Minimum Order Quantities

The minimums

Method	Minimum
Screen printing	24
Embroidery	6
DTF transfer	6

Bigger order, or not sure what you need?
Call (833) 722-3808 or email orders@merchylo.com.

No maximum. The ladders keep dropping past 1,000.

Why screen printing needs 24

Every color in a screen printed design is a physical screen: coated, exposed, washed out, taped, registered on the press, then reclaimed afterward. That work is identical whether the run is 12 shirts or 1,200, and it happens before a single shirt is printed.

At 24 pieces that setup is spread thin enough that the price per shirt is still worth paying. Below it, the setup is most of what you’re buying — which is why shops that “have no minimum” are charging you a setup fee under another name.

Why embroidery and DTF only need 6

Neither one burns a screen. Embroidery digitizes the logo once into a stitch file, and the machine reads that file for six pieces or six hundred. DTF prints your artwork onto film, and one film is one film.

Six rather than one because shipping is free and a single garment loses money once the box is paid for. Six is the point where the order carries its own freight.

The count is per run, not per garment

This is the part most shops handle differently, so it is worth being exact. Merchylo counts the minimum against the print run — every piece sharing the same artwork and the same method — not against each style you order.

Twelve t-shirts and twelve hoodies with the same front print is one 24-piece screen print run, not two orders of twelve that both fall short. The screens burn once and the press runs once, so you are charged as though it were 24, because it is.

The garment cost still prices per style — a hoodie blank and a tee blank come out of different bins and never help each other. Only the decoration pools.

Under 24 pieces

Screen printing is off the table, so the question becomes which of the other two fits the art. On a Gildan 5000 at 6–11 pieces:

Method	Price per shirt
Embroidery, left chest	12.90
DTF, standard front	16.46

Bigger order, or not sure what you need?
Call (833) 722-3808 or email orders@merchylo.com.

Those two are not really competing. Embroidery is for a small logo on something that gets worn for years; DTF is for a full graphic in any number of colors. Pick by what the artwork is, not by the price.

Screen print or DTF above 24?

Color count decides it, not quantity. DTF costs the same whether your design has one color or fifty; screen printing charges for each one. Per shirt, Gildan 5000, standard front:

Quantity	SP 1 color	SP 4 color	DTF
24 – 35	8.22	15.24	14.74
50 – 74	6.03	10.37	13.51
100 – 143	5.69	8.86	12.74
200 – 287	4.89	6.28	11.51

Bigger order, or not sure what you need?
Call (833) 722-3808 or email orders@merchylo.com.

DTF takes over at 4 colors around 24 pieces, 7 colors around 50, 8 around 100 and 11 around 200. The crossover climbs because screens amortise across a run and film never does.

Screen printing vs DTF, in full →

What if I need fewer than six?

Ask. We will quote it and often take it — a single sample, a replacement for a shirt that got ruined, one jacket for a new hire. It will not be cheap per piece and we will tell you the number before you commit rather than after.

If it is a sample you want ahead of a bigger run, say that. A pre-production sample on a job you are actually going to place is a different conversation than a one-off.

Sizes and colors inside a run

Mix them freely. A 24-piece run can be 24 different sizes, and any mix of garment colors prints at the same price — a dark shirt needs a white underbase and that extra screen is on us.

Ink color is fixed across the run. Changing the ink between shirts means a second setup, so it counts as a second run.