At Pulse Merch, our screen printing and embroidery shop in Cedar City, the size run is the first thing we ask about on a Southern Utah bulk order, and it’s the part customers most often get wrong. You already know what a decent blank costs and how many colors you want. What’s left is how many of each size, and a bad split leaves you with a box of 3XLs nobody wears and a crew member in a shirt that doesn’t fit.
This is how we set ratios for HVAC companies, restaurants, landscaping crews, bands and clubs, and where we throw the ratio out entirely.
The starting ratio we use for mixed adult groups
For a group of adults where you have no sizes and a mix of men and women, we start here:
- Small: 10%
- Medium: 20%
- Large: 28%
- XL: 24%
- 2XL: 12%
- 3XL and up: 6%
These are our shop rules of thumb, not a published standard. They come from orders we’ve run, and they lean a little larger than most size curves you’ll find online, because Southern Utah work crews and event crowds run larger than a retail store’s customer mix.
On 100 shirts, that’s 10 S, 20 M, 28 L, 24 XL, 12 2XL and 6 3XL. Notice that Large and XL together make more than half the order. That is where most ordering money should sit.
If your count is under 36 or so, don’t apply percentages mechanically. You’ll end up ordering one 3XL and two smalls, which is fine, but rounding rules matter more than the math. We’ll cover that below.
Why guessing sizes goes wrong more than you’d expect
People are bad at knowing their own size. A 2015 University of Arkansas study that compared 3D body scans to what participants said they wore found that 64.8% of participants buying shirts chose a size that didn’t match their scan, and the gap was statistically significant.
That matches what we see. A foreman says he’s a Large, then a Large Gildan 5000 arrives and he asks for an XL. The owner who “knows” his crew mostly orders by memory of what they wore two years ago, before the last two winters.
So when you can collect sizes, do it. When you can’t, order to a ratio and accept some mismatch. Both are legitimate. The mistake is ordering to a ratio when you could have spent ten minutes with a sign-up sheet.
Crews and work shirts: skew up, and check the cut
For a construction, HVAC, plumbing or electrical crew that’s mostly men, we shift the run heavier:
- Small: 4%
- Medium: 14%
- Large: 30%
- XL: 28%
- 2XL: 16%
- 3XL and up: 8%
Work crews layer. A guy who’s a Large in a tee wears an XL when the shirt has to go over a base layer in January, or when he wants it loose for a summer job site. We’ve seen crews reorder a size up on the second round more than once.
If you’re printing on heavier workwear, size charts vary a lot between a garment-dyed tee, a pocket tee and a work-weight long sleeve. Read our notes on screen printing on workwear before you assume a Large is a Large across styles.
Bands and tour merch: the ratio changes with who buys
Band orders are different because you aren’t dressing a group, you’re selling to a crowd. The crowd depends on your genre and your fans.
For a typical club-level touring band, we’d start closer to:
- Small: 15%
- Medium: 28%
- Large: 28%
- XL: 18%
- 2XL: 8%
- 3XL: 3%
If your audience skews female, add a fitted or women’s cut as a separate style rather than just ordering more smalls in a unisex tee. A unisex Small hangs differently on a smaller frame, and the buyer sees that at the table and walks away. A smaller run of a women’s cut in S through XL sells better than the same dollars spent on unisex smalls.
For a band that has sold merch before, ignore all of this and use your own numbers. Your last tour’s sell-through by size is worth more than any ratio. Keep a tally by size at the merch table. It costs nothing, and it tells you what to reorder.
If you’re building the whole merch line, our band logo apparel workflow covers how we plan designs around what sells.
Teams, clubs and events
Sports teams and youth groups break the adult ratio, because you have two separate sets of sizes. Don’t blend them. Order youth sizes against your roster, and order adult sizes as their own run.
For events and fundraisers where people buy at the door, the crowd is the wildcard. A 5K, a fair booth or a company picnic draws a mix, and we’d use the general ratio above, then add a few extra of Large and XL. Event buyers who find their size gone are the ones who don’t buy.
For guidance on total quantity before you split it by size, see how many shirts to order for your team or event.
A short story about a restaurant order
A local restaurant owner once ordered 60 staff shirts on a ratio he’d copied from the internet: lots of mediums and larges, almost nothing at the top end. His kitchen staff were mostly bigger guys, and the front-of-house team was small. The result was twelve shirts that were too tight on people who had to wear them for ten-hour shifts, and a pile of mediums nobody wanted.
The fix cost him a second order with a new set-up. A five-minute text to his managers asking for sizes would have prevented it. We now ask for headcount by role before we ever quote the split.
Rounding, minimums and the “just in case” box
A few ordering details matter more than the ratio itself.
Round up at the ends. If the math says 2.4 3XLs, order 3. The tail sizes are what you can’t fix after the fact, and running out of 2XL is worse than having one spare.
Respect the minimums per size. Some blanks and some decoration methods have limits. A tiny run of an odd size can cost more per piece than a larger batch. Ask your shop before you build a very detailed split.
Don’t pad with mediums. Customers tend to add extra “safe” mediums. Mediums are the size most likely to stay in the box. Add your spare shirts in Large and XL.
Plan for new hires. If your crew grows, order 10 to 15% over your headcount in the middle sizes, and keep the art on file. Our guide on managing merch inventory explains how to keep a reorder from becoming a new setup.
Screen printing versus embroidery: it affects the size run
The decoration method changes which sizes you should worry about, so choose it before you lock your split.
Screen printing suits tees in bulk. A full-chest or back print on a cotton or blend tee holds up through a lot of washes, and the cost per shirt drops as the count goes up. It’s our default for events, bands, teams and giveaways. Print size also matters: a large front print on a Small can look cramped, so we often scale the art down for the smallest sizes, and the opposite for 3XL and up. Tell us if your size run goes wide at both ends. Our write-up on screen print limitations covers the placement details.
Embroidery makes more sense on polos, work shirts, caps and jackets, where a stitched logo survives heavy wear and looks sharper on a collar or a left chest. It’s the better call for staff who face customers: HVAC techs, plumbers, restaurant managers. Left chest placement is fairly forgiving across sizes, but it isn’t unlimited, and we’ve seen a logo that looked right on a Medium sit too high on a 3XL. See our guide to left chest embroidery size for the dimensions we use.
A rough rule from the shop floor: if the shirt gets washed hard and worn often, and the logo is simple, embroidery earns its higher price. If you need volume, color and a lot of shirts, screen print.
Heat transfer has a place on small runs and names-on-the-back jobs, but it tends to crack or peel sooner on garments that get stretched and washed daily. We lay out the tradeoffs in what are the disadvantages of heat transfer printing.
Our perspective: collect sizes, then trust the ratio for the rest
We run this shop in Cedar City, and the pattern is consistent. The jobs that go smoothly are the ones where someone took ten minutes to gather real sizes, even for part of the group. The jobs that cause trouble are the ones where a ratio was used for people who were available to ask.
Our advice is a hybrid. Collect sizes from the people you can reach, such as your own crew, then apply a ratio only to the extras: spares, new hires, or event sales. That gives you accuracy where it’s cheap and a buffer where it isn’t.
We also tell customers to pick one blank for the whole order and stick with it. Changing brands between orders is the quickest way to get a crew that fits differently from one run to the next, and it’s worse than any ratio error.
And don’t let price push you into the cheapest blank when your crew will wear it for years. A shirt that shrinks or twists after a few washes makes every size in your ratio wrong.
— Cohen
Working it out: three quick examples
A 25-person landscaping crew, mostly men. Collect sizes. If you can’t, use the crew ratio: 1 S, 4 M, 8 L, 7 XL, 4 2XL, 1 3XL. Add 3 spares in L and XL.
A 50-shirt club fundraiser. Use the general ratio: 5 S, 10 M, 14 L, 12 XL, 6 2XL, 3 3XL. Consider a few women’s cuts if your membership calls for it.
A band’s first 100-piece run. Use the band ratio on one men’s/unisex tee: 15 S, 28 M, 28 L, 18 XL, 8 2XL, 3 3XL. Split a second, smaller run in a women’s cut if your fans skew female.
In each case, adjust by what you actually know about your people. A ratio is a default.
When Pulse Merch can help
If you’re deciding on sizes, blanks and decoration for a Southern Utah business or band, we can set it up with you before you commit. We screen print, embroider and heat press in-house, and we ship across the U.S. Read more about Pulse Merch, or send us your headcount and we’ll build the size split with you in the quote. Our print shop checklist lists what to ask any shop before you order, ours included.
Before you reorder, also read custom apparel ordering mistakes for the other things that cost people money.
FAQ
What’s a good default size ratio if I have no information?
Start with roughly 10% Small, 20% Medium, 28% Large, 24% XL, 12% 2XL and 6% 3XL and up for a mixed adult group. Shift toward Large and XL for male-heavy crews. Treat it as a starting point and adjust for who is actually wearing the shirts.
Should I order more Mediums to be safe?
Usually not. Mediums are the size most likely to be left over. If you want a buffer, add spares in Large and XL, which are the sizes most groups run short on.
How do I handle tour merch size ratios?
Base it on your audience and your past sales. For a first run, lean toward Medium and Large, keep Small and XL in the middle, and keep 2XL and 3XL smaller. If your fans skew female, add a women’s cut rather than more unisex smalls.
Do I need separate ratios for screen printed and embroidered items?
Often yes. Polos and work shirts for staff are typically ordered by actual size, because people wear them daily and fit matters. Event tees and band merch are more often ordered to a ratio.
Can I fix a wrong size split after printing?
Only by ordering the missing sizes as a new run, which usually means another setup. That’s why we’d rather spend time on the split before we print.