Auto-set from quantity tier.
Screen print 1 colour ≈ $1.10–1.60. DTG ≈ $4–6.
Spread the 2XL–3XL surcharge across the whole run.
Shopify ≈ 3%, Etsy ≈ 9.5%, Amazon ≈ 15%.
This is arithmetic, not advice. It ignores taxes, ad spend, your own time and the cost of unsold stock — if 30% of the order never sells, the remaining shirts have to carry that loss. Enter your own numbers; the defaults are 2026 list prices for 230gsm US stock and indicative US print costs.
How to read the output
Profit per shirt is what one sale actually leaves after you have paid for the goods, the channel and the return. This is the number that decides whether the business is worth doing. Below $8 a shirt, a direct-to-consumer t-shirt business is a hobby with inventory risk.
Units to break even is the number of shirts you must sell before the order has covered its own cost. If it is 60 out of 100, you are reasonably safe. If it is 95 out of 100, one bad month of traffic and you are selling at a loss.
Cash required before first sale is what leaves your account on day one: blanks, print, freight, samples. Knowing it in advance is the difference between a business and a surprise.
The three levers, in order of power
- Retail price. Moving from $24 to $28 adds $4 of margin without touching cost. Nothing else in this tool comes close.
- Print method. Screen printing at $1.35 versus DTG at $4.80 is $3.45 a shirt — worth more than any blank negotiation.
- Blank price. The difference between the 100-piece and 600-piece tier is roughly $0.35. Real, but third.
Which is the opposite of what most first-time buyers do: they spend three weeks comparing suppliers over $0.20 and set the retail price in ten minutes at the end. The calculator makes the order of importance obvious.
Next: choose the decoration method that matches your artwork and your volume —decoration methods.