# How many t-shirts can you screen print per hour? Manual or Automatic press? How many people?



## kedkennels

Just saw an older post stating how many shirts they can print in an hour. I want to take it a step further and ask that same question plus what machine you are using and how many people are working. This should be interesting.


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## Unik Ink

150+/hr (1 color) on a Workhorse 6/6. 300+/hr when printing neck tags.


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## royster13

Better question is how much did you make for your time.....And I measure that by comparing your actual costs versus cost of out sourcing....


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## taricp35

I think it depends on your skill set. A more experienced person will definitely print more an hour than a newbie.


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## Smckee21

150 per hour with no flashing full front, 300 per hour left chest with no flashing on an M&R Chameleon Press,


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## Unik Ink

royster13 said:


> Better question is how much did you make for your time.....And I measure that by comparing your actual costs versus cost of out sourcing....


At 150 shirts per hour for a 1 color print, we would net $140/hr on print fees during production. You have to take into account setup/reclaim time though. We also, rarely print only 1 color standard size prints on light garments. Each color adds additional time/overhead expenses, and we aren't printing at full production speeds 8 hrs/day. We also make a profit on garments on retail orders. Lots of things to factor in. I am actually trying to find shop management software (mac) to help keep track of profitability, and make the quoting and order progress easier.


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## royster13

You are not doing the math my way......What you sell it for is not relevant.....What are your hard costs for 150 pieces?...Ink, chemical, supplies, etc. What would you pay if your contract the job out?...

I am just guessing here....But say hard costs were 30.00 and contracting out was 101.50 (real number) and the job takes you 2 to 3 hours you are making 24.00 to 36.00 per hour for your time....And that takes you away from selling where the real money can be made......


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## Unik Ink

royster13 said:


> You are not doing the math my way......What you sell it for is not relevant.....What are your hard costs for 150 pieces?...Ink, chemical, supplies, etc. What would you pay if your contract the job out?...
> 
> I am just guessing here....But say hard costs were 30.00 and contracting out was 101.50 (real number) and the job takes you 2 to 3 hours you are making 24.00 to 36.00 per hour for your time....And that takes you away from selling where the real money can be made......


Cost of ink, chemicals, and production supplies can be figured at less than $.05 per shirt. Are you looking at this from a clothing line owner contemplating printing your own shirts, or as a public printer? We print for the public, which is why I used those figures. We don't really go out and actively try to get sales.


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## royster13

My point is printers make very little versus sellers....Printing should be left to very well equipped and very efficient shops....I am a broker that sells about 250 orders of various things each year without the investment of equipment and never having to get my hands dirty....Even if you broker a job out you still make the profit on the selling part of the transaction...


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## Unik Ink

royster13 said:


> My point is printers make very little versus sellers....Printing should be left to very well equipped and very efficient shops....I am a broker that sells about 250 orders of various things each year without the investment of equipment and never having to get my hands dirty....Even if you broker a job out you still make the profit on the selling part of the transaction...


I gotcha. Both have their pros and cons. I actually started out by brokering orders. My stress level was great back then. All that I did was take orders, provide design work, and drop ship shirts. IMO, any decent sized print shop owner makes more money than any decent sized broker. We have many contract customers, plus we have retail customers that provide higher profit margins. I love contract customers though. They provide the same services that a salesperson would, and they get to set their own commission by marking up the price to the end consumer. But you have to think, if an end user is ordering large amounts of shirts, they are probably going directly to the printer and cutting out the middle man. The risk of a printer is much greater though. As you mentioned, the investment is huge, and efficiency is key.


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## royster13

I have no insight into how much a printer makes....I am a small broker and make enough for my own needs....

But I still think you are missing part of my point.....Yes you make more on retail sales...But if you operate a low volume manual shop and you were to broker out the printing on those orders, you would make more money per hour of your time by selling instead of printing....Especially those shops that insist on printing on supplied garments for next to nothing, adding a few pieces to orders after 1st delivery, deal with orders by committee, etc., etc....


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## kedkennels

Wow this post took a turn. I just wanted to know for the pure sport/ science/ art of screen printing but I'll chime is a bit on this digression so to speak.( if that's even a word , sounds good though). At the end of the day it is to each his own. Any great saleman should make more money then an owner operator for a couple of reasons. 1 because he can use more then one print shop. 2. He doesn't have the investment of the equipment. And he spends all time selling. But... Some people hate to sell not that they can't they just rather not do it and some technicians just like to work with their machines creating quality work.


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## royster13

Sorry for my rant!


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## thutch15

I have my calculation set based on the 270 1 color prints per hour... of course this would be best case scenario working a full 60 mins of the hour. I work off of a 6/6 vastex, but on a 1 color print the press is not a huge factor. Also my shop rate is 60/hr.

Also, the other key is a dryer... my dryer could not handle this type of volume.


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## foot print

I don't think we have a right or wrong answer..for me it all depends on if the phone rings or not, good or bad song on the radio, if I'm a good mood or bad mood...and last but not least customer attitude...LOL


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## sweetts

150 to 300 an hour on a manual press? 2-5 shirts every minute. I can't even load my shirts in 10 seconds let alone load print and dry. Is that number with a couple people working the press or just one? The best I have done was a shirt every 47 seconds 150 would cut that in half, Wow. Would you cut that in half if two people were doing it?


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## Sparkie

Number of workers = Me and my dog.
Manual printer = 6/6 American Roto-Tex
Flash Dryer = 15 x 15 (mfg. unknown)
Conveyor Dryer = Brown Ultra Sierra 4811

These are ballpark numbers for the first hour of printing. The qty/hr goes down as wrist fatigue sets in. *These times also include final folding as well.* I usually print 36 and fold... print 36 and fold ... repeat until job is done. These times are based on simple spot color graphics and my normal working speed.

Left chest 1 color dark ink on light shirt with no flash = 120/hr
Left chest 1 color light ink on dark shirt p/f/p = 72/hr

Full front 1 color dark ink on light shirt with no flash = 96/hr
Full front 1 color light ink on dark shirt p/f/p = 48/hr


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## HMD10

The other day we were printing about 900 white shirts and hour on our auto (three color middle chest). Total 1000 shirts in about 1h:45m 3 people boxed, artwork, setup.


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## sweetts

That's great! I guess I have some room for improvement lol


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## matiks

I hopped on a press for the first time in a year a few days ago. Printing black on white shirts full back on a 10/8 sportsman by myself and was running 74doz/hr. I guess it is like riding a bike.


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## DavidRobison

He He I LOVE THIS POST! This is an AGE OLD QUESTION and every few years it gets asked in a slightly different way and the responses are all over the board. About four years ago I was Screen Print Broker and used just about every screen printer of any skill level within a 50 mile radius. Some were good some were bad (REALLY BAD). I did this for about 18 years off and on and got a really good feel for what was an average. Anyone who reads this and knows me will verify I have used a LOT of screen printers over the years. Four years ago I bought all of my own equipment and setup a high end print shop for a number of reasons. the majority of our work is contract printing and knowing the average prints per hour and per day per press is critical to calculating what you costs and pricing should be.

We have a 10 color two tier Chameleon (manual press)-we calculate 100 pieces per hour 1-color print as a base-this includes setup.
subtract 5 pieces per hour per color you add to the print- IE-2 color print=95 per hour / 3color=85 etc.
Subtract another 10 pieces per hour if the job requires a flash

Using this method the average job in my shop that we do on the manual is 3-colors x 72 pieces with a flash
we could schedule 6 of these jobs a day and actually deliver them on time with room to allow for breaks and cleanup.

On our 14 color Challenger II- Its a different story, I try and schedule it to run 1800 to 3500 impressions a day. With no more than 6 setups/breakdowns a day. That allows for proper maintenance and cleanup.
The number of colors is irrelevant, with the Trilock setup we use on both presses.

As a print-shop consultant I have recommended this method to several shops that do well following it.

On longer runs we have produced 7000 pieces a day in a 10 hour shift for more than 10 days consecutively. (Those jobs were all 9-10 colors with an underprint and one or two flashes)

In our shop on the Auto by the machines count we run it at 60 dozen an hour but with setups and breakdowns in a normal day it averages around 400 pieces per hour throughout the month. (33 doz ph)

hope that helps


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## kedkennels

DavidRobison said:


> He He I LOVE THIS POST! This is an AGE OLD QUESTION and every few years it gets asked in a slightly different way and the responses are all over the board. About four years ago I was Screen Print Broker and used just about every screen printer of any skill level within a 50 mile radius. Some were good some were bad (REALLY BAD). I did this for about 18 years off and on and got a really good feel for what was an average. Anyone who reads this and knows me will verify I have used a LOT of screen printers over the years. Four years ago I bought all of my own equipment and setup a high end print shop for a number of reasons. the majority of our work is contract printing and knowing the average prints per hour and per day per press is critical to calculating what you costs and pricing should be.
> 
> We have a 10 color two tier Chameleon (manual press)-we calculate 100 pieces per hour 1-color print as a base-this includes setup.
> subtract 5 pieces per hour per color you add to the print- IE-2 color print=95 per hour / 3color=85 etc.
> Subtract another 10 pieces per hour if the job requires a flash
> 
> Using this method the average job in my shop that we do on the manual is 3-colors x 72 pieces with a flash
> we could schedule 6 of these jobs a day and actually deliver them on time with room to allow for breaks and cleanup.
> 
> On our 14 color Challenger II- Its a different story, I try and schedule it to run 1500 to 2500 impressions a day. With no more than 6 setups/breakdowns a day. That allows for proper maintenance and cleanup.
> The number of colors is irrelevant, with the Trilock setup we use on both presses.
> 
> As a print-shop consultant I have recommended this method to several shops that do well following it.
> 
> Hope it helps some of you.
> 
> PS: On longer runs we have produced 7000 pieces a day in a 10 hour shift for more than 10 days consecutively. (Those jobs were all 9-10 colors with an underprint and one or two flashes)


Great post.


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## alan802

We can run the auto at 1000 pcs/hr, loader, unloader and catcher. Running at that pace as an average over a full day is impossible for us. Loading at that pace is difficult for me to do for longer than an hour at a time, and then I can only do it for 3-4 hours in a day without killing myself. The most shirts we've done in an 8 hour day was 3600 and it was a hard day for 3 people.


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## LKent

I seen an add-on on some screen printing supply shop for Quickbooks for Screen printers. Im sure if you contact them they can tell you definetly. As for the broker, some people are salemen, and some hire salesmen. People have different business models, selling and printing are two different art forms. I sort of dislike when some peoples answers in different posts are to "farm it out" or "just outsource it" without knowing for sure if it saves in the short vs long term. Also how can people innovate if they don't try to create even more efficient ways on their own? Just keep feeding the big bad beastly shops that work and then wonder why they get bigger...sorry for my rant...


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## treadhead

Anybody printing 3 colors plus a white underbase on dark shirts on a manual press flashing in between colors? Just curious how fast some are able to do this considering it is a pretty slow process on a manual...especially only using a flash dryer...lol.


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## jmlampert23

aprox 200 left fronts one color no flash
aprox 300 full front one color no flash

M&R Sidewinder


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## BananaGraphics

On my manual 6 color press, if printing on a white shirt with one color, about 80 shirts in 45 minutes. 

Multiple colors wet on wet, 75 in one hour. 

Underbase or hit flash hit, about 50 in one hour. 

On automatic, about 600 per hour. Does not matter how many colors nor how many flashes. As long as you can load and unload, it flies!


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## alwilson

M&R Diamondback S 6/8
fastest speed so far has been 480 shirts an hour with just me loading and unloading from a wheelchair.
My wife comes to shop once a week to help and having a loader and unloader we do about 650 an hour.


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## sinGN

Hi,
Printing tshirt per hour depends on our experience and skill, because some people are very slow at work.


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## greenmango

alwilson said:


> M&R Diamondback S 6/8
> fastest speed so far has been 480 shirts an hour with just me loading and unloading from a wheelchair.
> My wife comes to shop once a week to help and having a loader and unloader we do about 650 an hour.


How many colors?


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## PatWibble

greenmango said:


> How many colors?


 Doesn't really matter on an auto. Once all the platens are loaded all the heads areprinting at once.


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