T-Shirts for Charities: cost
By The Velocity Wear Team
Charity t-shirts start at $13 a piece at our 50-piece minimum, with sizes mixed freely inside the 50. The per-piece figure falls through five quantity tiers, reaching up to 35% off the 50-piece price at the top band. For a fundraising campaign, the number that matters is not the unit cost on its own but the unit cost against what a supporter will actually pay.
What does a charity t-shirt cost per piece?
The from-price on the wholesale t-shirts page is $13 at 50 pieces on 150-240 GSM combed ring-spun cotton. A single-colour logo on a lighter weight sits at the bottom of the range; a heavier shirt with a front logo, a back message and a partner mark sits above it, because each print position is a separate setup. Charities often find the largest honest saving sits in the design rather than the negotiation - two colours instead of five, one position instead of three.
How much does the price drop with quantity?
The tiers are 50-99, 100-249, 250-499, 500-999 and 1,000 and above, with the discount building through them to 35% from the 50-piece price. The practical lesson for a charity running several events is consolidation. A national campaign where six regional groups each order 50 shirts pays six times in the first band. The same 300 shirts ordered centrally and distributed pays once in the third. That is a genuinely large difference on a fundraising budget and it costs nothing but coordination.
How do you price a shirt for supporters?
Work from your actual tier price, not the from-price, and include everything. Production per piece, transit, and a realistic allowance for the shirts you will not sell. Divide that total by the number you expect to shift rather than the number you ordered - that is your real cost per sold shirt, and it is always higher than the invoice suggests. Then set the supporter price above it by whatever margin the campaign needs. Charity t-shirts for fundraising goes further into how campaigns handle that arithmetic.
What can you cut without cutting quality?
Colours, positions and design count. A five-colour logo reproduced as a clean two-colour version costs less and reads better at distance. A back message dropped entirely saves a whole setup. Running one design across volunteers and supporters rather than two separate shirts halves the minimum commitment and moves the whole quantity into a better band. What is not worth cutting is fabric weight below what the shirt needs, because a supporter who buys a shirt that loses shape after three washes is a supporter who does not buy the next one - the charities and fundraising page covers how campaigns usually balance that.
What costs sit outside the quote?
Delivery transit, which is separate from the 10-15 working day production window. Storage, if the shirts arrive weeks before the event. And unsold stock, which is the biggest one and the one nobody budgets for. Getting the size curve right is therefore a cost control measure as much as a logistics one - charity size splits covers how to shape it so fewer shirts sit in a cupboard after the campaign ends.
