Bulk T-Shirts for Agencies: A Buyer's Guide
By The Velocity Wear Team
Agencies buy t-shirts at $13 a piece from a 50-piece minimum, with up to 35% off as the run grows. The commercial part is simple. What breaks agency merch is the calendar: 10 to 15 working days of production start at artwork approval, not at the brief, and client sign-off is usually the slowest link. Quote the date from approval and you will not be the one apologising.
How should an agency quote a client for merch?
Quote landed, per piece, at a stated quantity, and say which quantity the price assumes. Merch quotes go wrong because a client hears one number at 500 and then orders 80. Show two tiers in the proposal, name the minimum as 50 pieces per design, and separate decoration and private label as line items so a budget cut trims the extras instead of killing the order. Current from-prices are on our wholesale t-shirts page, and the corporate merchandise pages cover the rest of a staff or event kit.
What do brand guidelines change about a print?
More than clients expect. A brand book specifies colours in one colour space and garments are printed in another, so an exact screen colour is matched to the nearest ink rather than reproduced from the hex value. Tell the client this before the sample lands, not after. Minimum clear space rules often mean the logo has to sit smaller than the artwork director wants, and reversed-out marks on dark garments need an underbase, which changes the hand feel of the print. None of this is a problem if it is raised in the proposal.
How do you protect a launch date?
Lock artwork before you lock a date with the client. The production window is 10 to 15 working days from approval, plus transit to wherever the activation is. If the campaign date is fixed, build a week of float for revisions and, if the client is a brand that will scrutinise the result, a sample round before the bulk run. A sample is £150 and is credited against the bulk order, so it costs the project time rather than money. Artwork setup for custom t-shirts lists exactly what to send.
Who signs off, and on what?
Name one approver in the statement of work. Merch projects collect opinions from marketing, brand and the founder, and each round costs days. What they should be approving is a specific set of things: garment colour, fabric weight between 150 and 240 GSM, fit, print position and size in centimetres, and ink colour. Approve those five and the rest is manufacturing.
What about multiple sizes and multiple offices?
Sizes mix freely inside the 50, XS to 3XL, so a staff order does not need to be a flat split. Deliveries can go to more than one address across the UK, USA and Europe, and invoicing is available in seven currencies, which matters for agencies billing a client entity in another market. Event work in particular benefits from splitting the run so each venue gets its own boxes rather than one pallet that has to be redistributed; there is more on that in event and conference tees.
What does decoration choice do to an agency budget?
More than the garment does. A one-colour chest print on a standard tee sits at the low end of the menu, and a full-front multi-colour graphic at the 50-piece minimum is among the dearest, because screen setup is spread over only 50 shirts. DTF removes that setup, which makes complex artwork viable at small quantities, and embroidery is priced by stitch count so a small mark is inexpensive at any volume. If a client cuts the budget late, the lever that preserves the campaign is usually the decoration spec rather than the quantity, because halving the run costs you the better tier as well.
