How to Start a Custom Shirt Business | Bright Designs St. Joseph MO

Starting a custom shirt business is more accessible than it's ever been — especially if you have a local supplier who can handle the printing side while you focus on sales and customers. Here's a practical breakdown of how to get started, and how Bright Designs & Business Solutions in St. Joseph, MO can be the backbone of your operation.

What You Actually Need to Start

The barrier to entry for a custom shirt business is lower than most people think. At a minimum, you need:

• A heat press — entry-level presses start around $200 and are sufficient for applying DTF transfers

• Access to blank garments — Bright Designs carries blanks and can source specific styles

• A DTF transfer supplier — that's where Bright Designs comes in

• A way to take orders and collect payment

DTF Transfers and Gang Sheets — Your Print Source

Bright Designs offers wholesale DTF gang sheets at $0.40 per square inch. You send us the designs, we nest them efficiently on a gang sheet, and you press them onto blanks at home. No minimum order per design. No screen fees. Just clean, full-color transfers ready to apply.

Blank Garments Without Distributor Markup

Bright Designs sources blank garments directly — not through a domestic distributor — which means our blank pricing is lower than what you'd find through a typical apparel wholesale account. When you order blanks and transfers together from Bright Designs, you're reducing the number of vendors you have to manage and keeping your margins healthy.

Grow With the P.A.N.D.A. Program

As your order volume grows, so do your discounts. Bright Designs' P.A.N.D.A. Program (Pick A New Design Anytime) counts all apparel purchases within a 30-day window toward better quantity pricing — even if each order has a different design. It's built for growing businesses that place frequent small orders.

Getting Started

Visit our Pricing page for gang sheet and blank garment pricing, and check our FAQ page to learn about artwork formats and how to place your first order. Reach out at bdshirts.com when you're ready to get started.