When you run a business, plan an event, or help a client with promotional merchandise (shirts, caps, mugs, banners, etc.), one of the recurring crossroads is: Do I order in bulk or in small batches? Each path has trade-offs: cost, flexibility, risk, quality control.
This guide walks you through:
Why people lean bulk or small
The cost math (with pricing tiers)
Planning strategies & sample runs
How to avoid common mistakes
When hybrid or “middle ground” strategies make sense
In the end, I don’t hand you one “best answer”—but you’ll be clearer about which choice fits your project constraints.
At its heart, the choice between bulk and small orders reduces to:
Bulk orders: Lower cost per unit, but more upfront capital, higher risk, less flexibility.
Small orders: More flexible, lower investment, easier to iterate—but higher cost per piece.
This is well captured by many merch / promotional print blogs: when you order more, you spread setup and overhead across more units, dropping per-piece cost.
Let’s unpack the factors influencing this trade-off.
To see where savings come (or vanish), you’ve got to understand how cost components behave with order size.
Some costs don’t change (or very little) no matter if you print 10 items or 1,000:
Artwork cleanup, proofing, revisions
Film / screens / stencils for printing
Digitizing (for embroidery)
Machine calibration, test runs, alignment
Setup labor & machine warm-up
These fixed costs are “amortized” over the number of units. The more units, the smaller “fixed cost share” per unit.
These increase roughly linearly with each additional piece:
Blank item cost (shirt, cap, mug)
Ink, thread, transfer materials
Direct labor (printing, stitching, finishing)
Packaging, tagging
You also need to bake in general overhead (rent, utilities, staff, admin) and your profit margin. Many decorators add a fixed % overhead or “markup.” For example, STAHLS suggests adding ~15% overhead after direct costs before applying your margin.
Because of how fixed costs spread, with small batches the fixed cost share is high. As quantity climbs, the fixed cost share per unit shrinks, making each extra unit cheaper in net.
As an example in the T-shirt world:
For single or very small orders, cost per shirt might be $20–$30 (or in local currency, a steep premium) depending on method, size, design complexity.
But for bulk (100+), cost per shirt might drop to $5–10 (or local equivalent) because setup is spread.
Thus, ordering 100 shirts might reduce your per-piece cost by 60–75% compared to doing them one by one.
But: that discount only kicks in if your design is fixed, your quantities stable, and you have demand to justify it. If some of your bulk shirts stay unsold, the savings are eaten by waste.
Bulk is tempting, but small orders (or batches) are often wiser when:
You’re testing designs / markets
You can’t accurately forecast demand
You have limited capital or storage
You need customization (e.g. name per item)
You need fast turnaround, and bulk would slow things down
To make small/batch orders more efficient without losing too much to cost inflation, here are strategies:
Use fewer colors (especially in screen printing)—every extra color adds setup and cost.
Stick to one print location (front or back, not both) unless absolutely needed.
Standardize sizes & colors: use your common blanks so you don’t need special orders.
Before scaling, order small samples to test:
Color fidelity
Print / embroidery quality
Customer acceptance
A pilot batch of 10–20 helps spot issues before you commit. If there’s a flaw in digitizing, registration, or alignment, you catch it early.
Some printers offer lower setup fees for small orders or “intro pricing.” Always ask. In many places, setup is negotiable—especially if they want your repeat business.
Small orders often tempt you to ask for rush service. Rush fees can erode savings. Sometimes it’s cheaper to wait a day and batch with another order.
If you expect demand to grow, you can place multiple small orders over time, instead of one huge one. That gives you flexibility to tweak, but still capture some scale.
For businesses, events, fundraisers, you can build a strategy around tiers and planning that balances risk, flexibility, and cost.
You might define tiers like:
Tier 1 – Core stock: Your “always sell” designs, in modest bulk (e.g. 200–500 units).
Tier 2 – Limited drops / variants: Smaller batches (50–150 units) for new designs or seasonal variants.
Tier 3 – Custom / personalization: Very small orders (1–50 units) for individual customers or custom names/numbers.
This way, the majority of your volume is efficient, but you retain agility at the margins.
When doing a bulk run, add 5–10% extra to handle misprints, defects, or size distribution mismatches. Having reserves saves embarrassment (no stock of a size).
Start well before your event. If you wait too close, you may be forced into rush production (with surcharges) or quality compromises.
Example schedule (for custom T-shirts for an event 2 months ahead):
6 weeks out: finalize design, source blanks, test samples
4 weeks out: bulk order placed
2 weeks out: delivery and quality check
1 week out: buffer time, fix defects, repack
Planning ensures you’re not squeezed by logistics or trade partners.
Publish or maintain clear price breaks (e.g. 25, 50, 100, 250, 500 units) so clients see the incentives. Transparent tiering builds trust.
Bulk orders tie up capital. Be sure your financials allow it. Negotiate payment terms (deposits, partial pay) with printers, so the risk is shared.
A common danger when chasing low per-unit cost is a drop in quality. To avoid this:
Do in-line quality checks (e.g. inspect every 10–20 pieces during production)
Use check samples (first & last piece)
Have standards documented (color match tolerance, alignment tolerances, thread consistency)
Inspect blank items before decoration (sometimes blanks have defects)
Test wash / durability on small subset
If your customers get subpar pieces, it kills reputation faster than slight cost differences.
Let me walk through hypothetical real-world cases you might encounter (or pitch to clients).
Bulk order is logical—the size is big, design likely uniform.
Use screen printing or a hybrid method for cost efficiency.
Add 5–10% extra for sizing or defects.
Plan at least 4–6 weeks ahead.
Negotiate tiered pricing and payment chunks.
200 is moderate — you can capture bulk discounts yet maintain flexibility.
Bundle items: e.g. “hoodie + mug combo” to increase order value.
Use simpler designs or fewer colors to control cost.
Use small batch runs for mugs (since mug printing / firing may have different setup) and sync deliveries.
This is a “small order” situation.
Use DTG, direct print, or heat transfers for flexibility.
Small pilot run helps identify design issues.
Accept higher per-unit cost for the privilege of uniqueness.
You might structure your offerings so that:
Core merchandise is ordered in bulk
Personalized or custom add-ons are produced in small batches
As client demand grows, you convert small orders into bulk orders
This incremental approach hedges risk, scales with demand, and keeps client options open.
Here are mistakes that often bite people doing merch runs, and how to protect yourself:
|
Pitfall |
Why It Hurts |
Mitigation |
|
Overestimating demand |
You end up with unsold stock |
Don’t bulk too early—use pilot runs and conservative forecasts |
|
Underquoting setup costs |
Your margin shrinks or you lose money |
Always list setup + overhead explicitly |
|
Design changes mid-run |
You pay rework / delays |
Lock design early; freeze changes after proof approval |
|
Poor quality control |
Defective batches damage brand |
Inspect during production; reject bad pieces immediately |
|
Cash flow overcommitment |
You run out of working capital |
Use deposits, phased payments, cautious bulk sizes |
|
Storage & logistics issues |
Damage, theft, misplacement risk |
Ensure you have space + system to store safely |
|
Rush fees eating savings |
Last-minute orders cost extra |
Plan ahead; define cutoff for urgent orders |
When you publish this as a blog, or use parts of it in your content, sprinkle in keywords your prospects search. Here are some you might include:
“cost per shirt bulk vs small order”
“pricing tiers custom apparel”
“rush fees and custom printing trade-offs”
“sample runs for custom merchandise”
“bulk discounts custom t-shirts”
“smart ordering strategy for event merchandise”
Also, include real numbers (even estimates) to make it tangible.
