T-Shirts for Schools: cost
By The Velocity Wear Team
School t-shirts start at $13 a piece at the 50-piece minimum, which for most year groups is comfortably below the number of pupils involved. Because the discount reaches up to 35% as quantity rises, a large cohort pays meaningfully less per pupil than a small one. Decoration, any name list on the back, the £150 sample and delivery are quoted separately from the garment.
What does a school t-shirt cost per pupil?
Take the tier price for your cohort size, add the decoration you have specified, then divide any fixed costs across the group. The garment is 150–240 GSM combed ring-spun cotton in regular or boxy fits, and a leavers shirt intended to be kept is usually worth ordering at the heavier end. A light shirt is cheaper and perfectly sensible for a sports day or a trip; the two are different jobs. The wholesale t-shirts page lists the from-price and the fabric range.
Then be clear about what a pupil pays versus what the order costs. If parents are paying per shirt, the per-pupil figure has to carry the fixed costs of the whole run, so it is not the same as the unit price on the quote. Work out the total first and divide afterwards. That order of operations is what stops a shortfall appearing at the end of term.
How does the size of a year group change the price?
It moves it more than anything else you control. The tiers step at 50–99, 100–249, 250–499, 500–999 and 1,000+, and the discount reaches up to 35% off the 50-piece rate at the top. A cohort of 200 is priced differently from one of 60, and crossing a boundary reduces the cost of every shirt in the order rather than only the extras. If your numbers sit just below a step, price both sides before you set what you charge. Our pricing page shows where the boundaries fall.
A school with several year groups ordering in the same term has an obvious lever here. One combined run of a shared design is priced as one quantity; four separate runs are each priced at their own. That only works where the artwork is genuinely identical, because the minimum is per design, and a year printed on the back makes each cohort a different design.
Who pays, and how does that change the order?
Three common arrangements, and each changes the shape of the order. The school funds it, in which case order to the roll and keep spares. Parents pay per shirt, in which case you need numbers confirmed before production and a plan for late payers. Or a PTA funds it as a fundraiser, in which case the margin question matters and how charity t-shirt runs are costed covers that maths directly.
What sits outside the per-piece price?
A £150 sample if you take one, credited against the bulk order — worth doing on a leavers shirt because it is a garment pupils keep. Decoration by method and position, so a crest on the chest and a name list on the back are two. Individual bagging if you want them handed out by name, which for a year group is usually money well spent. And delivery. None of these are large individually; together they are the gap between a quote and an invoice. Settle the size split early using school size splits, and our schools and leavers page covers the rest of the leavers kit list.
How do you avoid a shortfall at the end of term?
Collect the money before you place the order, not after it arrives. A school that orders on a promise of payment carries the risk itself, and end of term is precisely when chasing becomes impossible because the pupils have left. Take payment and sizes in the same step, set one closing date for both, and order against what has actually been paid plus a small spares allowance. It is a less generous way to run it, but it is the version where nobody in the office is out of pocket in August.
