Custom T-shirt volume pricing: how does it work?

Custom T-shirt volume pricing: how does the price drop with quantity?

Volume pricing on a custom T-shirt follows quantity breaks: on tknp.io, the B&C #E150 with a one-colour screen-printed logo goes from €15.89 to €4.65 excluding VAT between 10 and 50 units, T-shirt included, at the standard lead time, shipping extra (for guidance only, 21 October 2026).

What our price grids show:

• On tknp.io, every T-shirt product page shows seven breaks where the price of the decorated T-shirt drops: 10, 25, 50, 100, 250, 500 and 1,000 units; between two breaks, you pay the price of the last one reached.
• For printing, on our three T-shirts, the biggest drop falls between 10 and 25 units: the Stanley/Stella Creator 2.0 with one-colour screen printing loses €8.37 excluding VAT per T-shirt there.
• For embroidery, on the Creator 2.0 as on the #E190, the break that matters is 100: from 50 to 100 units, the embroidered Creator 2.0 loses €1.32 excluding VAT per T-shirt, more than between 10 and 25.
• Just below a break, aiming for the next one can cost less: 25 Creator 2.0 T-shirts with one-colour screen printing cost €318.75 excluding VAT, 16 cost €337.92.

All these amounts exclude VAT and come from the grids we checked on tknp.io on 21 October 2026. They are for guidance only and include the T-shirt and its logo on a single position; base colour, standard sizes, pricing at the standard lead time, shipping extra.

Twenty T-shirts for the club, or twenty-five? When you order merch for a team, the quantity gets decided before the logo, and often on instinct. Volume pricing on a custom T-shirt lets you decide to the cent: here are our grids, read break by break on three T-shirts.

How does volume pricing work on a custom T-shirt?

Volume pricing on a custom T-shirt is a unit price that drops at set quantity breaks: the longer the run, the lower the rate. On tknp.io, T-shirt product pages show seven of them: 10, 25, 50, 100, 250, 500 and 1,000 units, with a price for each printing or embroidery technique, T-shirt and logo included.

Between two breaks, the price of the last break reached applies: 24 T-shirts are charged at the 10-unit price, and the 25th moves the whole run to the 25-unit price. Every price in the grid covers a single print position, excluding VAT and shipping, at the standard production lead time. For a complete order, VAT and shipping included, the Price of 100 custom T-shirts page walks through the calculation line by line; when a quote is issued, the quote prevails.

The price of a custom T-shirt only shifts slightly with colour and size: tknp.io grids cover the base colour in standard sizes, while the brand adds a small surcharge for a few shades and for the larger sizes; the product page builds it into the price as soon as you select them.

The production lead time you choose also moves the price of a custom T-shirt: on every tknp.io product page, the lead time grid shows 1 week +10%, 2 weeks base price, 4 weeks −5%.

What does a custom T-shirt cost from 10 to 1,000 units?

On tknp.io, the three T-shirts in this guide cost, decorated, from €2.70 excluding VAT (the B&C #E150, one-colour screen-printed logo, at 1,000 units) to €21.12 excluding VAT (the Stanley/Stella Creator 2.0, same decoration, at 10 units), depending on the model, the technique and the quantity. Here are their grids, copied from their product pages on 21 October 2026: these are prices for guidance only, valid for the base colour in standard sizes with production at the standard lead time, shipping extra. Each price covers the T-shirt and its decoration: the DTF transfer row covers an A6 design, the screen printing row a one-colour logo, the embroidery row an 8 x 10 cm logo. DTG printing is not shown, because it is on quotation on the product pages of these three T-shirts: our DTF or DTG comparison explains what sets the two prints apart.

The price of the B&C #E150, from 10 to 1,000 T-shirts

The B&C #E150 is a cotton T-shirt with a fabric weight of 145 g/m², available in 41 colours. This light T-shirt is not embroidered: it takes a DTF transfer or screen printing. Blank, it can be ordered from a single unit.

Based on the tknp.io #E150 page (read on 21 October 2026), in euros excluding VAT per T-shirt, for guidance only: logo on one position, base colour within the standard sizes, at the standard lead time, shipping extra.

The price of the B&C #E190, from 10 to 1,000 T-shirts

The B&C #E190 is a 185 g/m² men's cotton T-shirt, denser than the #E150, available in 40 colours. It takes all three techniques and can also be ordered blank from a single unit.

The #E190 grid on tknp.io, as read on 21 October 2026, in euros excluding VAT per T-shirt and for guidance only: a single position, base colour and standard sizes, at the standard lead time, shipping not included.

The price of the Stanley/Stella Creator 2.0, from 10 to 1,000 T-shirts

Made by Stanley/Stella, the Creator 2.0 is a unisex T-shirt in combed organic cotton weighing 180 g/m², available in 58 colours. It is ordered decorated, in one of the three techniques in the table.

These unit prices excluding VAT come from the tknp.io Creator 2.0 page, read on 21 October 2026; they are supplied for guidance only and apply to decoration on one position, produced at the standard lead time, for the base colour within standard sizes, with delivery charged on top.

At which quantity break does a custom T-shirt's price drop the most?

On the tknp.io grids (#E150, #E190 and Creator 2.0), the price of a printed custom T-shirt drops mostly between 10 and 25 units. On the tknp.io Creator 2.0, that first break takes €8.37 excluding VAT off each T-shirt with one-colour screen printing and €2.25 with an A6 DTF transfer; beyond 250, each break only takes €0.44 to €0.70 off per T-shirt, whatever the technique.

Drop per T-shirt in euros excluding VAT, taken from the tknp.io Creator 2.0 grid (21 October 2026). A figure supplied for guidance only, for a logo on one position, in base colour and standard sizes, at the standard lead time, excluding shipping.

On the #E150 with a one-colour screen-printed logo, the price is even more than halved between 10 and 25 units: €15.89, then €7.77 excluding VAT (grid consulted on 21 October 2026; a figure for guidance only).

Embroidery follows another curve. On the Creator 2.0 as on the #E190, with 8 x 10 cm embroidery, its biggest drop falls between 50 and 100 units: €1.32 and €1.17 less per T-shirt excluding VAT, against €0.83 and €0.60 between 10 and 25 (grids consulted on 21 October 2026, values for guidance only). On these two embroidered T-shirts, the price really falls from 100 units.

Why does screen printing get cheaper faster than DTF transfer?

Screen printing on a T-shirt gets cheaper faster than DTF transfer because it starts with a fixed cost: one screen to engrave for each of the logo's colours, before the first T-shirt of the run. Spread over 10 units, that cost weighs heavily; over 1,000, it fades away. The one-colour screen-printed Creator 2.0 thus goes from €21.12 to €6.50 excluding VAT between 10 and 1,000 units, while the same T-shirt with an A6 DTF transfer goes from €12.64 to €7.10.

On the tknp.io #E150, #E190 and Creator 2.0, screen printing a one-colour logo costs the same as an A6 DTF transfer at 50 units and comes out cheaper from 100 (€0.59 less per T-shirt, excluding VAT); at 10, it costs €8.48 more, excluding VAT. This gap between the two rows is identical to the cent on all three T-shirts (€2.36 more at 25 and €0.75 less at 250, excluding VAT): it follows the decoration, not the T-shirt. These figures hold for a one-colour logo against an A6 design, based on the tknp.io grids read on 21 October 2026: they remain excluding VAT, for guidance only, with production at the standard lead time and excluding shipping.

Our flex or screen printing comparison helps you choose the technique for your design and your quantity. How the screen works is explained in our article on T-shirt screen printing.

Can ordering a few more T-shirts cost less in total?

Yes: just below a break, ordering your custom T-shirts at the quantity of the next break sometimes costs less in total. On tknp.io, 16 Creator 2.0 T-shirts screen printed in one colour, charged at the 10-unit price, come to €337.92 excluding VAT, whereas 25 T-shirts at the 25-unit price cost €318.75 excluding VAT (prices from the 21 October 2026 grids, for guidance only, priced at the standard lead time, shipping extra): 9 more T-shirts for €19.17 less.

The table below gives, for each T-shirt and each technique, the quantities for which the next break costs less in total: these windows are worth spotting before you set the budget.

Method: the quantity multiplied by the price of the break reached, compared with the total of the next break, on the tknp.io grids of 21 October 2026. Prices exclude VAT and are for guidance only, for one position, at the standard lead time, with the base colour within standard sizes and no shipping.

On these grids, screen printing opens the widest windows: with a screen-printed #E150, 25 T-shirts cost less than 13, and 50 cost less than 30. With DTF transfer, the window spans 4 to 10 T-shirts below each break; with embroidery, it is limited to the 24th and the 49th T-shirt, then opens near 100 (from 85 to 99 on the #E190, from 89 to 99 on the Creator 2.0).

Outside these windows, moving up a break pushes the bill up: that is the over-ordering trap described in our article on MOQ.

How is the quantity counted to reach a break?

A break is counted model by model

On tknp.io, a break is counted model by model: the sizes and colours of the same T-shirt with the same decoration add up (25 Creator 2.0 T-shirts with the same logo, from S to XL and in two colours, pay the 25-unit break), two different models do not (15 #E150 and 15 Creator 2.0 remain two runs of 15, each at the 10-unit break). Our article on company T-shirts shows what this changes for a team in men's and women's cuts.

The minimum, the first break of the grid

On tknp.io, a decorated T-shirt's minimum is also the first break of its grid: 10 units of the same model, at the highest price; our article on MOQ details this minimum and its pitfalls. Blank, the B&C #E150 and #E190 can be ordered from a single unit, at €2.49 excluding VAT for the #E150 (seen on 21 October 2026 on the #E150 page; for guidance only, base colour in a standard size, at the standard lead time, excluding shipping).

Find your break on the product page, before you order

On tknp.io, the indicative price grid on every product page gives the price per T-shirt at each break, technique by technique: that is where you read your break, and the windows table in this article tells you when to move up to the next one. From the same page, a click on Customise online opens the designer, which places your logo and suggests the technique for free, as only the order is paid for; for what comes next, our T-shirt customisation guide takes over.

When club members each pay for their own T-shirt, the tknp.io Store adds up every member's reservations during a presale campaign: the whole run is produced at the break reached together.