How to Price Your Screen Printing Jobs (Invoicing & Pricing Tips)

[@mikeydesignssilkscreen473]

Thanks for watching! We'll revisit this subject in the near future as we have progressed how we invoice and price our shirts for profit.

[@walkbabyone]

wow man, ive been screening for about 4 years, learning the craft, I just got my first official job and the customer asked foe an invoice, ive learned about that,,,and much more...thanks brother

[@mikeydesignssilkscreen473]

Any time!

[@teamletteracing]

I’m just looking into starting a screen printing business/hobby so I’m really appreciating your videos!!! Thank you!!!

[@mikeydesignssilkscreen473]

Thank you! I really appreciate you watching them.

[@Rightsiderspodcast]

Wooo nice thank you for the response will get on this invoice system thanks for looking out for us printers BLESSINGS TO YOU AND YOURS !!

[@mikeydesignssilkscreen473]

You're welcome! Anything to help out a fellow screen printer. Same to you!

[@crumptees]

We use Waveapps which has a processing fee of 1% if you do the payment through wave and it also allows you to do payroll for a monthly fee, but the invoicing part is free. We get our money in our bank account in 2-3 days.

[@mikeydesignssilkscreen473]

Nice! We'll have to check that out. We're stuck with PayPal at the moment until we finish paying off a PayPal working capital loan which has helped us grown our business.

[@crumptees]

@@mikeydesignssilkscreen473 nice thing with wave is that you can add products and specify a markup price on the shirts so you don't have to look up the last price you charged 👍 makes the process quicker when quoting.

[@davidharrell5927]

REALLY GOOD overview.

[@mikeydesignssilkscreen473]

Thanks, I really appreciate it!

[@jotajota5936]

Hey thank that's what I was looking for . Very helpful and good luck in your business I know you'll do well

[@mikeydesignssilkscreen473]

Glad you found it!!! Thank you very much and we wish the same for you.

[@saul4691]

This tutorial was very helpful . Just one question. How do you figure out the turnout of your jobs?. I do some screen printing and sometimes the particular color garment is not available with any of my suppliers or t shirt style. How do yo deal with this.

[@mikeydesignssilkscreen473]

Our turnaround time is standard stuff. About 10 business days, or up to 15 during the busy season. If we run into a vendor being out of a color, we let the client know and find a suitable substitution or recommend something similar.

[@rdp7119]

great vid!. I just bough a one color press to print my brand. But now that I have the press I wanted to take advantage of it and offer t-shirts to other businesses... and your video was exactly what I needed to figure pricing. I assume that when you have a 2 color job you charge duplicate the cost of the screen fee? ($20 each screen)

[@rdp7119]

Forgot to ask: how do you charge a design that has a front pocket and full back print?

[@mikeydesignssilkscreen473]

That's awesome! And you're correct. So it would $40 in screen fees and the amount of time it'll take on a manual will be longer.

[@Obeysuls96]

how about when the want an extra design. for example, other than a back print. how much you will charge for the extra design in the front left chest pocket.

[@blackheartteesclothing]

Matt quick question about how you got your numbers for your Print Cost Per Location? What factors does that include to get a number? Thanks Pat

[@mikeydesignssilkscreen473]

Hey Black Heart Tees. We factor in our overhead costs, and how much we need to make an hour to make a living, including taxes and all. Then we take how many shirts we print per month, which for us it's about 2000-2500 now. We factor in how much it costs us to make a screen. Which for us is about $6.50 per screen (ink remover, emulsion remover, emulsion, film, ink for the printer, and screen tape). Each color takes a screen. Each print location takes x amount of time. We know that, manually, we can do about 120 shirts an hour for 1 color, 100 for 2 colors, 85 for 3 colors, 65 for 4, 50 for 5 colors, and about 35-40 an hour for 6 color prints. Then we factor in our profit margin, which for us we like to hit 30-40%. We have our break even print cost and will not go below that. Otherwise we are losing money. We charge $20 per screen which also helps pay for the time creating a screen. We know it takes about 40 minutes to create 1 screen (total time spent reclaiming, coating with emulsion, setting up art, printing film, exposing, and washing out the image). We do not include screen dry times because we really aren't putting in work, and we do about 20 screens at a time. I hope this helps some.

[@blackheartteesclothing]

Thank you this helps alot so appreciate your time in responding

[@maga_q_anon8384]

The calculator page is not available.

[@dooman42]

Can you send me Ryonet’s printing for profit sheet can’t find it. Link not working

[@eskymovercoe8768]

Great advice, paypal invoicing, check.

[@irishangayen8923]

Hi there, Thank you for this video! It's really helpful but how about the labour cost? How did you add that to your invoice?

[@mikeydesignssilkscreen473]

Add labor to the pricing calculator and how many shirts per hour you can print. It'll break down the labor cost per shirt.

[@madisonsmith5493]

Do you ever have issues with someone who is ordering various styles, colors, and sizes? How do you verify with your client that all of those details are correct? I usually so that by specifying on the invoice. How do you handle this?

[@mikeydesignssilkscreen473]

We just make a separate line with the model number of shirt, and charge accordingly. For example, if someone wants youth and adult shirts, say a Gildan 2000 / 2000b, we'll make two separate lines. Or, if someone wants black shirts, and white shirts, we'll make a separate line for those color shirt. If a client want multiple color shirts, same style, we'll list out the colors they would like. We list the sizes and all in the description box. It's a very manual way to do it, but it works. I hope this helps.

[@saul4691]

how is going Mikey . Now days with the Covid-19 Situation for me in order to complete an order apparel gets shipped from different locations for instance S&S or Alpha Brother could be an example. Shipping cost can get expensive. Specially when is a small order. How do you go about that. check inventory first than price it out? and what about if that is a recurrent client . Do you run your prices up and down? if you are doing the same type of shirt an design for this particular customer. best regards. take care

[@mikeydesignssilkscreen473]

Hey Saul. We've noticed this too. We try to combine multiple small orders to reach $200 and to get free shipping. The shipping is free even if it has to come from different locations. We keep the price the same, even if it's a reorder because we have to make the screens again. We don't save screens, unless a client wants to buy them, but we still would prefer to reclaim the screens and start fresh.

[@saul4691]

@@mikeydesignssilkscreen473 thanks for the pointer it is time to hit the squeegee Best regards

[@lanelauhoff]

Wow. We live REALLY close to each other.

[@mikeydesignssilkscreen473]

Where about are you? I guess you obviously know where we are. LOL

[@lanelauhoff]

Mikey Designs & Silk Screen Livingston, TX. About an hour north from you.

[@mikeydesignssilkscreen473]

In Texas, you're right down the street.

[@bigrayg7978]

Hey Matt. Do you always mark up shirts at the same percentage?

[@mikeydesignssilkscreen473]

We don't. If the shirt costs over $30, then we'll do 50%. Just depends on the client. For some clients, we may do 50% if it's a huge order on regular tees. Say for instance someone wants 1,000 shirts, we may mark the shirts up 25-50%. Whatever they're willing to pay or what the competition is offering to land the job.

[@bigrayg7978]

@@mikeydesignssilkscreen473 thanks for taking the time to reply. I'm considering opening a shop and running it with my son. Pricing is the hardest part of screen printing.

[@mikeydesignssilkscreen473]

@@bigrayg7978 It sure is. This calculator will help. You can also call around and see what others are charging.

[@mikeydesignssilkscreen473]

@@bigrayg7978 Keep us updated as to how things go! I hope my son gets into screen printing, when he's old enough. He's 6 so he's got a little time. lol

[@jotajota5936]

Thank you Mikey

[@mikeydesignssilkscreen473]

Any time!

[@garagelifeink8331]

Thank you✌️😎💨

[@mikeydesignssilkscreen473]

Any time!

[@terradan2013]

What's up Mike? How did u get ur logo to show up in such good resolution on ur invoice? When I add mine it's all distorted looking?

[@mikeydesignssilkscreen473]

Hey Terrance! Just be sure to load it up at the size you want at 72 dpi. That should help.

[@terradan2013]

Thanks Matt.

[@mikeydesignssilkscreen473]

You're welcome!

[@rpbvid]

Mikey Designs & Silk Screen Another great video, Matt! 👍

[@papascateringstreetfood2173]

Good video Ryonet's calculator will do a whole lot more in verifying business reserves, labor, ink & with slight modifications can be merged with QUICKBOOKS. I like your PAYPAL invoices. Have you had any problems with PayPal not releasing funds so that you could purchase BLANKS?

[@mikeydesignssilkscreen473]

Thank you. You're absolutely right about that, but since it's really just Shannon and I, this makes it simple. Once we hire someone to start helping, we'l really dive deeper in to using the shirts per hour and labor costs. Thanks for the tip. I use quick books, their self-employed app and it makes filing that much easier. Love quick books. It's awesome to know I could use it in conjunction with the calculator. They only time I had a problem with PayPal was manually punching in a credit card with their PayPal here app. If you do not use the card reader, and manually punch it, if you go over $4K in sales, they place a 30 day hold on the funds just to make sure you're not running a scam with stolen credit cards. I didn't realize that and started using their virtual terminal for that. Only other issues have been clients wanting refunds that weren't happy for what ever reason. They can withdraw the funds. You then go through a review process. Let's just say in the 4-5 years I've been using it, that's only happened twice, but I've won both cases. Just be sure to state in your terms and conditions, no refunds.

[@papascateringstreetfood2173]

Production rates on a manual press: one color 120 shirts / hr; 2 color 85 shirts / hr; 3 color prints 67 / hr; 4 colors / 50 shirts per hr & 6 colors at 19 shirts / hr. utilizing a conveyor belt dryer and a press with at least 4 stations; or 6 color 6 stations BEST WISHES!

[@mikeydesignssilkscreen473]

Great info! We actually have ours broken down VERY similar when we use the hourly rate.

[@papascateringstreetfood2173]

I discovered this system originally by mistake after mistake. The book, PROFITS FIRST, solidified my adherence to the principle explained in the book and Ryonet's cost plus spreadsheet. My spreadsheet pricing calculator separates my profit into categories that are then deposited into their appropriate check and saving accounts. By then comparing my actual expenses against our deposits I verify the accuracy of the spreadsheet time / cost calculations. Should there be insufficient money in the reserve account or payroll labor account or the "INK" account to purchase the replacement amount of say ink, I know I need to increase the cost estimate of the ink in the spreadsheet. If the "INK" account has too much money then I reduce the spreadsheet cost of ink. Over the years of use, the spreadsheet calculator has become extremely accurate. Ryonet has created a basic COST PLUS PRICING SPREADSHEET CALCULATOR that can easily be modified so that my company reserve accounts can be totaled for each cost segment of the spreadsheet. This provides me with extreme control of my business.

[@mikeydesignssilkscreen473]

Would you mind sharing your processes? How you have all that setup, because that would be great to have something like that working for our business. Or could you point us to a resource on how to get such a system setup?

[@smithbubba056]

Is it not illegal to mark up blank shirts? I thought you always have to sell them at cost? Thanks

[@mikeydesignssilkscreen473]

Not at all. When we get shirts from a wholesaler from $3, the retail price is $6. If you take a look at SanMars site, they have a suggested MSRP.

[@nekkron99]

Nice vid man.

[@mikeydesignssilkscreen473]

Thank you!

[@AshantiVO]

so shirt companies don't charge for labor?

[@mikeydesignssilkscreen473]

We changed the way we price out. This was when it was just me in the house. I now have 3 employees and a shop overhead.

[@gmoneyshiphop1]

nice

[@mikeydesignssilkscreen473]

Thank you!