Private Label T-Shirt Manufacturer

The minimum order for private label t-shirts is 150 pieces of each style in each colour, cut and sewn to your own pattern. Both parts count when you budget. A tee and a tank in the same black are two styles, so two minimums, and one tee in four colours is 600 pieces and four lab dips, because each colour is its own dye lot at the mill. A crew neck and an oversized version of the same tee are two styles, since each has its own pattern and grading. A first run usually does better with more styles and fewer shades. Sizes are the flexible part: how the 150 divides between S, M, L and beyond is up to you. The floor sits at 150 because pattern work, the mill's fabric minimum and resetting a sewing line are fixed costs that need enough tees to share them. Our MOQ calculator totals the pieces for any number of styles and colours per style.

A private label t-shirt's price is set mainly by fabric weight, cotton grade, decoration and quantity, and we quote it per style and colourway rather than publish one figure. Fabric weight leads: jersey is bought by the kilo, so a 220 GSM boxy tee uses more cloth than a 140 GSM summer style cut to the same pattern, and it weighs more in the carton, which nudges the freight in a DDP price. Cotton grade comes next, because combed, organic and Supima yarns cost different amounts per kilo. Decoration follows: screen printing is charged per ink colour, and embroidery by stitch count. Then quantity. Pattern making, grading and the pre-production sample are one-off costs spread across the order, so 150 tees cost more each than 1,000, and unit price falls at roughly 500, 1,000 and 5,000 tees. The quote is delivered duty paid: one landed cost. Once you have our quote, our pricing calculator turns that cost into a retail price and margin.

Yes: every label, tag and bag carries your brand, and none of our branding appears on the tee. The options are neck labels, woven or printed; care and size labels; hem tags and hangtags; and branded polybags or retail-ready packaging. For a tag-free neck, the label can be heat-printed onto the fabric. On a tee the neck label sits against the skin all day, so it matters more than on most garments. If budget is tight, a woven neck label is the single highest-impact upgrade, because a scratchy printed one undercuts an otherwise good tee. Labels are applied and polybagging is done on our own floor in Narayanganj. If your tee is organic, we confirm which GOTS label wording applies to your fabric before anything is printed. Labels are bought-in trims with their own supplier minimums, so the first order may pay for spares, which carry into your reorder. Care and origin wording differs by market, and our labels and packaging guide covers it.

They differ in who designed the tee. A private label t-shirt is made from a pattern you designed. A white label tee is the supplier's existing design with your branding added. A blank is a stock tee from a blanks brand that you print onto. On private label you set the fabric weight, fit, shoulder line, neck rib, trims and labels, and your pattern is not sold to anyone else. White label leaves you colour and branding only: the cotton grade is already chosen, often toward the cheaper end, and the same base garment is sold to other buyers, so a competitor can order the identical item. With blanks you control artwork placement only. OEM usually means the factory manufactures wholly to your design and engineering; we do private label and OEM. Suppliers use these words loosely, so ask which one a quote covers before comparing prices. Our guide to private label vs white label vs OEM has the full definitions.

Yes. Your private label tee is made from your own pattern, and that pattern is not sold to anyone else, unlike white label and blanks, where the same base garment is sold to other buyers. On a tee, exclusivity covers your graded pattern, and the pattern, fabric spec and sealed sample stay on file for your reorders. We sign NDAs as a matter of course, and you know exactly which floor sews your tees, because pattern making, cutting, sewing and label attachment happen on our own floor in Narayanganj. What no one can own is a basic garment shape: another brand can always make its own crew-neck tee. What you can protect is what makes yours distinct, meaning your brand name and logo through trademark and your original prints through copyright. Our guide Will my manufacturer steal my design? covers the protections worth putting in place before you share files.

Private label is worth it for a new t-shirt brand when the tee is what you sell: its weight, its fit and how the neck sits after washing. A blank cannot change any of those, because the blanks brand fixed them before your artwork existed. If your brand's argument is a 220 GSM boxy tee with your own shoulder line, or a 140–160 GSM drape for summer, only your own pattern and fabric spec deliver it. The neck is the same: we put elastane in the rib as standard so it recovers rather than gapes. That control is paid for up front: a first run of 150 per style and colour carries pattern making, grading and the pre-production sample, plus label minimums that can exceed what 150 tees use, so each piece costs more than on a reorder. If any decent tee will carry your graphics, a blank is enough. Our guide to print-on-demand versus manufacturing covers the trade-off.

180 GSM, about 5.3 oz per square yard, is the everyday mid-weight most brands settle on and the safest first choice for a private label tee. At 140–160 GSM, roughly 4.1 to 4.7 oz, the jersey is light and soft, suiting summer styles and draped fits, but it shows body shape and is less forgiving on fit. At 200–220 GSM, about 5.9 to 6.5 oz, you get the heavier, structured feel that reads premium and holds its shape. Match the weight to the silhouette as well: a boxy or oversized cut usually wants the structure of 200–220 GSM, while a draped fit sits better in the lighter range. Heavier is not automatically better. Heavier cloth costs more and ships heavier, and it is less wearable in hot climates. We recommend a weight by market, price point and silhouette, and fix it with the mill before anything is cut. Our GSM to oz converter converts any other weight.

A side-seamed tee is cut as separate front and back panels and joined; a tubular tee is knitted as one continuous tube with no side seams. Tubular is cheaper, and most budget blanks use it, but the fabric torques, so after washing the side line spirals and the hem twists. Side-seamed panels hang straight and let us shape the fit, at the cost of more fabric and labour. Side seams are one of three details we spec as standard on our private label tees, not as an upsell. The second is shoulder taping, a strip of fabric reinforcing the shoulder seam so it does not stretch out over time. The third is an elastane neck rib: a 100% cotton rib stretches permanently once pulled over the head, and a gaping neckline ages a tee faster than anything else. The cotton is also compacted before cutting, so the body does not lose a size in the first hot wash.

Yes, and bulk does not start until you have approved one. The first sample is one physical tee, cut and sewn to your spec on the production line, so it shows how your bulk will actually be made. Then comes the step that matters most for a tee, the wash test: knitted cotton moves after the first wash, so a tee that fits out of the bag can fit differently a week later. After washing, look at whether the side seams still hang straight, whether the neck rib has recovered and whether the length has held. Once you approve it, the garment is kept as the sealed sample, the reference every production piece is checked against, and it stays on file for reorders. Sample cost depends on the style and fabric, so we quote it for your order. Our guide to how pre-production samples de-risk a bulk order explains what to check.

Yes to both, but they mean different things. We are GOTS certified, certificate RSC 9687, and the scope certificate is available on request. GOTS covers the chain of custody from certified organic fibre to the sewn tee, and we confirm which GOTS label grade fits your fabric before any label is printed. For a tee, organic is a choice of yarn grade that is locked in with the mill before the jersey is knitted, so it is decided when we quote rather than added later. Spinning, knitting and dyeing are done by partners we coordinate; cutting, sewing and label attachment are ours. Supima is a trademarked American extra-long-staple cotton prized for softness, strength and resistance to pilling. It is a quality designation, not a sustainability certification, so a tee can be Supima without being organic, and the reverse. Combed, organic and Supima yarns are each priced differently per kilo, which is why the grade you choose shows up in your quote.

For most private label tees, screen printing suits bold graphics in a few colours, embroidery a small chest logo, and DTG detailed, many-colour artwork on smaller runs. Screen print cost rises with each ink colour, since each one needs its own screen and its own run through the press, so cutting a design from six colours to two lowers the price per tee sharply at volume. On a dark tee, light inks also need a white base layer printed first. Embroidery is priced by stitch count, with the digitising done once; it lasts the life of the tee but can't handle gradients or fine detail. DTG reproduces photographic artwork at some cost to durability. It needs high cotton content and, on dark garments, a white pretreatment, and its per-unit price barely falls as the order grows. Sublimation needs polyester content, so it does not work on a cotton tee. Our screen print vs embroidery vs DTG guide compares them.

About 10 days for sampling, then 40 to 50 days of production once you approve the sample, plus shipping on top: air about 5 to 8 days depending on market, sea longer. Add a few days at the start for speccing and quoting. Sampling is where most of the useful back-and-forth happens, so don't rush it — wear the sample, wash it, check the fit after washing rather than only out of the bag. Expect at least one revision round; that is normal rather than a sign anything went wrong. The approved garment becomes the sealed sample that finished tees are checked against, and that check is run by Walter Meyer's QC team; Walter, our QC lead, has 38 years in quality control. If you are working to a launch date, plan backwards and include every stage plus a buffer, because brands that miss dates have usually started the clock at bulk production. From order to your door, plan on about 70 days by air.

No: an existing tee whose fit you like is the most useful brief you can send, because we measure it and work from it rather than interpret a mood board. A sketch or a clear written description also works, both to start and to get an indicative price. A tech pack lists the points of measure for every size, the fabric and GSM, trims, stitch types and label placement. We build it with you while quoting, before you spend anything on sampling. Expect questions about fabric weight, fibre and finish as well as style and quantity, since those are placed with the mill and decide how the tee feels. Once your sample is approved, we can write its measurements and spec up into a tech pack you keep, for reorders or for any other supplier. Founders who prefer to arrive prepared can use our free tech pack template and tech pack checklist, which cover every field.

Yes: the 150-piece minimum is per style and per colour, and inside it the size split is entirely yours. Our MOQ calculator suggests a starting curve for any quantity, with most pieces in M and L and fewer at XS and XXL, which you then adjust to your own customers. Weight it toward the sizes you expect to sell. A streetwear label usually skews larger and toward oversized fits; a women's fitted line skews smaller. If you have sales data from a previous run, use it instead of a generic curve. Remember that a tank and a tee are separate styles, so each gets its own 150 and its own size split. We make the pattern, fit and grading to your measurements, so every size in the run comes from the same base pattern. If you are building a size chart from scratch, ISO 8559 is the international standard for size designation and body measurements.

Yes, and a reorder usually costs less per piece than the first run. Pattern making, grading and the pre-production sample were paid once with your first order, so a reorder does not pay for them again, and spare labels from the first run carry across. The reorder itself works from what is already on file: the same graded pattern, the same fabric spec and the sealed sample from your first run, which the finished tees are checked against again. The minimum stays 150 per style and per colour, and the same factory scales to full bulk, so a bestseller growing to thousands of pieces does not mean changing supplier. Colour needs one caveat: a reorder is a new dye lot, dyed against the colour standard you approved, so a slight shade difference from the first run is normal. If an exact match across runs matters, the reliable answer is to buy fabric for both runs as a single lot at the start.

Put every quote on the same basis first, then compare the tee itself. Ask each supplier for its minimum per style and per colour, the incoterm it is quoting, since an FOB price leaves freight and duty to you while a DDP price includes them, and whether the price covers fabric, making and trims. Then check that the quote names the fabric: weight in GSM, combed, organic or Supima yarn, and whether the jersey is compacted before cutting. Ask the three construction questions most suppliers will not raise: side-seamed or tubular, taped shoulders, and elastane in the neck rib. Ask for a paid sample cut and sewn on the production line, and wash it before you judge the fit. Finally, ask where the sewing happens and who keeps your pattern for reorders. Our DDP quotes answer each of these in writing. Our guide to reading a garment quote covers EXW, FOB and DDP.

Yes: both are set for each style when we quote. Weight is specified to the mill in GSM anywhere from 140 to 240, so a 165 GSM tee is as possible as a 180, and the yarn is chosen alongside it: combed, organic or Supima. Colour is matched to a physical lab dip that you approve in daylight, not to a Pantone code alone, because a printed swatch and dyed jersey read differently. Each colour is its own dye lot and its own 150-piece minimum, so a palette of four shades means four lab dips and 600 tees. The dye method is a choice as well: reactive dye by default, which bonds with the fibre, or garment dye on the sewn tee for a lived-in, tonal look. Write the weight, yarn and colour standard into your spec from the start; our free T-shirt tech pack template shows where each one goes.

The same information a sewn label would, and it has to last as long as the tee. In the US, the FTC allows care instructions to be printed straight onto a garment if they meet the Care Labeling Rule's tests: permanent, and legible for the product's useful life. The country of origin still belongs at the inside centre of the neck, and the FTC notes that Customs may require it on a sewn-in label, so check a printed origin with your customs broker before you commit. In the EU and UK, fibre composition must be marked in a way that is durable, easily legible, visible and accessible. Typically a tagless print carries your logo, the size and Made in Bangladesh, with fibre and care on a small side-seam label. Ask for the neck print on your sample and wash it several times before approving: a cracked print fails the customer and the rule. Our labelling guide covers each market.

In the US it can; the FTC's own example is T-shirts. For packaged products, the fibre content, country of origin and business identity must be on each item and on the package, unless the package is transparent and a shopper can read the labels without opening it. Items packed only for mail-order shipment are exempt from that rule. The Care Labeling Rule adds that if packaging hides the care label, the care information goes on the outside of the package or on a hang tag. So a clear polybag needs nothing extra if every label reads through it; if the fold hides the side-seam care label, the care wording goes on the bag sticker or hang tag. An opaque printed bag, a gift box or a shop-shelf three-pack needs a panel or sticker repeating the labels. Tell us how the tees will be sold when we quote, and we add it to the packing spec. Our packaging guide covers branding.