How Contract Screen Printing Works

A plain English guide for print shops, resellers, promo distributors and apparel brands who are new to contract printing, or tired of being surprised by their current printer.

What contract screen printing actually is

Contract screen printing means a production shop prints garments for your business, not for the end customer. You bring the order, the artwork, and usually the blank garments. The contract printer supplies the presses, the labor, and the expertise, then charges you a wholesale decoration rate. You invoice your customer at your own price, and the margin between the two is yours.

It is how a large share of the apparel you see every day actually gets made. The promo distributor who sold your bank its polos, the local shop that printed your gym’s shirts, the online store selling band merch: many of them never touch a press. A contract printer runs the job behind the scenes.

How contract pricing is structured

Nearly every contract printer prices the same way, and once you understand it you can estimate any job in your head. Three variables set the price:

• Quantity. Rates are tiered. Common breaks are 24, 48, 72, 100, 150, 250, 500, and 1,000 pieces, and the per print rate drops at every tier. The gap between 72 and 100 pieces is often large enough that ordering 28 more shirts costs you less in total.
• Colors per design. Every ink color in the artwork needs its own screen, so a 1 color print costs less than a 4 color print at the same quantity.
• Print locations. Pricing is per print, per location. A front and back job is two prints on every garment, each priced at its own color count.

The underbase, explained

This is the one that catches new buyers. Printing light ink on a dark garment requires a layer of white ink underneath, the underbase, or the shirt color bleeds through and the print looks muddy. The underbase needs its own screen, so it counts as an additional color. A 2 color logo on black tees is a 3 color job. An honest printer tells you this at quote time, not on the invoice.

A worked example

Say a customer wants 100 shirts, a 2 color logo on the left chest, and a 1 color print on the back, all on navy tees.

• Front: 2 colors plus a white underbase, so it prices as a 3 color print.
• Back: 1 color plus an underbase, so it prices as a 2 color print.
• That is two priced locations per garment, not one, at the 100 piece tier.

Print the same job on white tees and both underbases disappear. Same design, meaningfully different invoice. This is why garment color belongs in your quote request, and why a printer who quotes without asking is guessing.

Watch for these on any contract quote

• Setup and screen fees. Some shops charge per screen, per job, even on reorders. Some, including this one, charge none. Always ask, because screen fees can quietly erase your margin on short runs.
• Garment surcharges. Fleece, shorts, and pants are harder to load on a press and usually add a small flat amount per piece.
• Unbagging. If your blanks arrive individually polybagged, someone has to unbag every one. Expect a per piece charge.
• Rush fees. Fair shops apply rush percentages to the decoration cost only. Some apply it to the whole invoice, garments included. The difference is enormous.
• Spoilage policy. Misprints happen on every press in the world. What matters is whether the printer replaces the garment, credits you, or shrugs. Get it in writing before the first job.

The production process, step by step

1. Artwork and separations

Vector art (AI, EPS, PDF) is the gold standard, with full detail in our artwork and file requirements guide. The art gets separated into one layer per ink color, and halftones are applied for shading and gradients. Bad art is the number one cause of delays: a low resolution JPG pulled from a website cannot be printed until someone redraws it.

2. Screens

Each color layer is imaged onto its own mesh screen. Modern shops use computer to screen (CTS) imaging, which exposes the design directly from the digital file. No film positives, no manual alignment, and identical screens on every reorder.

3. Press setup and approval

Screens are registered on the press, ink is mixed and Pantone matched if specified, and a test print is run and checked against the mockup. On automatic presses this setup is most of the labor in a job, which is exactly why per piece prices fall so fast as quantity rises.

4. The run

Automatic presses print hundreds of pieces per hour with identical pressure and placement on every garment. Each shirt passes through a flash cure between colors where needed, then through a conveyor dryer that cures the ink permanently.

5. Quality control and finishing

Good shops pull pieces throughout the run to check registration, coverage, and cure. Finishing options like printed size tags and neck label prints, folding, and bagging happen after the run, turning blank plus print into a retail ready product.

6. Shipping

Contract orders ship back to you, or blind ship directly to your customer with nothing identifying the printer. Blind shipping is standard practice in contract work. If a printer charges extra for it or gets cagey, that is a red flag.

How to vet a contract screen printer

Every contract shop in the country will tell you they are fast, cheap, and high quality. These are the questions that actually separate them, and any real production shop can answer all eight in one phone call.

1. What equipment do you run, and how many presses? Automatic presses and press count tell you real capacity. A shop running manuals can print beautifully, but it cannot absorb a 2,000 piece rush.
2. What is your actual capacity per day? Not their best day ever. Their normal day.
3. Is turnaround measured from when I order, or from art approval and garment arrival? Almost every missed deadline in this industry hides in that distinction.
4. Do you charge screen or setup fees, and do they repeat on reorders?
5. What happens when you misprint my customer supplied blanks? Replacement, credit, or nothing.
6. Do you blind ship, and does it cost extra?
7. Can you match Pantone, and will color match on a reorder six months out? This is where ink formulas on file matter.
8. Who do I actually talk to when something goes wrong? A named person beats a ticket queue every time.

Screen printing, DTF, or embroidery

Sending the wrong job to the wrong process is the most common way contract buyers lose margin. Here is the short version.

A good contract partner will move your job to the cheaper method when that is the right answer, and tell you why. That is worth more over a year than a few cents on a print.

Turnaround: what is normal

Standard contract turnaround across the industry is 7 to 10 business days from art approval and garment arrival. Rush tiers compress that, and at this shop down to same day when the schedule allows. Two things blow up timelines more than anything else: artwork that is not print ready, and blanks that arrive later than promised. Lock those two down and most deadlines take care of themselves.

If you are ordering blanks from SanMar, the PSST program removes a step. You buy on sanmar.com, choose the PSST ship method, and the blanks ship free to an approved decorator with every PO packed separately.

Who uses contract printing

• Print shops at capacity. When the schedule is full, overflow work goes to a contract partner rather than being turned away or run late.
• Promo product distributors. Sell the program, source the blanks, and let a contract decorator handle production and blind ship it to the client.
• Apparel brands and online stores. Wholesale decoration plus blind shipping means you can sell nationally without owning a press or a warehouse.
• Anyone with repeat programs. Uniforms, spirit wear, corporate merch: jobs that reorder monthly are exactly what contract pricing is built for.

What we run

For the sake of the questions above, here are our own answers, so you can hold any other shop to the same standard.

Blind shipping is included rather than upcharged. Art, separations, ink formulas, and placements stay on file, so a second order is a purchase order rather than a project. We are an approved SanMar PSST decorator, and we print for shops, distributors and brands across South Florida and nationwide out of Deerfield Beach.

How to get set up

Send five things and any competent shop can quote you the same day:

1. Total quantity with a size breakdown
2. The garment brand, style number, and color
3. Number of ink colors per location
4. Which locations print
5. Your real in hands date

Add vector artwork and you may go straight to production. Most contract relationships start with one test job: run a small order, check the quality, check the communication, then move your volume. We will run a first 24 to 48 piece order for new broker accounts so you can judge the work before you commit anything real to it.

Common questions