If you scour forums or facebook groups, you'll find the number one question constantly revolving around pricing. Pricing is a delicate subject for every business owner because it determines your profit, also known as your livelihood. There are several different ways to price a job. You can get extremely detailed with pricing, and take into account factors like your shop overhead, press time, capacity, impressions, ink colors, garment costs etc. While you can be extremely scientific, there are a few general rules that you should follow when you are pricing. We've detailed a few key points to make pricing easier and smarter. Try Printavo: https://www.printavo.com

1. Screen Printing Pricing
Guide - Let's Really
Think Through it
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2. Introduction
If you scour forums or facebook groups, you'll find the number
one question constantly revolving around pricing. Pricing is a
delicate subject for every business owner because it determines
your profit, also known as your livelihood. There are several
different ways to price a job. You can get extremely detailed with
pricing, and take into account factors like your shop overhead,
press time, capacity, impressions, ink colors, garment costs etc.
While you can be extremely scientific, there are a few general
rules that you should follow when you are pricing. We've detailed
a few key points to make pricing easier and smarter.

3. Garment Cost Mark-Up (A-Cost)
- Often referred to as your cost of goods sold, your
garment cost should be marked up by a certain factor.
Industry standards for garment mark up are anywhere
between 150%-200%. You should be making money
initially by bringing in unprinted goods. You should have
a standard mark up that is broken up into three
categories. Your mark up should allow for quantity
breaks, but should also take into account the initial cost
incurred to you for the item.

4. Garment Cost Mark-Up (A-Cost)
- Basic items - Garments that cost you anywhere between $1.00
- $4.00. These are your basic t-shirts or everyday used goods
from your catalogs. These items may have your highest initial
mark up (200%) because they are relatively inexpensive. You
could mark up a basic Gildan t-shirt 2 or 3x before you even
decorate it because it is not unreasonable to ask a customer to
pay $7-10. It is hard to mark up a quarter zip that costs you
$15.00 by 2x because the net total made on the garment
before printing jumps quite a bit. Instead of making a few bucks
on that basic t-shirt, you are making $15.00 by doubling your
cost, before taking into account print pricing.

5. Garment Cost Mark-Up (A-Cost)
- Mid Tier Items - Garments that cost you between $4.00 -
$10.00 might have a less aggressive mark up for the reasons
listed above. These are items like hoodies, zips, or long sleeve
premium items. Remember, you are making marginally more
everytime you mark up on nicer items. You shouldn't sell
yourself short, because the cost of replacing that single item
should still be present to cover you in case of misprints.

6. Garment Cost Mark-Up (A-Cost)
- Premium Items - Garments that cost you $10.00 -$25.00 are
usually higher end items. Jackets, coats, and outerwear might
have a mark up that is slightly lower. Remember, Gildan that
costs $2.00 sells for $7-$10, while a nice quarter zip sells for
$25-$40.

7. Printing Costs (B-Cost)
- Your printing costs should be a direct correlation to your actual
costs and include factors of time, impressions, locations and ink
colors. For those reasons, you should take a few factors into
your pricing and develop a matrix that can quickly calculate it.
- Locations - Printing a 2 color front takes less time than a 1
color front and 1 color back so you should make sure your
pricing includes locations. Every time you have to remove a
garment and replace it on another press, you are essentially
printing 2 shirts once, or one shirt twice.

8. Printing Costs (B-Cost)
- Ink Colors - Printing 1 color is obviously easier than printing 2,
but adding more colors should not follow a linear model. It is
arguably harder to line up, set up, and print a 6 color job than it
is to print a 2 color job. There are more variables, and the job
requires a different skill set. Therefore you should not just
multiply a 1 color impression by 6 and use that price. That
being said the jump from 3-4 might not be marginally harder,
so at some point, your pricing may plateau.

9. Printing Costs (B-Cost)
- Flash - If you are flashing a job, it requires more ink, more time,
and more screens. Therefore a 2 color flash job is much
different than a 2 color non-flash job. In fact, you might even
consider allowing a customer to add more colors for less if you
do not have to flash a job. This is especially important for shops
that print manually because it all comes down to how many
times you have to pull that squeegee and heat up a shirt. On an
automatic job, you will still print slightly slower when flashing.
A good rule of thumb is to add 1 or 2 colors to your pricing
when you have to flash a job or create a separate price matrix
for it.

10. Printing Costs (B-Cost)
- Auto vs. Manual - You might print all your jobs manually, or all
jobs on your auto, but having to do a 4 color flash on 75 pieces
can take you a very long time to print manually. You obviously
want to incentivize your customers to order more goods to
make sure your pricing reflects it. These price breaks can be
distributed when you cross the threshold from manual to auto.

11. Complexity (C-Cost)
- The forgotten cost! You get a customer calling in for 100 shirts.
They tell you over the phone its a 3 color front. You send a
quote, they click approve! You get the artwork and then you
sink into your chair. "Oh, Sh*t." They sent you a Jpeg. They want
a crazy simulated process print. The artwork has to be created
from scratch. You have to print through 300 mesh and
outsource the separations. Panic mode? Price for it. You should
always screen (different type of screen) artwork before you
quote a job because customers simply don't know our industry.

12. Complexity (C-Cost)
- Simple Artwork/Pre-Press - Perhaps you apply a discount of
5% to your pricing or "reduce" ink colors because the artwork
is so easy it hurts. Here is when you want to throw your
customers a deal. The customer has sent you print-ready
artwork and your artists need to spend a fraction of time they
normally do to get it ready for production. You can print this
through 110 mesh and you may already have the artwork on
file. If it makes your life easier; price for it.

13. Complexity (C-Cost)
- Average Artwork/Pre-Press. - Maybe this is your standard
customer experience. Your artists have to do some basic
manipulation. It is not crazy and won't kill you or your team.
Perhaps you use regular pricing because it will include revisions,
a little back and forth, and some artistic talent from your team.
You won't have to solicit help from your fellow screen printers
because this is in your wheelhouse.

14. Complexity (C-Cost)
- CRAZY Artwork/Pre-Press. We have a love-hate relationship
with these jobs. They push our limits and really challenge our
skill set. We know the inner "artists" will come out on these
jobs, but we know they can easily turn into nightmares. These
jobs require a lot of artwork, revisions, and the customer
probably has high expectations. Perhaps you add 1 or 2 colors
to these jobs to account for the added work or bump the price
up by 10%. You want to print spectacular jobs, but you want to
make money doing it. Remember, while you are an artisan and
this is your craft, you are a for-profit business.

15. A + B + C = Your Price
- Pricing has to be unique to your business, and while you may
compare it to other shops, your price is made up because it
takes into account variables in your business. Not your
competitors, not your neighbors, not the online giants; your
business. That being said here is you break it down using a few
pricing matrices.

16. A + B + C = Your Price
- Matrix 1 - Basics - Here is the pricing for your every day and
most commonly ordered good (standard t-shirts). You can
include quantity discounts by reducing the mark up as your
customer orders more goods. You can create a grid that takes
into account ink colors and locations. Your flashes are separate
columns in this situation, and you will apply this mark up to
each print location.

17. A + B + C = Your Price
- Matrix 2 - Middle Tier Pricing - Here is the matrix with the
adjusted mark up with goods that cost you slightly more.
Perhaps you increase your ink color pricing here because the
difficulty to print these goods increases with nicer products.
You can teach your employees to use this matrix when using a
more complex job. It will still include quantity breaks, flashing,
ink colors, locations, and quantity breaks.

18. A + B + C = Your Price
- Matrix 3 - Crazy Pricing - Okay, maybe you don't want to call it
this, but this your "red carpet, first class, Rolls-Royce pricing."
This pricing has an adjusted mark up to account for difficult
goods and harder prints. It still includes flashing and all the
other variables discussed and it can be applied to each location.

19. A + B + C = Your Price
- These pricing matrices will take time, testing, and patience to
get right. With so many thousands of SKUs, products, and
decoration methods, you will have to constantly test and tweak
your pricing until it is perfect. The best exercise is to develop
one pricing calculator and compare it to your jobs so you can
create a working model that best fits your pricing style.