The three routes
Every t-shirt business is one of these three things. The differences are not cosmetic: they change your cost per unit, your cash requirement, your minimum order, and whether a blank supplier is even useful to you.
| Route | You buy | Cash to start | Margin per shirt | Needs a blank supplier? |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| A. Print on demand | Nothing | $0–100 | $8–14 | No |
| B. You print | Blanks + ink/film | $400–1,500 | $12–22 | Yes |
| C. Your own label | Blanks + print + tags | $1,500–6,000 | $18–35 | Yes |
Route A: print on demand
You upload artwork; a platform prints it on a blank when an order comes in and ships it to your customer. You never own inventory. The per-unit cost is the highest of the three routes — typically$12–18 for a printed shirt — because you are paying for someone else's blank, someone else's printing, someone else's storage and someone else's shipping, each with a margin on top.
It is a legitimate business. It is also a business where you never buy a blank from anyone, so there is nothing for a blank supplier to sell you. If this is your plan, the honest advice is to go and pick a POD platform and stop reading supplier sites.
Why this route gets recommended so heavily: the platforms publish a lot of "how to start a t-shirt business" content, and the content exists to funnel you into their platform. That does not make the advice wrong, but it does explain why every guide ends with the same recommendation.
Route B: you print
You buy blanks, print them yourself or pay a local printer, and sell the finished shirt. This is the route most small studios, market stalls, gyms, clubs and side businesses end up on. It needs a heat press or a screen setup, or a printer relationship, and it needs a first order of blanks that is correctly sized.
What decides whether route B works:
- Blank cost. At 100 pieces a 230gsm tee is roughly $3.90; at 600 it drops to about $3.55. That $0.35 is your entire marketing budget on a small run.
- Print cost per piece. A one-colour screen print at 100 units is around $1.10–1.60; DTG is $4–6. The gap between those two numbers is bigger than the gap between two blank suppliers.
- Size mix. The single most common way to lose money on the first order — covered in step 2.
- Colour count. Two colours doubles the inventory you must sell through before you reorder.
Route C: your own label
Same as route B, plus your own neck tag, care label and sometimes custom packaging. Buyers cannot tell a private-label shirt from a brand one — that is the whole point — and the per-unit cost of getting there is smaller than people expect: woven neck labels cost roughly $0.08–0.20 each at 500 pieces, printed care labels $0.03–0.06, hang tags $0.05–0.12 once you are already printing.
Route C is where a supplier relationship actually matters, because you are not buying a commodity any more. You need consistent fabric across reorders, the same dye lot, and a supplier who can add a label without turning it into a 3,000-piece production run.
The trap on route C: buying 1,000 pieces of a custom-dyed shirt before you have sold 100 of a stock colour. Custom dye has a minimum, and the minimum is usually bigger than your first year of sales.
The same shirt, three ways
One 230gsm cotton tee, one-colour front print, sold at $28. This is what each route actually keeps:
| A. POD | B. You print | C. Own label | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Blank | — | $3.90 | $3.90 |
| Print / decoration | — | $1.35 | $1.35 |
| Label + tag | — | — | $0.26 |
| Platform / fulfilment | $13.50 | $1.20 | $0.60 |
| Shipping to customer | included | $4.50 | $4.50 |
| Cost per shirt | $13.50 | $11.75 | $10.61 |
| Gross per shirt at $28 | $14.50 | $16.25 | $17.39 |
| Cash tied up before first sale | $0 | ~$520 | ~$700 |
Route B and C look better on paper by $1.75–2.89 a shirt. What that number does not show is the risk: on route A a shirt that does not sell costs you nothing, and on route B it costs you $3.90 and a box in the corner. The whole skill of route B is buying the right 100, which is the next step.
How to decide this week
Answer three questions honestly. They resolve the route in about five minutes.
- Do you have $500 you can leave tied up in stock for 90 days? No → route A. Yes → continue.
- Do you have a way to print, or a printer within reach? No → price a local printer before you buy blanks, not after.
- Will you sell 100 shirts in 90 days? If you have no audience at all, buy 50 and print in two batches — you will pay more per piece and learn faster. If you have an audience (a gym, a club, an event, 2,000 followers), buy 100.
None of these answers require a supplier yet. The supplier decision comes after you know the route, the quantity and the print method — which is exactly what steps 2 to 4 work out.
If you are on route B or C, the next page is the one that decides whether the business works:your first 100 pieces.
Prices in this chapter are 2026 list prices for our US-warehouse stock at 100–299 pieces unless stated otherwise. Print costs are indicative ranges for a US printer; confirm them with the printer you will actually use. Nothing here assumes you buy from us — the whole catalogue is public.