How to price work, run production and grow a decoration business. Written by people who have run the press, with the arithmetic shown.
Ink, pretreat, cure time and waste, added up honestly, then compared against screen print to find your crossover point.
Read it →The full formula, then 100 black tees priced line by line so you can see where the margin actually is.
Read it →Stitch count is the only honest basis for embroidery pricing. Here is how to build a per-thousand rate, and what to charge for digitising.
Read it →Transfer work lives or dies on sheet utilisation. Here is how to cost by area, and why per-design pricing quietly loses money.
Read it →A rush fee is not a punishment, it is the price of displacing other work. How to structure one that customers accept.
Read it →An MOQ is a margin tool, not a gate. Why a minimum order value usually beats a minimum quantity, and how to pick the number.
Read it →The stages every decorated apparel order passes through, what has to be true to leave each one, and where jobs actually get stuck.
Read it →Approval is where most orders lose their week. Four changes that move the average from days to hours, in order of effort.
Read it →Most reprints trace back to five checks that take under two minutes. The checklist, and where in the run to put each one.
Read it →How to decide what to hold, how much, and when to reorder, without turning your stockroom into your bank account.
Read it →What to decide in September so that November runs on rails: capacity, cut-offs, sequencing and the jobs you say no to.
Read it →Where to put the presses, the dryer, the blanks and the pack bench so a job travels once instead of four times.
Read it →Who to approach, what to say, and what to have ready before you do. The unglamorous version that actually works.
Read it →Run a closed-window campaign instead of holding stock. How to set the window, the minimum, and the follow-up.
Read it →Speed, specificity and structure beat price on most enquiries. What to put in a quote so it does not get compared on one number.
Read it →Decide the policy before it happens, then follow a script. What to say, what to concede, and what to charge.
Read it →Seasonal customers become annual revenue when you own the calendar instead of waiting for the phone call.
Read it →A sequence for the job that has gone quiet, with the dates, the wording, and the point at which you close it.
Read it →Why colours sink into dark fabric, what a white underbase actually does, and how to price and separate for one.
Read it →Which halftone frequency your mesh can actually hold, why highlight dots disappear, and how to test your own combinations.
Read it →Dull whites, visible boxes, patchy coverage and wash-off, each with its cause and the fix, in order of frequency.
Read it →Weight, yarn, fit and consistency matter more than the brand name. A framework for building a core range, plus regional supplier notes.
Read it →The information that turns a two-round digitising job into a one-round job, and the details that quietly cost you rejects.
Read it →Which method suits which job, by fabric, quantity, colour and durability. Plus the jobs where none of the three is the right answer.
Read it →What to evaluate, in what order, and the questions that separate a demo that looks good from software that survives your busiest week.
Read it →A spreadsheet is free until you count the re-keying, the chased approvals and the jobs that fall through. Here is how to work out your own number.
Read it →What to export, what to migrate, what to leave behind, and how to run the changeover without a gap in the middle of your schedule.
Read it →What a portal removes from your day, when it is not worth it, and why a branded one behaves differently from a vendor-skinned one.
Read it →The small set of measures that predict a good month, how to calculate each one, and the vanity metrics to ignore.
Read it →Published industry averages are close to useless for a single shop. Here is how to build a benchmark from your own jobs and read it honestly.
Read it →Looking for how to do something in Printer's Friend? That lives in the guides. Choosing between tools? See the comparisons, or look a term up in the glossary.
Everything in the pricing posts, condensed into a PDF you can keep next to the press. Free.