Screen printing has a 50-piece minimum. Embroidery and DTF (direct-to-film) transfers both run at 12 pieces. Those numbers hold at most decorators, including here at Pacific North Press, because each method carries setup costs that only make sense once they're spread across enough garments. If you're ordering fewer than 12 pieces total, you're likely looking at a different kind of shop entirely (think retail heat-press kiosks or DIY iron-ons), not a production decorator.
Why Minimum Order Quantities Exist in the First Place
A minimum order quantity isn't a sales tactic. It's math. Every decoration method has a fixed setup cost that has to happen before the first good piece comes off the line, and that cost gets divided across however many pieces you order. Order too few, and the setup cost per shirt gets ugly fast.
For screen printing, the setup is physical: a mesh screen gets coated, exposed, and burned with your artwork for every single ink color in the design. A two-color logo needs two screens. A four-color design needs four. Each screen takes real time on the press operator's end, plus the screen itself is a consumable that gets reclaimed and reburned for the next job. Fifty pieces is roughly the point where that per-color setup cost stops dominating the price per shirt.
Embroidery's setup cost is different: it's digitizing. Someone has to convert your logo into a stitch file the embroidery machine can actually read, mapping out stitch direction, density, and underlay for every element. That file only gets built once, but it takes real design time, so a shop needs enough pieces running through the machine to make that time worthwhile. Because there's no per-color screen to burn, embroidery's minimum sits lower than screen printing's.
DTF lands in roughly the same place as embroidery for a related but different reason. There's no screen burning and no per-color charge since the design prints as a single full-color image onto film, then gets heat-pressed onto the garment. The setup is mostly about getting the film run dialed in and the powder adhesive cured correctly, which doesn't scale with color count the way screen printing does.
MOQs at a Glance
Here's how the three methods stack up on minimums and why, side by side:
| Method | Typical minimum | What drives it | Good fit for |
|---|---|---|---|
| Screen printing | 50 pieces | A burned screen per ink color | Large team orders, events, bold spot-color designs |
| Embroidery | 12 pieces | One-time digitizing of the logo into a stitch file | Polos, hats, uniforms, anything that benefits from a raised, textured logo |
| DTF transfer | 12 pieces | Film printing and powder-adhesive setup, no per-color cost | Small runs, full-color or photo-style art, mixed sizes and garment colors |
Minimums vary somewhat by shop, by region, and by how a given decorator has their equipment set up, so treat these as solid industry benchmarks rather than a universal law. When you're comparing quotes, ask directly what the minimum is and why, since a shop that can explain the "why" usually has a handle on their process.
What Happens If You're Under the Minimum?
You've got a few real options if your headcount falls short of a method's minimum, and none of them involve just giving up on custom decoration.
- Switch methods. If you need 20 shirts and screen printing wants 50, embroidery or DTF at a 12-piece minimum solves the problem outright.
- Round up on purpose. Ordering the extra 30 pieces to hit a screen printing minimum often costs less per shirt than paying a small-batch surcharge, and the extras cover replacements, new hires, or next year's order.
- Ask about under-minimum fees. Some shops will run a smaller quantity for a flat setup fee rather than turning the job down. It's worth asking, though expect the per-piece cost to be noticeably higher.
- Combine with a future order. If you know you'll need more shirts in three months, ask whether the shop can bank the setup (especially the digitized embroidery file) and reuse it, which sometimes brings down the cost of round two.
Can You Mix Sizes and Garment Styles to Hit a Minimum?
Generally, yes, and this trips up a lot of first-time buyers. The minimum applies to the total piece count for one design and one set of ink colors or thread colors, not to a single size or a single garment style. A 50-piece screen printing order can be a mix of small, medium, large, and extra-large, and it can usually mix garment styles too (say, 30 t-shirts and 20 hoodies) as long as the print location and artwork stay consistent across both.
Where it gets stricter is color. Screen printing charges per screen, and a screen is burned for a specific ink color. If half your order needs a navy logo on a white shirt and the other half needs a white logo on a navy shirt, that's technically two separate color setups even though it's "one order," so ask your decorator how they handle that scenario before you assume it's a single minimum.
How This Plays Out in Real Orders
Two scenarios make the math concrete.
Say a 22-person office wants polos with an embroidered logo for client meetings. That's already above the 12-piece embroidery minimum, so the shop digitizes the logo once and runs all 22 polos off that single stitch file, mixing sizes freely. If the office later adds five new hires, those five can usually be run off the same digitized file at a small reorder, since the expensive part (the digitizing) is already paid for.
Now say a nonprofit is ordering 35 event shirts with a bold two-color design. That's under screen printing's 50-piece floor, so the shop has a real choice to offer: pay for two screens and round the order up to 50 (the extras work fine as volunteer shirts or next year's stock), or switch to DTF, which handles a 35-piece run at its 12-piece minimum without anyone needing to buy shirts they don't need. Neither answer is wrong. It depends on whether the nonprofit would actually use 15 extra shirts or would rather keep the order lean.
Good decorators walk you through exactly this kind of tradeoff on a quote call rather than just quoting the number you asked for and leaving you to guess why it's higher or lower than expected.
A Quick Planning Checklist
Before you request a quote, run through this list so the numbers you get back are actually usable:
- Lock your artwork and color count first. Color count changes the math for screen printing specifically.
- Count your true headcount, then add 10 to 15 percent for growth, replacements, and the person who always loses their shirt.
- Decide whether a raised embroidered logo or a printed full-color design fits your brand better. That decision often picks your minimum for you.
- Ask whether sizes and garment styles can be mixed within the minimum, and whether multiple ink colors on the same order count as one setup or several.
- Confirm turnaround time at your quantity. A rushed 50-piece job and a relaxed 200-piece job don't move through a shop at the same speed.
Which Method Should You Plan Around?
If your order sits comfortably above 50 pieces and the design uses a handful of solid colors, screen printing usually delivers the lowest price per piece. If you're under 50, or your art is full-color or photo-realistic, DTF gets you there without forcing you to buy more shirts than you need. If the look you're after is a clean, raised, stitched logo on polos, hats, or outerwear, embroidery is worth the slightly higher per-piece cost for the upgrade in how it reads in person.
None of these are rules carved in stone. A lot of orders end up using two methods at once, embroidered logos on polos for the office and screen-printed shirts for the warehouse crew, pulled from the same brand guidelines.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can I order fewer pieces than the stated minimum?
Sometimes, for an added fee, but not always. It depends on the shop and how booked their equipment is that week. Ask directly rather than assuming either way.
Does the minimum change based on how many colors are in my logo?
For screen printing, the piece-count minimum usually stays the same, but the price per piece goes up with each additional color since each one needs its own screen. For embroidery and DTF, color count has little to no effect on the minimum or the price.
Is 50 pieces standard everywhere for screen printing?
It's a common benchmark across the industry, but not universal. Some shops go lower with higher per-piece pricing, some go higher. Fifty is where we land at Pacific North Press, and we'll tell you that up front rather than making you ask twice.
Can I combine two different designs into one order to hit a minimum?
Usually not as a single setup. Each distinct design and color combination typically counts as its own minimum, since each one needs its own screen or digitized file.
Get a Quote Before You Commit to a Quantity
If you're not sure which method fits your headcount, your budget, and your artwork, that's a conversation worth having before you place an order rather than after. We're an in-house screen printing, embroidery, and DTF shop in Portland, Oregon, running a 50-piece minimum on screen printing and a 12-piece minimum on embroidery and DTF, with standard turnaround of 7 to 10 business days and rush production available on orders that qualify. Reach out for a free quote and we'll tell you straight which method actually fits what you're trying to do, or browse our services to see the full lineup first.
Written by the team at Pacific North Press, printing and decorating apparel in-house in Portland, OR for years.