How to Order Custom Company Shirts: A Step-by-Step Guide

Company shirts should be the easy win of your whole marketing budget. Walking billboards that build team pride and cost less per impression than just about anything else you'll buy. But we've watched plenty of orders wander into the ditch: a logo yanked off a website that prints like a wet newspaper, a size run that leaves half the office swimming in XLs, or the classic "we need these Friday" that lands on a Thursday afternoon. None of it is hard to avoid. Here's the entire process, front to back, the same way we walk our Carrollton customers through it.

What kind of shirt should you order for your company?

Start with how the shirt actually gets worn, not the sticker price. The right blank is the difference between a shirt people reach for and one that becomes a shop rag.

• Everyday staff tees: a mid-weight cotton or 50/50 blend tee (think 5–6 oz). Comfortable, cheap to decorate, hard to mess up.
• Front-of-house / customer-facing: a soft ring-spun tee or a polo. Polos read "we've got our act together" without going full corporate.
• Managers, sales, trade shows: embroidered polos or performance button-downs. A stitched logo signals permanence.
• Outdoor crews & winter: quarter-zips, hoodies, and jackets. Embroidery holds up beautifully on thicker fabric.

One rule of thumb: buy the best blank your budget allows and order slightly fewer. Ten shirts people love beat twenty nobody wears.

Screen printing or embroidery for company shirts?

This is the fork in the road, and it mostly comes down to quantity and the surface you're decorating. Here's the quick version:

Method	Best for	Minimum	The look
Screen Print	Bigger runs of tees & hoodies, bold logos, 1–4 colors	25 pieces	Smooth, vibrant ink baked into the fabric
Embroidery	Polos, hats, jackets, left-chest logos	12 pieces	Raised, stitched, premium and durable
DTG / DTF	Small runs, photo-detail art, lots of colors	12 pieces	Full-color detail with no per-color charge

Rough guide: printing a shirt? Screen print at volume, DTG/DTF for the small stuff. Decorating a polo, cap, or jacket? Embroidery, almost every time. Not sure which way your job leans? On any apparel product page, our Add Decoration tool prices every method side by side the second you plug in your quantity — screen print, embroidery, DTG/DTF, hat, and puff — so you can see the trade-offs before you commit a dime.

How many shirts do you need to order — and what are the minimums?

Order for the people who'll actually wear them, plus a small cushion. A few honest numbers to plan around:

• Screen printing: 25-piece minimum per design. Price per shirt drops fast as the quantity climbs — 50 costs a lot less per shirt than 25.
• Embroidery, DTG, and DTF: just 12 pieces, perfect for a small team or a management-only polo run.
• Add 10–15% cushion: new hires, a shrunk-in-the-wash casualty, the walk-in customer who wants one. Reordering 6 shirts later costs way more per piece than adding them now.

How do you collect everyone's sizes without losing your mind?

This is where most in-house orders stall. Don't chase people down the hall. Send one simple form (a shared spreadsheet or a group text works) asking for name and size, set a hard deadline, and assume a couple of no-responders — order them a Large or XL and move on. You can mix every size from S to 4XL in a single order. Sizes 2XL and up usually carry a small blank upcharge, which we'll spell out on your quote so there are no surprises.

What artwork do you need to send?

Good art in, great shirt out. The single biggest cause of a delayed or disappointing order is a bad logo file. Send us the best version you have:

• Best: a vector file — .ai, .eps, or a vector .pdf. It scales from a left chest to a full back with zero quality loss.
• Works fine: a high-resolution .png at 300 DPI at the size you want it printed.
• Please don't: a logo dragged off your website or pulled from a social profile — those are tiny and print blurry.

Only have a fuzzy logo or a business card? Tell us. Recreating or cleaning up artwork is routine for our art team, and we'll send a proof before anything hits a shirt.

How much do custom company shirts cost?

Your final price is driven by four things: the blank garment, the decoration method, the number of ink colors or stitch count, and — the big one — total quantity. Screen printing is priced per color, per location, so a one-color left-chest logo on 50 tees is one of the best values in the shop. Embroidery is priced by stitch count, so a clean, simple logo stitches faster and cheaper than a busy one. The fastest way to a real number is to pop your quantity into the Add Decoration tool on any apparel page, or send us your logo and we'll quote it same-day.

How long does a company shirt order take?

Standard turnaround is 7–10 business days after you approve your proof — not from the day you first email us, which is why locking artwork and sizes early matters. Need them for an event? Work backward from your date and give yourself a buffer for proof approval. In a genuine pinch, ask about rush options; we can often move faster than you'd expect.

Company shirt FAQs

What's the minimum order for custom company shirts?
Screen printing starts at 25 pieces per design. Embroidery, DTG, and DTF all start at just 12 pieces, so smaller teams aren't left out.

Can I mix sizes in one company shirt order?
Yes. You can mix sizes from S to 4XL in the same order at no extra hassle. Sizes 2XL and up usually carry a small upcharge from the blank manufacturer, which we'll show on your quote.

What artwork file works best for a company logo?
A vector file (.ai, .eps, or .pdf) is ideal because it scales cleanly to any size. A high-resolution PNG at 300 DPI also works. Avoid low-res logos copied off a website, because they print fuzzy.

Where should my logo go on the shirt?
A left-chest logo is the classic professional look, especially on polos and button-downs. Full front or full back works well for events, giveaways, and staff you want spotted across a room.

Can you match my exact brand colors?
Yes. For screen printing we mix ink to your Pantone (PMS) colors. For embroidery we match the closest thread color and send you a proof to approve before we run the job.

How fast can I get custom company shirts?
Standard turnaround is 7 to 10 business days after you approve the proof. Need them sooner? Ask about rush options when you request your quote, because we can often move faster.