundreds of shirts and end up with less money than you started with.
Most beginner guides to t-shirt pricing either oversimplify the calculation to the point of uselessness — "multiply your cost by three" — or they bury you in theory without giving you a practical process to follow. This guide does neither. It gives you a complete, step-by-step pricing process that works regardless of whether you are using print-on-demand, DTF printing, screen printing, or any other method. Follow it for every product and you will never price a shirt blindly again.
If you would rather calculate than read, the T-Shirt Profit Margin Calculator on this site does the arithmetic for you. But understanding why the numbers work the way they do will make you a better business owner even if you always use the tool.
Before you calculate anything, you need to understand how your print method prices work — because they affect your numbers very differently.
Print-on-demand services like Printful, Printify, and Gelato charge a flat per-unit price that includes the blank garment, printing, and fulfilment. You pay one number per shirt. There is no minimum order and no setup cost. The trade-off is a higher per-unit cost than other methods.
DTF printing charges separately for the blank garment and the print transfer. The print cost is typically a flat fee per A4 or A3 sheet regardless of how many colours are in the design. You need to source your blank garments separately and handle your own fulfilment. The per-unit cost is significantly lower than POD at most volume levels.
Screen printing has a setup cost per colour that is spread across the print run, plus a variable cost per unit. The more units you print, the lower the per-unit cost. It rewards volume but penalises small or one-off runs.
DTG printing is similar in cost structure to DTF but requires pretreating dark garments and has slightly different quality characteristics. Per-unit costs vary more with garment colour.
Embroidery has a digitising fee for converting artwork to embroidery format, plus a per-unit stitch count cost. Like screen printing it gets cheaper per unit at volume.
Know your method and get your real cost per unit before calculating anything else. Use the actual invoice from your supplier, not a quote or an estimate.
Every shirt you sell needs to cover eight types of cost. Write them all down for the specific product you are pricing.
The blank garment cost is what you pay for the unprinted shirt. Even in POD this is wrapped inside the base cost — it is worth understanding what portion it represents so you can compare suppliers fairly.
The print cost is what you pay for the decoration. For DTF this is the cost of the transfer. For screen printing it includes an amortised share of the screen setup fees.
Packaging includes every physical item that leaves with the shirt. Poly mailer, tissue paper if you use it, stickers, thank-you card, hangtag. Count everything. A basic poly mailer and card typically costs €0.50 to €0.80 per order.
Shipping is what you pay the courier. If you offer free shipping to customers, include the full postage cost here. If you charge shipping separately, include what the shipping actually costs you minus what the customer pays. The difference, if any, is a cost.
Platform fees are the commissions and transaction fees charged by your sales channel. Etsy charges 6.5% plus listing fees. Shopify charges a payment processing fee. Amazon Merch takes a percentage off the top. Include the correct fee for your channel.
Payment gateway fees are separate from platform fees on most direct-sales setups. Stripe charges 2.9% plus €0.30 per transaction in most European markets. PayPal charges similar rates. These are real costs per sale that need to be in the calculation.
Customer acquisition cost is how much you spend on marketing divided by how many sales it generates. If you spend €100 on Facebook ads and get 20 sales, your CAC is €5.00. If you rely on organic Etsy search, your CAC is near zero but you are paying Etsy's fee structure for that traffic. Be honest about what each sale actually cost to generate.
Overhead is your monthly business running cost divided by your monthly units sold. Software subscriptions, platform subscriptions, workspace costs — total them up and divide by volume. At 50 units per month a €100 overhead total adds €2.00 per unit. At 200 units it adds €0.50.
Add together items 1 through 6 from the list above. This is your variable cost per unit — every cost that exists because of this specific sale. Do not include CAC or overhead yet. Those come later.
A worked example for a DTF seller on Shopify, selling a Bella+Canvas 3001 at an undecided price:
Blank garment: €9.00. DTF print: €5.00. Packaging: €0.65. Domestic shipping: €4.50. Shopify payment processing (2.9% plus €0.30 on a €28.00 sale): €1.112. Variable cost total: €20.262.
Before you can set a price you need to know what margin you are targeting. Margin is your profit expressed as a percentage of the selling price — not a percentage of the cost.
For a small apparel brand starting out, target a minimum of 40% gross margin before CAC and overhead. This gives you enough room to absorb returns, slow months, and the inevitable cost increases from suppliers.
To calculate the selling price that achieves a target margin, use this formula: selling price = variable cost divided by (1 minus target margin). For a 40% margin target with a €20.262 variable cost: selling price = €20.262 divided by 0.60 = €33.77. Round to €33.99 or €34.00.
At €34.00 your gross margin is (€34.00 minus €20.262) divided by €34.00 = 40.4%. You have hit your target.
Now add CAC and overhead to check whether the business is actually profitable after all costs. Assuming €5.00 CAC and €2.00 overhead: total cost per unit = €20.262 plus €5.00 plus €2.00 = €27.262. Net margin = (€34.00 minus €27.262) divided by €34.00 = 19.8%.
A 19.8% net margin after everything. Workable, but watch it. Any increase in CAC, supplier cost, or platform fee will push it below 15%.
Once you have a price that meets your margin target, check it against what comparable products sell for in your market. This is a sanity check, not a reason to change your price.
If your calculated price is in line with or slightly above comparable products, you are well positioned. If it is significantly higher, you have a cost problem to solve — either your production costs are too high, your target margin is too aggressive for the market, or you need to work on brand differentiation to justify a premium.
If your calculated price is significantly lower than the market, do not automatically drop it to the lowest point. Price signals quality. A shirt priced at €18 on Etsy next to shirts priced at €28 to €35 communicates cheapness, not value. You can often charge more than your margin calculation requires if your brand, photography, and product quality justify it.
Setting a price once and never revisiting it is one of the most common mistakes in small apparel businesses. Supplier costs change. Platform fees change. Your sales volume changes, which changes your overhead allocation per unit. Shipping costs fluctuate.
Review every product price every six months. Compare your current variable cost against the price you set. If your margin has compressed below your target, either raise the price or find a way to reduce the cost. Small adjustments made regularly are far less disruptive than large adjustments made reluctantly after realising you have been underpricing for a year.
Pricing based on competitors without knowing your own costs. What works for a seller with different suppliers, a different volume, and a different overhead structure may not work for you.
Using markup instead of margin. A 100% markup gives you a 50% margin, not a 100% margin. Always calculate and communicate in margin terms.
Forgetting shipping in the cost stack. Free shipping is a selling feature but it is not free to you. If you offer free shipping, the courier cost is your cost.
Setting prices based on what feels comfortable rather than what the maths says. Pricing anxiety is real among new sellers but charging less than your costs require is not humility — it is a guaranteed path to an unprofitable business.
Ignoring platform fees entirely. On Etsy alone the fees on a €25 shirt can total €3.00 to €4.00. That changes the calculation significantly.
The T-Shirt Profit Margin Calculator is built to walk through every step described in this guide. Enter your costs in each section and the tool calculates your margin, your markup, your break-even volume, and your projected monthly profit automatically. It covers DTF, DTG, screen print, POD, and embroidery, and includes pre-filled fee rates for Etsy, Shopify, and Amazon.
Use it for every new product before you set a price. The five minutes it takes is the most valuable five minutes in your pricing process.
If you are based in Cyprus or Europe and want realistic current cost benchmarks for DTF or DTG printing to feed into your calculations, the team at TshirtJunkies.co prints using both methods and works with European suppliers daily. The cost figures in our articles reflect real market pricing, not theoretical estimates.
Walk through every cost category in the calculator and get your margin, markup, and break-even in under five minutes. No spreadsheet required.