Small solar companies get penalized by traditional screen-print pricing. A 4-installer crew that wants matching branded shirts gets told "minimum 24 pieces" and ends up ordering 20 extra shirts they do not need, or paying the small-run premium that doubles per-piece cost. The no-minimum print-on-demand model removes the penalty entirely. A 3-installer company can order 9 shirts. A solo electrician adding solar can order 3. Here is how the no-minimum economics work and what they save a small solar crew.
Traditional screen printing has fixed setup costs per design: screen creation, ink mixing, press setup. The shop spreads those fixed costs across the order. The bigger the order, the cheaper the per-piece price. The smaller the order, the higher the per-piece price.
Most screen-print shops set a 12 or 24-piece minimum because anything smaller is unprofitable at standard pricing. A 4-installer crew has three bad options:
All three options are worse than the no-minimum alternative. The 4-installer crew that needs 4 shirts should pay for 4 shirts at the same per-piece pricing as a 50-piece run.
Print-on-demand (POD) production prints each garment individually using digital methods (DTG, direct-to-garment) or pre-set screen plates that do not require per-order setup. The economics flatten:
The trade-off: per-piece cost on a POD shirt is slightly higher than the per-piece cost of a large screen-print run. A 100-piece screen-print run might land at $14 per piece. The POD version is $20 per piece. But the POD wins anytime the order size is under 24 pieces, which is where small solar crews live.
Bear Grips Pro Shops: Custom Apparel for Your Team. No Minimums. Free Shipping.Compare a 4-installer crew's year-one apparel program across the three sourcing models.
| Model | Order Size | Per-Piece Cost | Year-One Total |
|---|---|---|---|
| Screen print, 12-piece minimum | 12 (4 used, 8 stored) | $18 | $216 (with 8 unused shirts) |
| Screen print, small-run premium | 4 | $38 | $152 |
| POD, no minimum | 4 | $22 | $88 |
The POD model saves the 4-installer crew $64-$128 on the first shirt order alone. Across a year of replacements and additions, the savings compound to $300-$600. For a solo electrician adding solar work, the savings are even larger because solo orders are the worst-fit case for traditional screen printing.
The hidden benefit of no-minimum sourcing is design iteration. A solar company that refreshes its logo, adds a new role, or runs a seasonal limited-edition design does it without inventory risk.
The iteration freedom is worth more than the per-piece cost savings to many solar companies. The branded crew becomes a strategic marketing tool, not just a uniform.
Order 1 shirt or 100 at the same per-piece price. Mixed sizes and colors welcome. Free shipping included.
Start FreeCorrect. Print-on-demand models accept orders of 1 piece at the same per-piece price as a 50-piece order. The "minimum" model is a legacy of screen-print shop economics, not a fundamental constraint of custom apparel.
For very large orders (50+ pieces of one design), bulk screen printing is cheaper per piece. For orders under 24 pieces, no-minimum POD is cheaper because the small-run premium on screen printing exceeds the higher POD per-piece cost.
About 1 week from order to delivery. Each shirt prints when ordered. Compare to a screen-print shop that takes 2-3 weeks for a bulk run and another week for shipping.
Yes. Each piece is printed individually, so size, color, and design variations within an order do not add cost or complexity. Mixed-size and mixed-color orders are the same pricing as same-size, same-color orders.
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