Screen Printing Pricing Calculator
Most small shops don't lose money on bad printing — they lose it on bad quotes. This calculator makes you enter your own costs (blank garment, ink, screens, labor), then shows the true cost per shirt, suggested sell prices, and automatic quantity breaks. Nothing is uploaded; numbers stay in your browser (saved locally for next visit).
1 · Your costs
Honest numbers only. If you pay yourself $0/hour, the calculator will happily help you lose money.
2 · The job
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3 · Quantity breaks (same job, re-costed at each tier)
| Qty | Cost / pc | Sell / pc | Job total | Your profit |
|---|
Setup and screen costs are spread over more pieces at higher tiers — that's why the per-piece price drops. Show this table to customers who ask why 20 shirts cost almost as much as 50.
4 · Printable quote
The quote opens in a clean print view — use your browser's "Save as PDF" to send it to the client.
How to use this (and how not to)
Cost first, price second. The calculator never tells you what the market charges — it tells you the floor below which you lose money. What you charge above that floor is a business decision (your niche, your speed, your clients).
The three costs beginners forget:
- Screens are not free. Mesh, frame wear, emulsion, film and reclaim chemicals add up to $15–40 per screen. At 50 pieces that's $0.30–0.80 per shirt per color — invisible until you count it.
- Setup time is labor. Coating, exposing, registering, cleaning — often 1.5–3 hours before the first sellable print. On small orders, setup is usually the single biggest cost line.
- Test prints and misprints. Budget 2–5% spoiled garments on normal jobs, more for multi-color work on darks. Put it in "other per-job costs".
Margins, not markups. The % field adds margin on top of your computed cost. 40% is a common small-shop starting point; rush jobs, tiny orders and difficult garments deserve more. Compare against local shops' published tier pricing to sanity-check.
Quantity breaks are physics, not generosity. The tier table recosts the identical job at each quantity — screens and setup amortize, so cost per piece falls. If a customer asks for a discount at 200 pieces, this table shows you exactly how much room you actually have.
FAQ
Does this work for hoodies / tote bags / flat stock? Yes — the math is garment-agnostic. Enter the actual blank cost and your realistic printing speed for that item.
Where does ink usage (grams per print) come from? Weigh a squeegee-full before and after a run, or check your ink maker's coverage data. 4–7 g per color is a sane range for an A4-sized print on a tee; solid underbases use more.
Water-based vs plastisol pricing difference? Same structure — water-based just moves the numbers: slower effective printing speed, more spoilage, sometimes catalyst cost per batch. Enter them honestly.
Is my data private? Nothing leaves your browser. Inputs are saved in localStorage on your own device so your rates are pre-filled next time.