Blank T-Shirt Margin Maths: What 100 Units Actually Cost a UK Clothing Brand in 2026

Most new UK clothing brands get the creative side right long before they get the numbers right. The graphic works, the fit is dialled in, the drop sells out — and then the founder sits down with a spreadsheet and realises the margin was never really there. Blank apparel is usually the single biggest line item in that spreadsheet, so it is worth understanding properly before you commit to a production run.

This is a working breakdown of what blanks actually cost in 2026, where the price breaks land, and how to reverse-engineer a retail price that leaves you with something to reinvest.

Blanks are not getting cheaper — and that matters more than you think

The raw cotton producer price index climbed from 101.3 in December 2025 to 118.3 by April 2026, a rise of roughly 17% in four months. That pressure works its way through yarn, knitting, and finishing before it ever reaches a wholesale price list. Certified organic and recycled fibres typically sit a further 10–15% above standard cotton, and UK postage rose again in April 2026 with a 1st Class stamp hitting £1.80.

None of that is a reason to panic. It is a reason to lock in your cost base early rather than assuming you can reorder at the same price in six months. Brands that buy on price alone tend to get squeezed hardest when the underlying commodity moves; brands that understand their full landed cost per unit can absorb it.

Where the price breaks actually land

Volume pricing on heavyweight blanks is steeper than most people expect. Take the Heavy Oversized Blank T-Shirt 300 GSM in Black as a worked example. At single-unit quantities it sits just under £12 including VAT. Order 10–49 and it drops to £10.95. At 50–99 it falls to £9.75, at 100–499 to £9.25, and at 500 or more to £8.75 — a saving of £2.75 per unit against the single-piece price.

That £2.75 is not a rounding error. Across 500 units it is £1,375 that either sits in your bank account or does not. The interesting threshold for most independent brands is the 100-unit break: it is the point where the per-unit cost drops meaningfully without requiring the kind of cash outlay that a 500-piece run demands. If you are planning a first drop, sizing it at 100 units rather than 60 often costs less in absolute terms than founders assume, because the unit price moves in your favour at the same time.

Bundles are cheap product development

Before you spend four figures on a single colourway, it is worth paying a small premium to touch everything. The Heavyweight T-shirt Bundle at £84 contains seven pieces spanning 265, 300, 320 and 325 GSM in both short and long sleeve, across black and ecru. Bought individually those seven garments come to roughly £92, so the bundle saves you around £8 — but the real value is that you get to feel the difference between a 265 GSM and a 320 GSM body before you commit a production budget to one of them.

The same logic applies to the Boxy Cropped T-Shirt Bundle at £37 for four colourways — black, white, charcoal and vintage washed black. Against £42.25 for the same four bought separately, it is a modest saving, but it lets you photograph and sample-print an entire colour range for well under fifty pounds. Treat that spend as R&D, not stock.

Working backwards from your retail price

Here is the maths that matters. Say you buy 100 units of a 300 GSM oversized tee at £9.25. Add a screen print or DTF transfer at roughly £3.00–£4.00 per unit depending on colour count, plus labels and polybags at around £0.50. Your landed cost lands near £13.00 per finished garment.

Streetwear-positioned heavyweight tees in the UK routinely retail between £35 and £45. At £40 retail, a £13 landed cost gives you a gross margin around 67% — comfortably inside the 60–75% band that bulk-produced apparel brands typically target, and a different world from print-on-demand, where per-unit profit tends to sit between £5 and £12 with no control over stock or quality. Heavier pieces follow the same pattern: a 500 GSM Heavyweight Hoodie at £28 supports a £75–£95 retail price once printed or embroidered.

The variable most founders underestimate is sell-through. A 67% gross margin on stock that sells out is excellent. The same margin on stock where a third of the run sits in sizes nobody wanted is roughly break-even. Buy conservatively on the size curve, reorder from UK stock rather than over-committing upfront, and the maths stays honest.

Every price break referenced above is live on the Blank Garments collection, stocked in England with no minimum order quantity — so you can test at one unit and scale to five hundred without changing supplier.