Guide · Business
The margin on print-on-demand apparel is genuinely fine. What sinks small brands is everything sitting between the net-per-unit figure and the money that ends up in the account: shipping, returns, samples, and buying inventory before demand exists.
Every number below is an illustrative example of the arithmetic, chosen to be realistic in shape and modelled on published fulfilment-platform pricing. They are not quotes from any supplier and they are not results from any brand. Garment, print area, colour count, region, and platform all move these figures. Run your own numbers against a real quote before deciding anything.
Most print-on-demand math collapses everything into "base cost", which hides the only lever you can actually pull. Separate it into three and the decisions get obvious.
Separating them matters because they respond to different decisions. A heavier blank is a positioning decision. A second print location is a design decision. The platform cut is a channel decision. Lumping them together turns three levers into one number you feel vaguely bad about.
| Line | Amount | Note |
|---|---|---|
| Retail price | $32.00 | Customer pays this, plus shipping unless you absorb it |
| Blank garment | −$9.75 | Mid-weight retail-fit tee, not the cheapest blank available |
| Print, one front location | −$4.60 | DTG, full-colour, standard front placement |
| Pick, pack and fulfilment | −$0.60 | Per item |
| Payment processing (2.9% + $0.30) | −$1.23 | Per order, so a single-item cart carries the full fixed fee |
| Net per unit | $15.82 | 49.4% of retail |
| Line | Amount | Note |
|---|---|---|
| Retail price | $58.00 | |
| Blank garment | −$16.20 | Heavier fleece; the largest single cost in the product |
| Print, one front location | −$5.40 | Larger print area than the tee |
| Pick, pack and fulfilment | −$0.60 | |
| Payment processing (2.9% + $0.30) | −$1.98 | |
| Net per unit | $33.82 | 58.3% of retail |
The hoodie earns 2.14 times the dollars of the tee on a single sale, at a higher percentage margin, from the same amount of work: one design, one mockup, one listing, one customer. That ratio is the most important number on this page. Percentages do not pay for anything; dollars per order do, and a brand that leads with tees because they feel more accessible is choosing to work twice as hard for the same money.
A companion guide, Print-on-Demand Margin Math, Honestly, runs the same two products with a slightly different fee blend and lands within a few cents. Both are illustrative. The consistency is the point: the shape of this arithmetic does not depend on which platform you pick, which is why the platform is rarely the thing worth agonising over.
"Raise average order value" is repeated everywhere, usually with the fixed transaction fee as the justification. The fixed fee argument is real but tiny — worth checking rather than assuming.
| Order shape | Revenue | Product cost | Processing | Net |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Tee alone | $32.00 | $14.95 | $1.23 | $15.82 |
| Hoodie alone | $58.00 | $22.20 | $1.98 | $33.82 |
| Both, two separate orders | $90.00 | $37.15 | $3.21 | $49.64 |
| Both, one order | $90.00 | $37.15 | $2.91 | $49.94 |
The saving from combining two items into one order is $0.30 — exactly one fixed fee. So the case for a bigger cart is not the processing fee. It is that a two-item order ships once, is acquired once, and is supported once. Shipping and acquisition cost, not payment fees, are what make average order value matter, and both of those are covered next.
Customers expect free shipping and will abandon carts over it, so the real choice is not whether to charge for shipping but where to hide it. Illustratively, a tee ships domestically for $4.95.
| Approach | Customer pays | Net per unit | Effect |
|---|---|---|---|
| Charge shipping separately | $32 + $4.95 | $15.82 | Baseline, but higher cart abandonment |
| Absorb shipping at the same price | $32.00 | $10.87 | Net falls 31%. This is the version people accidentally choose |
| Fold shipping into the price | $36.95 | $15.68 | Keeps almost all margin; costs $0.14 in extra processing on the higher price |
| Free shipping over a threshold | Varies | Varies | Best of both if the threshold sits above single-item price |
Row two is the trap: offering free shipping without raising the price is a 31% margin cut applied silently. Row three shows the fix costs almost nothing — folding $4.95 into the sticker price costs you $0.14 in additional processing and preserves $4.81 of the $4.95. If you offer free shipping, raise the price first.
The threshold version is usually the strongest: set free shipping at a number above your single-item price and below your two-item price — with a $32 tee and a $58 hoodie, something like $60 — so the offer pulls carts upward instead of subsidising the smallest orders.
Online apparel carries high return rates as a category, driven overwhelmingly by fit. Print-on-demand brands with a genuine size guide and honest measurements typically run well below the category average, but "below average" is not zero, and a returned printed garment usually cannot be resold. Model it as a tax on net rather than as a rare event.
Illustratively, one returned tee costs the product cost of $14.95 plus outbound shipping of $4.95, and processing fees are frequently not fully refunded, so call it $21.13 of out-of-pocket loss per return.
| Return rate | Per 100 orders | Effective net per unit | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| 0% | 100 × $15.82 | $15.82 | — |
| 3% | 97 × $15.82 − 3 × $21.13 | $14.71 | −7.0% |
| 5% | 95 × $15.82 − 5 × $21.13 | $13.97 | −11.7% |
| 10% | 90 × $15.82 − 10 × $21.13 | $12.13 | −23.3% |
| 20% | 80 × $15.82 − 20 × $21.13 | $8.43 | −46.7% |
At a 20% return rate the tee has lost nearly half its margin, and that rate is not far-fetched for apparel sold without measurements. The countermeasures are cheap and boring, which is why they get skipped:
The pull toward bulk ordering is real: screen printing at volume is much cheaper per unit than DTG, and the per-unit margin looks dramatically better. The arithmetic is only better if the stock sells.
Illustratively, 200 tees ordered bulk: blanks at $5.50, screen printing at $3.20 per unit, plus $150 in screen setup and $120 inbound freight. That is $1,890 in units plus $270 in fixed charges, or $2,010 upfront, $10.05 landed per unit. You now pack and ship yourself, call it $1.00 per order in materials and time, and processing stays at $1.23.
bulk net per unit = $32.00 − $1.23 processing − $1.00 your fulfilment = $29.77 gross, against $2,010 already spent POD net per unit = $15.82, against $0 already spent break-even sell-through: $2,010 ÷ ($29.77 − $15.82) = 144 units of 200 = 72%| Units sold of 200 | Sell-through | Bulk profit | POD profit | Better choice |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 100 | 50% | $967 | $1,582 | POD by $615 |
| 120 | 60% | $1,562 | $1,898 | POD by $336 |
| 144 | 72% | $2,277 | $2,278 | Dead even |
| 170 | 85% | $3,051 | $2,689 | Bulk by $361 |
| 200 | 100% | $3,944 | $3,164 | Bulk by $780 |
Now read the top and bottom rows together. You are risking $2,010 to win at most $780, and only if literally every unit sells — including every unit of a size curve you guessed in advance. That is a bad bet for a brand with no sales history, and a reasonable one for a design that has already demonstrated repeat demand. The threshold is not a feeling, it is 72% sell-through.
A pre-order is the middle option and, for a first drop, usually the correct one: take payment first, produce after. Capital risk goes to zero, the size curve is discovered instead of guessed, and demand is measured in orders rather than in likes.
| Model | Cash at risk | Size curve | Margin | Customer cost |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Pre-order with a minimum threshold | $0 | Discovered from real orders | Between POD and bulk | A 2–4 week wait, clearly stated |
| Print on demand | $0 | Irrelevant, printed per order | Lowest per unit | Roughly a week |
| Bulk inventory | Full order upfront | Guessed in advance | Highest per unit, if it sells | Ships immediately |
The honest cost of a pre-order is conversion: some people will not wait three weeks, and a delivery date you miss is worse than a slow one you stated. Publish the ship date, hold the goal-gated version openly ("produced once 40 units are reserved, refunded in full otherwise"), and treat the deadline as a promise rather than an estimate. That transparency is also what makes the offer credible, which is the same principle as in the landing page guide.
At $15.82 a tee and $33.82 a hoodie, here is what different levels of monthly volume are actually worth.
| Units per month | All tees | All hoodies | 50/50 mix | What that is |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 10 | $158 | $338 | $248 | A hobby that funds itself |
| 25 | $396 | $846 | $621 | A phone bill and a habit |
| 50 | $791 | $1,691 | $1,241 | A meaningful side income |
| 100 | $1,582 | $3,382 | $2,482 | A part-time job with real operational load |
| 250 | $3,955 | $8,455 | $6,205 | A business, before any of your own time is paid |
| 500 | $7,910 | $16,910 | $12,410 | A business that needs help |
The 50/50 mix column is worth dwelling on: 100 mixed orders a month is worth more than 150 tee-only orders. Product mix is a bigger lever than volume at small scale, and it costs nothing to pull — it is a decision about what you put in front of people first.
Every number above assumes people want the thing. That is the assumption worth testing first, and it can be tested for zero dollars. A ladder, cheapest first:
The one cost worth paying before revenue exists is a sample of each garment. Buy one, wear it, wash it, photograph it on a real person. Selling a blank you have never touched is how a brand ends up with a 20% return rate and a review problem, and it is the cheapest insurance on this page.
That ladder is the model behind KXNG SEF, which is currently at the waitlist stage rather than the shipping stage — no inventory, no minimums, and a size curve being collected before anything is produced. The digital side of the same question, where marginal cost is zero and the arithmetic changes completely, is in the digital product pricing guide, and the products themselves are in the store.
FAQ
Illustratively, a $32 tee with a $9.75 blank, $4.60 of printing, $0.60 of pick and pack, and $1.23 of payment processing nets $15.82, or 49.4% of retail. Separating blank cost from print cost from platform cut matters because each responds to a different decision: garment choice, design choice, and channel choice.
Substantially. Illustratively a $58 hoodie nets $33.82 against $15.82 for a $32 tee, which is 2.14 times the dollars from the same design, mockup, listing, and customer. Percentage margin is also higher, but the dollars-per-order ratio is the number that matters at small scale.
If you absorb it without changing the price, a great deal: an illustrative $4.95 shipping cost drops a tee's net from $15.82 to $10.87, a 31% cut. Folding the same $4.95 into a $36.95 sticker price preserves almost all of it, netting $15.68, because the only additional cost is processing on the higher amount.
More than most people model. If a returned tee costs the $14.95 product cost plus $4.95 outbound shipping and the processing fee is not fully refunded, each return is roughly $21.13 out of pocket. At a 5% return rate that takes effective net from $15.82 to $13.97, and at 20% it falls to $8.43, nearly half the margin.
Publish flat-lay measurements per size in both inches and centimetres rather than a generic S/M/L chart, state the fit in the product copy instead of in a linked PDF, show the garment on more than one body with heights and sizes worn, offer exchanges before refunds, and track return rate by size and SKU. If one size returns at four times the rate of the others, the chart is wrong.
At an illustrative $2,010 for 200 tees, or $10.05 landed per unit, bulk beats print-on-demand at about 144 units sold, which is 72% sell-through. Below that print-on-demand wins, and at 100% sell-through bulk only earns about $780 more — so it is risking $2,010 to win $780, plus the risk of a guessed size curve.
For a first drop, usually yes. A pre-order puts zero capital at risk, discovers the size curve from real orders instead of guessing it, and measures demand in payments rather than in likes. The cost is conversion, since some buyers will not wait, so publish the ship date, honour it, and state the refund terms plainly if a minimum is not reached.
In order of cost: post the design and measure saves and shares rather than likes, run a waitlist that asks for size so the size curve comes from real people, put three mockups up and let people choose, then take goal-gated pre-orders where money actually changes hands. The one thing worth paying for before revenue is a sample of each garment.