T-Shirt Business Profit Calculator

A t-shirt business does not make money shirt by shirt in the abstract — it makes money design by design, and the design that sells the most shirts is not always the one worth printing. This calculator works per design: what one shirt of a design truly costs — blank garment, print / ink / transfer, press / print cost and packaging, plus your own typed platform fee % — and what the whole design earns across the units it sells.

The inputs are garment inputs only. Costing a batch of candles is the Handmade Candle Business Cost Calculator; this sheet holds no candle, food, jewellery or soap inputs, and it is not a generic product cost calculator — a blank, a print and a press are a different cost stack from a batch, a bake or a setting, and each of those gets its own workbook.

The sample costs three designs end to end at a typed 10% fee (an example setting — enter your own rate). The Vintage Sunset Tee costs $12.10 a shirt before the fee, $15.30 all-in, and keeps $16.70 of its $32.00 price — 52.2%, the highest margin on the tab. The Logo Pocket Tee sells the most shirts by far — 320 units — and banks the most profit, $3,968.00, but keeps only 51.7%: volume and margin are different things, and the sheet prints both. The Heavyweight Boxy Tee keeps just 36.9%, because its $8.90 blank is the heaviest single cost on the tab. Across the three designs: 525 shirts and $7,031.50 of design profit, before the business’s other expenses.

The Price Check tests three prices against the Boxy Tee’s $18.30 all-in cost: $34.00 keeps $15.70 (46.2%), $26.50 keeps $8.20 (30.9%), and $17.00 loses $1.30 a shirt — flagged BELOW COST in the open, not averaged away.

HOW IT WORKS
– ‘Design Cost & Profit’: one row per design — blank garment, print / ink / transfer, press / print cost and packaging as typed per-shirt costs, plus your typed selling price. Cost per shirt, fee per shirt, total cost, margin and margin % calculate per design.
– The design roll-up: type the units sold per design and profit per design prints, with the top-profit design and the highest margin % named from your own numbers.
– ‘Price Check’: name one design and test up to three of your own selling prices against its total cost per shirt — margin per price, with any price below cost flagged.

WHAT’S INSIDE
– A garment-only design cost build: blank, print / ink / transfer, press cost, packaging — nothing else
– A typed platform / transaction fee % (example setting) applied to the price, per shirt
– Profit per design from typed units sold (sample total: $7,031.50 across 525 shirts)
– The honest split, printed: most units and most profit (320 shirts, $3,968.00) at a LOWER margin % than the premium design (51.7% vs 52.2%)
– A three-price check with a below-cost price flagged plainly (sample: $17.00, -$1.30)
– Plus the standard Expense Log, zero-based Monthly Budget, Dashboard and Monthly Summary tabs

Every garment cost, print cost, price and fee % in this workbook is an example setting you type — the sheet does arithmetic on your figures only, and never tells you what to charge.

How it works: the seven tabs are Start Here (your settings + step-by-step), the two feature tabs, Expense Log, Monthly Budget (zero-based), Dashboard and Monthly Summary. Yellow cells are the only places you type — every yellow value is your own entry. Formula cells are locked (password: sheetdaily, disclosed on the Start Here tab) and every formula is error-wrapped, so an untouched sheet reads blank instead of showing error codes. Instant download, ready for Excel and Google Sheets.

A note on the sample data: every price and date in this workbook is example data, typed in by hand to show you how the sheet behaves. Replace it with your own.