Price break

Order enough shirts and the cost per piece steps down at a threshold called a price break — tiers often run something like 12–23, 24–47, 48–71, 72–143, each priced lower per piece than the last, because fixed costs like setup and screens spread across more shirts. The tiers aren't arbitrary; they usually track the same volume math that drives minimum order quantities and per-color pricing underneath the quote.

For buyers, this means a total invoice for 26 shirts can land higher than the total for 24 at the next tier down, if 24 happens to sit at the top of one price break and 26 sits at the bottom of the next tier up in raw quantity but a lower rate per unit. We've quoted jobs where adding six extra pieces to cross into the next tier lowered the customer's total spend, not just the per-shirt average — a detail that surprises people every time.

Before finalizing a quantity, ask the shop where the nearest tier boundary sits. If you're a few pieces under a break, price out both options; extra shirts for a team, staff, or inventory buffer often cost less overall than the discount left on the table by staying just under the line.

The mistake is assuming price breaks scale in a straight line — they don't. Because each tier is a step function rather than a slope, the smartest order quantity is sometimes the top of a tier rather than the exact number you need.