If you're serious about designing a custom t-shirt for your business, the most commonly asked question that comes up is: “How much does a t-shirt design cost?” There is no ‘single-word’ answer to the question. The budget for a t-shirt design depends on some significant factors. Now, you’ll know all the factors from the sunrise.
First things come first. The answer to the title's question helps you set the budget on how many or fewer t-shirts you need to design for the sounder health of your t-shirt business.
As an honest t-shirt business, you always maintain a plan for everything in your business and then go to execution, right? Indeed, it’s the right way to drive your investment for your t-shirt business to move faster.
How much investment do you need to make a t-shirt design? This gets you in trouble! That’s why you’re here and reading this blog, right?
Well, it’s alright, and you’re in the right place at this moment! Considering the worries about t-shirt design costs, our design experts come out with this article to help you with every single angle of the cost of a t-shirt design to save you time and extra cash.
Indeed, a top-class t-shirt design service is a core necessity for your t-shirt business. That’s why the cost of t-shirt design matters! Once you know the process, it helps you to plan for your t-shirt design needs again and again. So, let's explore now!
The cost of t-shirt design depends on several factors.
These factors are like the complexity of the design, from which platforms you hire, what type of designers you hire (entry, advanced, or expert), and so on. Also, it depends on what you want and how much you can afford!
It's time to take a look at the all-around breakdown:
Want to complete bulk design orders successfully? Or, if you are looking to get top-notch professionalism, it'll be best to build a good relationship with a reliable t-shirt design agency!
Generally, t-shirt design agencies appoint expert designers to stand out by providing outstanding customer service. The design agencies employ experienced designers who specialize in diverse fields of design so they can ensure high-quality designs that meet customers' high-end demands!
Now, it’s going on in your mind: How much do design agencies charge? It varies depending on the design complexity, the number of designs you require, and the reputation of the design agencies. We have researched the pricing of famous t-shirt design agencies and witnessed the costs vary significantly from one to another.
On average, the t-shirt design pricing starts from $15 to $50 or more for custom t-shirt designs. Also, it's seen that some smaller agencies cost from $200 to $500 per design, while the mid-tier agencies cost from $500 to $2,000 per design!
If you want to go with world-famous t-shirt design agencies, they might charge you from $2,000 to $10,000+ per design, particularly if you're pursuing highly conceptual, exceptional, and top-notch branded work!
Hiring a t-shirt design agency can be a good choice when you're looking to get high-quality work and top-notch professionalism. However, its cost and flexibility may be a concern when you work on a smaller project. Moreover, you'll get many benefits if you build a good relationship with a responsible t-shirt design agency. At the same time, it has some drawbacks, too! Better, let’s have a look at the pros and cons of hiring t-shirt agencies:
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
| ✅ End-to-end solutions | ❌ Urgent delivery charges more |
| ✅ Consistency with quality | ❌ Extra revision can be expensive |
| ✅ Professionalism meets expertise | |
| ✅ Dependability and Accountability | |
| ✅ Capacity to manage complex projects | |
| ✅ Higher project management and deadlines |
‘One-to-one communication works great for getting a service remotely.
Yes—we're talking about freelance t-shirt designers! If you're looking to receive high-quality customized t-shirt designs at an affordable budget, freelance t-shirt designers are an excellent choice. Of course, freelance t-shirt designers can offer you highly creative and intent-focused t-shirt designs!
If you can deliver clearly what you want to freelance t-shirt designers, they can bring your expectations to life and make you satisfied with the vibe of aesthetic t-shirt design taste. Also, hiring a freelance designer means you have more personalized communication with the freelancer to share more about the design so the final output aligns with your expectations!
Therefore, freelance designers are open to offering you more revisions (some offer ‘unlimited revisions’) and flexibility to meet your needs. Also, they tend to build a good relationship with their clients. So they do have regular orders.
There are different categories of freelance designers depending on their skill sets. So, the charges vary. Suppose beginner designers charge $20–$50 per design, whereas intermediate designers charge $50–$150. The best has no end. The expert designers charge $150–$500 or more per design.
Where to hire freelance designers? You can find online marketplaces like Fiverr, Toptal, Upwork, Designhill, Behance, and 99designs. These are all well-known and reputable online marketplaces for freelance designers.
Hiring freelance designers has lots of advantages. But, there are some drawbacks, too. Before hiring them, you must consider these potential cons. Now, let's take a look at the pros and cons of freelance designers:
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
| ✅ Flexibility | ❌ Lack of backup |
| ✅ Affordability | ❌ Unreliable quality |
| ✅ Quick turnaround | ❌ Limited availability |
| ✅ Direct communication | ❌ Less responsibility |
| ✅ Option to choose from the global talent pool | ❌ Communication challenges |
If you think about consistency, long-term savings, and control over quality and quantity, hiring in-house t-shirt designers is an excellent choice! If you work with in-house t-shirt designers, you can obtain quality collaboration and instant communication.
For instance, if you need a fast-turnaround decision on a project, you can instantly consult with your designers about what to do and how to make it fruitful for the project. You don't need to wait for emails or video calls from them! You can catch your designers on-site.
Let's talk about the cost of hiring in-house t-shirt designers. ZipRecruiter says that the annual salary of an in-house t-shirt designer in the United States starts from $41,500 to $77,500, and on average, the salary is $55,951.
The most significant thing is that, with an in-house t-shirt designer, you build a long-term relationship that'll help to grow your business day by day. When your designers sit next to you, it'll be easier to collaborate on the trends of the t-shirt design world, seasonal campaigns, and cope with customer's appeals.
So, you'll need to hire in-house t-shirt designers with a fixed salary (monthly or annually). But you’ll have your designers at your side, and you can lead your team according to your needs. You can drive at a functional pace with your in-house designers or run faster if it requires a fast turnaround!
Hiring in-house t-shirt designers is an excellent decision to grow your business with full control. The in-house designers you hire will work like innovative scissors for you. With your in-house designers, you can face ongoing design orders and complete them successfully as a team! Also, with many gifts, there are some cons of hiring in-house t-shirt designers. Now, have a look at them:
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
| ✅ Creative control | ❌ Biased flexibility |
| ✅ Quick responses | ❌ Lack of diversity |
| ✅ Chance of burnout | ❌ Longer hiring process |
| ✅ Cost efficiency for long term | ❌ Training and onboarding |
| ✅ Quick turnaround and availability |
If you decide to make your design yourself, t-shirt design tools can help you greatly! Several outstanding t-shirt design tools help you create custom t-shirt designs like Pro. It doesn’t matter if you don't have extensive experience in t-shirt design.
Also, these platforms offer drag-and-drop functionality, templates, and exceptional customization options to make your t-shirt design unique and memorable! For basic design purposes, many use Canva, TeeSpring, or Designhill. These platforms don't cost you upfront to make designs, and you can use the designs without the commitment of selling.
When you make a t-shirt design for selling purposes, you must consider Adobe Illustrator (with Adobe Creative Cloud), Canva, Placeit, TeeSpring (Spring), or Printful to design your custom t-shirts. Let’s have a look at the list of how the top-rated t-shirt design platforms cost to design a t-shirt:
| Design Tools | Subscription Fee |
|---|---|
| Adobe Illustrator | $22.99/Monthly |
| Canva | Free or $6.50/Monthly |
| Placeit | $7.47/Monthly |
| TeeSpring (Spring) | Free to use |
| Printful | $24.99/Monthly |
If you learn how to use design tools, it's pretty okay. Indeed, using t-shirt design tools for making t-shirt designs offers more significant benefits than hiring in-house t-shirt designers or t-shirt design agencies. Some tools are budget-friendly, and some are not.
However, employing design software to create a t-shirt design is an ideal choice for small businesses, individuals, or entrepreneurs to make custom t-shirt designs on a tight budget.
At present, design tools have become more popular for their ease of use, affordability, and accessibility. Though these t-shirt design tools have lots of advantages, they have some potential disadvantages, too! Now, let’s have a look at the pros and cons of t-shirt design tools:
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
| ✅ Ease of use | ❌ Quality control cases |
| ✅ Cost-effective | ❌ Limited design features |
| ✅ Offers pre-made templates | ❌ Offline work restrictions |
| ✅ Access to design resources | |
| ✅ No software installation is required |
Some key factors affect the cost of designing t-shirts.
Anyway, there are take-ups in t-shirt design pricing ideals depending on different factors. Moreover, our team of design magicians has come up with the top 5 factors that raise your custom t-shirt design costs. Let's go and learn them right now:
Obviously, the design concept significantly impacts the design cost of a t-shirt. Most importantly, the concept of a t-shirt design has a remarkable impact when producing a design in a print-on-demand business. Indeed, the design concept is based on resources, evaluation of t-shirt materials, risks, and time consumed in making the design.
T-shirt design costs mostly depend on the design concept while making a custom design. The principles of the design concept come out with the proper balance of quality and affordability to keep your target customers happy by maintaining profitability!
However, different design agencies offer various design concepts that vary from package to package. Better, discuss earlier the design concept while talking about your order pricing.
Yeah. The design complexity determines the design cost!
Simple designs are easy to create. On the other hand, complex designs consume time, labor, and particular design elements that can raise the cost of t-shirt designs. Looking at illustration design, I see that it demands a lot of time and in-depth knowledge of certain design principles.
Generally, easy designs require fewer resources and less time! Intricate, well-detailed, and multi-colored designs require advanced print options, much more brain-sweat, and additional setup. That’s why such types of complex designs can increase your t-shirt design cost.
Typography-based designs require very complex custom letterforms or font manipulation! They require top-notch design skills and significant time. You can't ignore the skill, excellence, and time required to produce custom illustration designs. Sometimes, these designs require several modifications until they align with the design principles.
Suppose your designs need precise shapes, unique textures, and branding messages. If you speak about 3D designs, they require three-dimensional objects that require a factual understanding of space, texture, light, and shadow.
Do you think it's easy to design a t-shirt? It's not a childish deal at all. A well-detailed t-shirt design incorporates multiple layers, custom typography, and a profound knowledge of the brand. It consumes top-tier design skills, much time, and hard labor! However, let’s have a look at why the design complexity raises t-shirt design costs:
Quality cuts cost.
The quality of t-shirt design plays a significant role in influencing the design costs. Now, let’s discuss how design quantity impacts the cost of creating a t-shirt design.
Look, one thing—when you order a large quantity with a particular design, the t-shirt design cost can go down. Suppose you order 1000 t-shirts with the same design, it'll definitely cost less than ordering 100. It's about bulk orders.
But, when you think about small orders (for example, under 50 t-shirts), the design cost will be $20 to $50. Many famous t-shirt design companies offer a good discount for bulk orders. But, for small orders, you'll get no discount offers.
Revision makes anything better and more accurate to the context.
Yes. After getting the final design in your hand, it may seem the design doesn't match your expectations. Then what do you think of this order?
Revision.
Sometimes, you may need modifications if it seems the design requires some changes. Modifications mean changing some places that don't go with the intent of the design.
Whether it's revision or modification, you need to contact your service provider to make it more accurate and produce the best thing for the context you desire.
At this point, the concern of the revision cost comes!
If you hire an individual graphic designer, of course, you'll need to discuss how many times the designer offers 2/3 revision for a single design if required. But sometimes, you may need more revisions to get the best output. And it will raise the cost of the design.
In this case, if you hire a design agency, you'll get unlimited revision time because they have a team of top design wizards. They want you as a repeat customer by providing top-quality service to spread their renown and lure others.
But it varies for bulk or small orders. Generally, you'll get more benefits for bulk orders. Look, all revision is not the same. Some revisions take less effort. But, some others may require changing colors or placement of the design or something else. If the revision is heavy, you'll need to pay more. Some more complex revisions consume time and heavy effort that raise your design cost!
It will be good to talk beforehand about their revision policy before you go with an individual or a design agency. If you do so, the experience for both of you will be better!
You know design is creative work.
But sometimes, you need to hurry to get your project done. That time, you want urgent delivery from your service provider. Yes, your urgency doesn't know to save extra coins!
The urgent delivery charge can vary. Sometimes, it can be a percentage of the total design cost or a flat rate after negotiation. The cost of the urgent delivery depends on how tight the deadline is. When you ask for an urgent delivery, no way, you'll need to break the bank, from design to shipping!
One more concern you want to keep away. What's that?
Quality. Quality of the design as the delivery is urgent basis.
You pay more for urgent delivery! So, you highly appreciate the quality with quantity as required, right? Here is a good thing: you can discuss upfront with your design partner about the urgent delivery charge depending on the tight-fight deadline you share and the urgency you require!
Finally, we are at the end.
Making a t-shirt design is the most creative work and requires a sound cost to maintain some significant design processes. However, now you know all the things that impact t-shirt design cost, right? Probably, your answer is yes.
So, you’ve the answer to the question “How much does a t-shirt design cost?”, right? Hopefully, today, it was a very valuable session for you!
In this blog, you already know that the cost of creating a t-shirt design depends on several significant things. The t-shirt design cost can vary depending on different types of design factors. These can be design complexity, design quantity, urgent delivery, or something else.
Also, we've shared how you can skip extra design expenses by hiring freelance designers or design agencies to enjoy the quality of your t-shirt design. As a t-shirt business, maybe you don't have enough time to create a t-shirt design yourself!
Don't worry!
Contact us to share your design needs! We don't compromise on quality and try to narrow down the pricing to be budget-friendly. Also, you can check out our t-shirt design pricing package to know more. One of the most exciting things you'll find there is that you get unlimited revision from the ‘Basic’ to the ‘Lead’ package!
Winter goes, and Summer comes. Yup, time flies. No more today.
Good luck with your legendary dream! 🙂
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