How Much Does Screen Printing Cost in Miami? A Bulk Pricing Breakdown

If you are asking how much does screen printing cost in Miami, you deserve a real answer with real numbers — not "it depends" and a contact form. This breakdown gives you our complete published print pricing, shows exactly what a bulk order costs at 48, 144, and 500 pieces with the screens and setup included, and explains why two quotes for the "same" shirts can be hundreds of dollars apart.

Miami Tees Online has printed for Miami-Dade businesses since 1988. Screen printing starts at 48 pieces for 1–2 color designs — 72 for 3–4 colors, 144 for 5, 240 for 6, 360 for 7–8, and 500 for 9 colors. That minimum is stated up front because it is the single biggest fact in the pricing: below it, screen printing is the wrong tool for the job, and any honest breakdown has to start there. If your order is 48 pieces or more of one design, here is what it costs and why.

The short answer for bulk orders

For screen printing in Miami, our published print price — per shirt, per print location — runs from $2.75 for 1 color at 48 pieces down to $1.32 for 1 color at 500 pieces. Add screens at $30 per color and a one-time setup fee of $55, then add the garment itself. That is the whole structure. There are no other standard charges hiding behind it.

In practical terms, the print side of a bulk order looks like this before the garment:

• 48 shirts, 1 color, 1 location: $217.00 total for printing, screens, and setup — $4.52 per shirt before the garment
• 144 shirts, 1 color, 1 location: $362.92 total — $2.52 per shirt before the garment
• 500 shirts, 1 color, 1 location: $745.00 total — $1.49 per shirt before the garment

The finished shirt adds the blank you choose — a basic work tee and a premium heavyweight tee are different garments at different prices, which is why the worked examples below separate print from garment instead of blending them into a vague "average." how much custom t-shirt printing costs in Miami compares all four methods; this article goes deeper on screen printing alone, where the bulk savings live.

Send artwork and quantity through our screen printing in Miami page and the exact number for your garment, colors, and size mix comes back within 1 business hour, Monday through Friday.

What you're actually paying for (garment, print, screens, setup)

Every legitimate screen printing quote in Miami is built from four lines. If a quote you received cannot be broken into these four, you are not looking at a complete quote — you are looking at a partial one, and the missing lines will appear later.

1. The garment

The blank shirt, polo, hoodie, or work garment is usually the largest single cost in a finished order, and the line buyers compare least carefully. Two quotes can use the identical print price and differ by dollars per shirt purely on the garment: a thin promotional tee versus a durable crew shirt that survives a year of job sites and industrial washing. Tell your printer how the shirts will be worn — kitchen heat, outdoor crews, front-of-house polish — and the garment recommendation follows the job. Oversize garments (2XL and up) price as their own line, so your size mix is transparent before you approve anything.

2. The print

The print price is per piece, per print location, and it is set by two things: how many shirts and how many ink colors. Our full published matrix is on our screen printing pricing page. The core of it:

• 1 color: $2.75 at 48 pieces · $2.09 at 72 · $1.93 at 144 · $1.54 at 240 · $1.43 at 360 · $1.32 at 500
• 2 colors: $3.30 at 48 · $2.20 at 72 · $2.04 at 144 · $1.65 at 240 · $1.54 at 360 · $1.43 at 500
• 3 colors: $2.48 at 72 · $2.20 at 144 · $2.09 at 240 · $1.87 at 360 · $1.54 at 500
• 4 colors: $3.30 at 72 · $2.64 at 144 · $2.48 at 240 · $2.09 at 360 · $1.65 at 500
• 5 colors: $3.30 at 144 · $2.64 at 240 · $2.37 at 360 · $1.76 at 500

Read it the way a printer does: moving right (more shirts) lowers the price on every shirt; moving down (more colors) raises it and raises the minimum. A second print location is a second print — a front and a back are priced as two locations, each with its own colors.

3. Screens — $30 per color

Each ink color needs its own screen: a mesh stencil made from your artwork, one per color, per location. Screens and films are $30.00 per color, shown as their own line on every quote — never buried in the per-shirt price. A 2-color front with a 1-color back uses three screens. This is why minimums scale with color count: more screens means more fixed work to spread across more shirts before the math works for you.

4. Setup — one-time $55

The one-time setup fee for screen printing is $55 ($45 for DTF, a different method with a different setup). Setup covers getting your job press-ready: artwork separation, screen registration so every color lands exactly where it belongs, and test prints checked before the run starts. It is one-time per job — and it is a large part of why reorders cost less, because artwork and screens stay on file.

Send artwork and quantity — real quote within one business hour. Get a Screen Printing Quote

Price at 48 vs. 144 vs. 500 pieces

This is where bulk pricing stops being abstract. Below are complete worked examples — print, screens, and setup, all in — for the same design at three quantities. The garment is excluded on purpose so you can compare the print economics cleanly; add your chosen blank to get the finished-shirt total.

1-color design, 1 location

• 48 pieces: print 48 × $2.75 = $132.00 · screens $30 · setup $55 → $217.00 total, $4.52 per shirt
• 144 pieces: print 144 × $1.93 = $277.92 · screens $30 · setup $55 → $362.92 total, $2.52 per shirt
• 500 pieces: print 500 × $1.32 = $660.00 · screens $30 · setup $55 → $745.00 total, $1.49 per shirt

Tripling the order from 48 to 144 does not triple the cost — it rises by about two-thirds while the per-shirt print cost falls by $2.00. Going from 48 to 500, more than ten times the shirts, costs about three and a half times the money.

2-color design, 1 location

• 48 pieces: print 48 × $3.30 = $158.40 · screens $60 · setup $55 → $273.40 total, $5.70 per shirt
• 144 pieces: print 144 × $2.04 = $293.76 · screens $60 · setup $55 → $408.76 total, $2.84 per shirt
• 500 pieces: print 500 × $1.43 = $715.00 · screens $60 · setup $55 → $830.00 total, $1.66 per shirt

The question buyers ask most: how much do 100 T-shirts cost?

One hundred shirts price in the 72-piece bracket of the matrix. For a 1-color design, 1 location: print 100 × $2.09 = $209.00, plus $30 in screens and the $55 setup — $294.00 on the print side, $2.94 per shirt before the garment. That is why "about $4–$8 per finished shirt" is the honest all-in range for most Miami business orders once a real garment is added: the print side is a few dollars, the garment decides where in the range you land.

Notice what drives every example: screens and setup never change with quantity. At 48 shirts, the $85 of fixed cost in a 1-color job adds $1.77 to every shirt; at 500, it adds $0.17. Among miami screen printers, that fixed-cost math — not negotiating skill — is what bulk t-shirt printing savings are made of. Ordering 72 when you need 65 is often the smart move: spare shirts for new hires, bought at the lower bracket price, cost far less than a second small order later.

What makes one quote higher than another

Given the same design, six things move a quote — and knowing them lets you lower your own price deliberately instead of hoping for a discount.

Quantity bracket. The steepest drops happen early: 48 to 72 to 144. If your count sits just under a break, ask what the break quantity costs in total. The answer surprises buyers regularly.

Ink colors. Each color adds a screen, raises the per-piece price, and can raise your minimum. A logo rebuilt from four colors to two can drop a job from the 72-piece minimum to 48 and cut the print price at every quantity — usually without a single customer noticing the difference on the finished shirt. Ask what your design costs at one fewer color before you finalize artwork.

Print locations. Front only is one print; front plus back is two. Decide by who sees the shirt. A crew whose backs face traffic all day is giving away advertising by printing front only — but a front-of-house team facing customers may not need the back print at all.

The garment. Covered above, and worth repeating: this is the line where cheap quotes quietly cut. The print can be perfect and the order still a failure if the blank cannot survive the workplace.

Dark garments. Printing bright colors on black, navy, or forest shirts requires a white underbase — an extra screen and pass so the colors stay true instead of sinking into the fabric. It is real work with a real cost, and a quote that ignores it is a quote that plans to give you dull colors.

Size mix and oversizes. Standard sizes combine into one run under one setup — the minimum is per design, not per size. Oversize pieces (2XL and up) are priced on their own line because the garments cost more. A quote that shows that line is being straight with you; one that discovers it later is not.

What does not legitimately move a quote: a deadline. Production runs 7–10 working days after you approve your proof and blanks are received, and we do not offer same-day printing. A printer promising a bulk run tomorrow is promising to skip the curing and checking that make a print survive washing — that cost shows up later, on your crew's backs.

Why the cheapest quote usually isn't

Every Miami business that orders shirts regularly has a cheapest-quote story. It usually fails in one of four places, and each one maps to a line in the breakdown above.

The garment was swapped. The quote won on a thinner, cheaper blank than the one discussed. The shirts arrive, feel wrong, and fade or shrink within a season — and the reorder starts from zero with a different printer.

Lines were missing. No screens, no setup, no oversize line — until the invoice. A quote that shows garment, print, screens, and setup as separate lines can be compared honestly against any other. A single blended number cannot, and that is usually the point of blending it.

The proof step was skipped. Nothing should print before you approve a digital proof showing size, placement, and colors. Custom printing is made-to-order — there are no refunds on a run printed wrong — so the proof is not paperwork, it is the protection. A cheap quote that skips approval transfers the risk of a misspelled name across 200 shirts from the printer to you.

The colors will not match your reorder. Brand colors drift when artwork and screens are not kept on file and when exact matching is treated as optional. Pantone matching is available where your brand color has to be exact — ask for it by name if yours does.

The cheapest quote is occasionally the right one — when it shows the same garment, the same four lines, a proof before production, and a shop still at 5120 NW 165th Street, Bay 101, Miami Gardens when you reorder. Compared line by line, honest quotes cluster close together. The outlier is almost always missing something you will pay for another way.

Frequently asked questions

Get your exact price

If your order is 48 pieces or more of one design, you now know exactly how your price will be built — and how to read anyone else's quote against ours.

Send artwork and quantity for a quote within 1 business hour, or call (786) 540-3020. Get a Screen Printing Quote

Screen printing starts at 48 pieces — if that's your order, we're your printer. Miami Tees Online, 5120 NW 165th Street, Bay 101, Miami Gardens, FL 33014 — printing for Miami-Dade since 1988. For the full ordering picture, start with our complete bulk-order guide to screen printing in Miami.