Getting Your Size Breakdown Ready - Use Our T-shirt Printing Checklist

Having compiled quite a bit of t-shirt data, we looked at all of our orders to figure out the average percentages of each t-shirt size ordered, giving you an educated launching point when getting your t-shirt size breakdown together.

Standard T-Shirt Sizes Breakdown

In an ideal world, you’d know exactly what size each shirt needed to be. But that’s not usually the case. Whether it’s for a team or club, an event or for sale, it’s rare that you have access to the shirt size of each person you’re ordering for. Instead, you’ll probably have to guess based on past orders, data from your industry and rule of thumb.

Most Common Sizes by Percentage Ordered

You’ll see that medium and large are the clear standouts followed by small and extra large. Sizes are going to vary based on all kinds of factors. Wrestlers probably skew towards the larger end of the spectrum, while cheerleaders probably will involve smaller sizes. So if you know your audience might be an outlier like that, feel free to adjust accordingly.

Setting Up Your T-Shirt Size Breakdown

How your order breaks down matters, to you and to us. Ideally, we’d like to know your size breakdown up front. It helps us convey accurate pricing to you when submitting for a quote. We have price breaks, so be open to adding a few shirts here and there. Odds are it will save you money! Make sure you research your options and know what’s available. Not every brand carries every style in every color and in every size. Check your chosen brand and shirt style to see what sizes and colors are available. You can see colors immediately when you click on a product:

To see sizes, click on the “i” in the top right corner. Then, you’ll see the range of sizes available for that specific shirt.

It’s important to check in advance, because some shirts have far wider ranges of sizes than others. Not everything comes in XS and not everything comes in 4XL. So make sure your chosen shirt is actually available in the sizes you want before you put your T-shirt order together.

Be sure to keep minimum quantities and price breaks in mind, too. Our t-shirt minimum is 20 shirts per design. But say you were ordering shirts for 34 people at your company. Your personal account executive would likely recommend that you bump your order up to 36 shirts, because that’s when a new price break kicks in, and you’d actually end up paying less for 36 shirts than you would for 34.

We have found this percentage breakdown to be most common for clients ordering at Real Thread:

• XXS 0.09%
• XS 2.14%
• SM 19.56%
• MD 28.36%
• LG 27.16%
• XL 16.16%
• 2XL 5.19%
• 3XL 1.15%
• 4 XL 0.19%

So, here’s what we need to know: 

• XS
• SM
• MD
• LG
• XL
• XXL
• TOTAL = ___

Here’s an example using the above template:

• 3 XS 
• 20 SM 
• 28 MD
• 28 LG 
• 16 XL
• 5 XXL
• TOTAL = 100 pieces 

Make sure to include a size breakdown for each shirt style you are choosing to use as well as each design you’re wanting to get printed.

Like we said, nailing your t-shirt size breakdown can be a pain, but using our data-backed size breakdown chart, you should be able to nail your size breakdown every time. 

Head here to download our t-shirt printing checklist that includes the chart, and if you have any more questions we can help with, just let us know! We’re happy to help however we can.