How to Size a Bulk T-Shirt Order for Your Team
More than four in ten first-time bulk t-shirt buyers end up with a pile of XL shirts nobody wants and not enough mediums to go round. It is a fixable problem, and the fix takes about ten minutes.
Why Getting the Split Wrong Costs Real Money
Take a 50-shirt run at £9 a shirt. That is £450 of stock. Misjudge 12 shirts and you are sitting on £108 of inventory that cannot be returned, exchanged, or reprinted without paying again from scratch. Custom printed garments are not like off-the-shelf stock. Every shirt is made specifically for your order.
The reorder problem compounds the loss. Topping up 8 shirts in popular sizes pushes you below most screen-print minimums. The per-unit price for a run of 8 can be three times what you paid for the original 50. Getting the split right at the outset is a basic cost-control step, not an optional one.
The Standard UK Adult Size Split
UK retail data from major clothing brands points to a consistent bell curve for adult sizing in mixed groups. The table below gives three starting points depending on your group's demographic.
| Size | Mixed group | Mostly male | Mostly female |
|---|---|---|---|
| S | 10% | 5% | 20% |
| M | 30% | 25% | 40% |
| L | 35% | 35% | 25% |
| XL | 15% | 25% | 10% |
| XXL | 10% | 10% | 5% |
Applied to a 50-shirt mixed order: 5 S, 15 M, 18 L, 8 XL, 5 XXL. Round to whole numbers; being off by one on rounding is irrelevant at this scale.
A Sunday league football squad of 30 men would use the mostly-male column: 2 S, 8 M, 11 L, 8 XL, 3 XXL. A 60-person hospital fundraising team of mostly women shifts the other direction: 12 S, 24 M, 15 L, 6 XL, 3 XXL. The formula gives you a defensible starting point rather than a gut guess.
How to Collect Sizes from Your Group
A Google Form takes ten minutes to build. Drop the link in the WhatsApp group or team email thread, set a clear deadline, and include this one sentence of instruction: "The shirt is a standard straight fit. If you normally wear loose or oversized clothing, go one size up from your usual."
That single sentence prevents the most common collection error. People who wear Superdry XL for comfort still need an L on a Gildan blank, and they need to know that before they submit.
Anyone who misses the deadline gets assigned the group mode: whatever size appeared most often in your responses. Do not chase stragglers. Most non-responders cluster near the average, and chasing them delays the order by days for marginal accuracy gain. Keep the data in a spreadsheet. If five people join the group after the deadline, you have a distribution to extrapolate from rather than starting over.
Choosing the Right Blank
The specific garment you print on changes how the size chart behaves in practice. Two blanks dominate UK print shop orders: Gildan and Fruit of the Loom. Both run approximately one size smaller in the chest than the equivalent high-street size. A person who buys a medium at Next will frequently need a large on either blank.
The Gildan Heavy Cotton T-Shirt at 185 gsm is the most common blank supplied by UK print shops. It holds both screen-print and direct-to-garment ink cleanly, and the fabric maintains its shape and colour after 40 washes at 40°C. For team shirts that will be worn repeatedly across a season, the weight is worth the slightly higher unit cost.
For single-use events, a charity 5k or a summer festival for example, the Fruit of the Loom Valueweight T-Shirt at 165 gsm cuts 15-20% off the per-unit cost and still prints cleanly with either method. If the shirt is a memento rather than a workwear item, the weight difference has no practical effect.
Organisations with environmental commitments sometimes specify Stanley/Stella's Creator Organic Tee, which uses 100% GOTS-certified ring-spun cotton. It costs more per unit and is available through specialist print suppliers rather than direct. Budget accordingly if that certification is a requirement from a client or charity partner.
Buffer Stock
Order 5-10% more than your confirmed headcount. Two things happen on almost every bulk order. First, someone joins the team or signs up for the event after the order closes. Second, at least one shirt gets allocated to the wrong person internally, even when the split was correct.
Put the buffer shirts in the group's most common size. On a 50-shirt order already at a bulk print rate, adding four extra shirts at the modal size costs very little proportionally and resolves both problems without a reorder.
Mixed Events with Children
School sports days, charity fun runs, and community festivals often need shirts for children alongside adults. Treat children's sizes as a completely separate calculation. Do not blend them into the adult percentage split.
Children's sizes do not map reliably to age. A 9-year-old can wear anything from a 7-8 to an 11-12 depending on build. Collect chest measurements in centimetres and match to the specific garment's size chart. For an event expecting 40% children, split the children's shirts roughly evenly across 5-6, 7-8, 9-10, 11-12, and 13-14, then adjust based on any data you have about the age distribution of attendees.
Placing the Final Order
Submit a complete size breakdown in a single message when the order goes in. Amending sizes after artwork approval adds a typical £25-£50 amendment fee at most UK printers. Some lock the order entirely at proof sign-off. Screen-print frames are physical objects set up for a specific run; changing the size split at that stage has real production costs attached.
At TMC Shirts, orders of 25 or more include a free digital proof returned within 24 hours. Include your size breakdown alongside the artwork file, and list children's sizes separately with a note, so they can be matched to the correct garment chart rather than the adult one by default.
FAQ
What is the minimum order quantity for custom team t-shirts?
Most UK screen-print suppliers set a minimum of 10-25 shirts per design. Direct-to-garment (DTG) printing often has no minimum but costs more per unit on short runs under ten shirts. For orders above 100 units, screen printing drops significantly in per-unit cost and is almost always the better choice.
How long does a bulk order take from artwork to delivery?
Standard UK turnaround is 7-14 working days from approved artwork. Rush orders of 3-5 working days are available from some suppliers at a 20-40% premium on the unit price. Order at least three weeks before your event date to avoid paying those fees.
Can I mix colours in a single bulk order?
Yes, but each garment colour is typically treated as a separate print run for screen printing. Five shirt colours in one order means five setups, each with its own minimum. DTG handles colour variation within a single run at no extra charge per colour, though its per-unit price is higher than screen print at volume.
What file format does the artwork need to be in?
Vector files (AI, EPS, SVG) are the standard. They scale without quality loss to any print size. Raster files (PNG, JPG) are accepted at 300 dpi or higher at the intended print dimensions. A logo saved from a website at 72 dpi will not print cleanly on a shirt; request the original vector file from whoever designed it.
What if someone needs a replacement shirt after the order closes?
Most printers can run a small top-up, but the per-unit cost will be higher than the original bulk rate. The straightforward fix is to include 5-10% buffer stock at the time of ordering, allocated to the most common sizes in your group. It almost always costs less than a separate top-up run.