Don’t Get Ripped-Off by your Screen Printer

Image source: evolvingpf.com  

It’s easy to fall into a habit of ordering your logo apparel from one place. Not a bad thing if you’re getting the best deal on price, product and service. However if you’re not, you should take a few minutes to get a quote elsewhere. It could result in up to 30% savings. This equals a few hundred bucks for every $1,000 spent.  

Are you getting charged these ridiculous fees from your printer? You shouldn’t be!

1) Screen Set-Up

For every color you have in your logo, the printer will charge up to $40 per color. So, if you have 4 colors in your logo you’re looking at $100-$160 just to get your artwork in a print ready format.  

2) Reset or Repeat Charge

So after your pay all this money for item 1 (Screen Set-Up), if you decide to order again, which most companies do, they are going to charge you again for a so called ‘Reset or Repeat’ Charge. Although most will not charge as much as the initial set-up, they can run $10-$20 for every color. So again, a 4 color logo, could cost as much as $40-$80.  

3) Color Change

Let’s say you have a logo in red and black and want to change the color of the logo for a particular marketing plan or maybe you just want a certain color shirt and your logo will look better with different colors. Well… most printers are going to charge you a ‘Color Change’ fee upwards of $15 per color. You know the drill by now… 4 colors x $15 = $60.  

4) PMS Color Match

So you pick some really great colors for your logo or a new marketing design. You’re ready to print this great design on a tee shirt and you get your invoice and see the printer has charged you $15 for each color that requires a so called ‘PMS Match’. What this really means is your printer doesn’t have the ink available in-house, so they charge you to buy the ink or mix their current batches to get the desired hue.  

5) Dark shirts get an extra charge!

Unfortunately, yes. Sometimes it’s necessary if your printer gives you a competitive price for your order but most of the time it’s another miscellaneous charge to pad their profits. The skinny on this charge is a printer must use an ‘undertone’ underneath the main ink. If you use a dark shirt with a dark color, then you’ll need a white undertone. If you print a dark color on a dark shirt, the artwork will blend into the shirt, sometimes being invisible therefore you need an undertone base but considering the printer will charge you an extra ‘color’ you should request a discount.  

6) Short Sleeve or Long Sleeve gets an Extra Charge!

Wow! What else is there if you get charged extra for a short or long sleeve shirt? Tank tops I guess. Anyway, beware, some printers will charge an extra fee, typically .25 to .50 cents extra per piece. You shouldn’t have a hard time getting this fee removed.  

What to do:

Image source: startinvoicing.com  

If you’re getting charged more than 1 or 2 of these fees, you want to call your printer and request to have them removed on future orders. If you’re getting charged more 3 or more, run like crazy.   LeadApparel.com offers free set-up, free shipping, 5% back in Lead Apparel easy points™ that can be used like cash on follow up orders. All backed by a 100% money back guarantee.