There are a lot of companies that print custom t-shirts. Online services, local shops, fulfillment centers, print-on-demand platforms — the options are endless, and most of them will happily take your money. So how do you figure out which one is actually good?
After running a custom t-shirt shop in Austin since 2013, we’ve seen what makes customers come back — and we’ve heard plenty of stories about what made them leave somewhere else. Here’s what we think actually matters when you’re choosing who prints your shirts.
They care about the shirt, not just the print
A lot of companies focus entirely on getting ink on fabric and calling it done. But the shirt itself matters just as much as what’s printed on it. If the blank is stiff, boxy, or cheap-feeling, nobody wears it — and your print ends up in a drawer regardless of how good it looks.
A good custom t-shirt company will talk to you about the garment, not just the design. They’ll ask what the shirts are for, who’s wearing them, and how they’ll be used — then recommend a blank that fits the situation. We stock economy, standard, and premium options specifically because one size doesn’t fit all projects. A company event calls for something different than a construction crew, and both are different from retail merch.
They show you a proof before they print
This sounds basic, but not every company does it — especially the big online ones. Some just take your file and run it. If the placement is off, the color is wrong, or there’s a typo, you find out when you open the box.
We send a digital proof on every single order and nothing gets printed until you approve it. That’s a checkpoint that protects both of us. It takes a few minutes and it’s saved countless orders from going sideways.
Their pricing is honest
Watch out for companies that quote a low per-shirt price and then add fees for setup, screens, artwork, color changes, and rush processing. By the time you get the final invoice, the price per shirt is double what you expected.
We don’t charge setup fees on most orders. Our pricing is straightforward: the cost of the blank shirt plus the printing cost, based on quantity and number of colors. If something will cost extra — like an underbase on a dark shirt or a jumbo print — we tell you upfront before we start. No surprises at pickup.
You can talk to the person printing your shirts
When you order from a large online company, your point of contact is a support form. When something goes wrong or you need to change something mid-order, you’re waiting on an email thread with someone who’s never seen your artwork and doesn’t know your deadline.
With a local shop, you pick up the phone or walk in. The person you talk to is the person who knows your order. For anything on a deadline — which is most custom shirt orders — that direct line matters more than any other factor.
The print lasts
A cheap print looks fine on day one. The difference shows up after a few washes — cracking, peeling, fading. Proper curing is what separates a print that holds up for years from one that falls apart in months, and it’s the step most people can’t see.
Every order we run gets cured at the right temperature for the right amount of time. That’s not glamorous and nobody puts it on their website banner, but it’s the reason our customers come back wearing shirts we printed three years ago that still look sharp.
They’ll tell you when they’re not the right fit
This is the one that most companies won’t do. If someone comes to us needing 6 shirts with a full-color photo print, screen printing isn’t the best method for that — and we’ll say so. We’d rather point you toward the right solution than take an order that won’t turn out the way you hoped.
A company that takes every order regardless of fit is optimizing for their revenue, not your result. A company that occasionally says “this isn’t the best fit for what you need” is the one you can trust when they say “this will turn out great.”
The bottom line
The best custom t-shirt company isn’t always the cheapest, and it’s not always the one with the fanciest website. It’s the one that cares about the garment as much as the print, gives you a proof before they run, prices honestly, and actually answers the phone when you call. That’s the standard we hold ourselves to at Oh Boy! Print Shop, and it’s what we’d tell you to look for anywhere.
If you’ve got a project in mind, get a quote and see what working with a shop that gives a damn feels like.
