Minimums have a bad reputation because they are usually inherited rather than calculated. "We don't go below 24" is a habit. The question worth answering is: below what point does this job cost more to handle than it earns?
The admin floor nobody costs
Every order, however small, consumes: a quote, an artwork check, a proof, an approval chase, an order entry, a production slot, a pack, a dispatch, an invoice, and sometimes a payment chase. In most shops that is 30 to 60 minutes of non-production time. At a £35 loaded hourly rate, that is £17 to £35 of cost before anyone touches a garment.
That is your true floor, and it applies to every method including the ones with no setup.
Calculating your minimum
- Take your admin floor per order, measured not guessed.
- Add the setup cost for the method in question.
- Divide by the share of revenue you are willing to have those two consume, say 25 percent.
For screen print with a £54 three-screen setup and a £25 admin floor: (54 + 25) / 0.25 = a £316 minimum order value. For DTG with no setup: 25 / 0.25 = £100.
Those numbers will feel high the first time you calculate them. That reaction is the useful part.
Why value beats quantity
| Order | Quantity | Value | 24-piece MOQ | £250 MOV |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cheap tees, one colour | 24 | £180 | Accepted | Declined |
| Embroidered jackets | 8 | £460 | Declined | Accepted |
| Full-colour hoodies | 15 | £520 | Declined | Accepted |
A quantity minimum accepts the worst job on this list and rejects the two best. Value minimums fail far less often.
Softening the floor
- Offer a lower-setup method. The small order you cannot take in screen print is often a good DTF or DTG job.
- Charge a small-order fee instead of refusing. A £30 handling fee converts an unprofitable job into an acceptable one, and customers understand it.
- Waive it for reorders. Repeat art with existing screens genuinely costs less, so a lower floor there is honest rather than arbitrary.
- Keep it out of the way for account customers. Someone spending £2,000 a month can have their twelve-piece job.
Publish it
An unpublished minimum gets argued about on every enquiry. A published one filters before it reaches you and makes the exceptions feel like favours. Put it on your quote template, your stores and your enquiry form.
Cost the order, not the garment
The reason a minimum is necessary is that a large part of your cost per order does not care how many garments are on it. Quoting takes the same time. Proofing takes the same time. Invoicing, packing and answering questions take the same time.
| Activity | Time on a 6-piece order | Time on a 120-piece order |
|---|---|---|
| Quote and specification | 12 min | 15 min |
| Proof and approval handling | 15 min | 18 min |
| Purchasing and receiving | 10 min | 20 min |
| Scheduling and setup | 35 min | 45 min |
| Production | 8 min | 150 min |
| QC, pack, dispatch | 12 min | 40 min |
| Invoice and payment | 8 min | 8 min |
| Total | 100 min | 296 min |
Twenty times the garments for three times the time. That ratio is the entire argument for a floor, and it is also why a minimum order value beats a minimum quantity: what you are protecting is your hours, not your unit count.
Set the number from your own measurement
The honest way to set a minimum is to measure a handful of small orders end to end and price the hours. If small orders are clocked against the job like any other, the job costing report does it for you: sort by margin after labour and the orders below your floor announce themselves.
A usable rule: set your minimum order value so that the smallest order you accept still returns your target margin per shop hour after all of the activities above. For most shops that lands somewhere between £120 and £250, and it varies more by decoration method than by garment.
Three ways through the floor, all of them priced
A minimum works better with doors in it. Each of these keeps the customer and the margin:
- A small order handling fee. Simple, transparent, and it converts most objections in one sentence.
- A stock-design route. Pre-made designs on held blanks, produced in batches, so a single piece has no setup at all. This is what makes single-piece work viable rather than charitable.
- A grouped run. Hold small orders for a scheduled day per method. The customer waits a little, you set up once. On transfers this is the gang sheet argument, and it is the strongest case for a longer lead time on cheap work.
Enforce it where the order is taken
A minimum that lives in an email signature is a suggestion. It needs to be enforced at the two places orders actually arrive: on the quote, where a job under the floor flags before it is sent, and at online checkout, where a store or campaign refuses to close an order below the threshold.
Both of those are settings rather than discipline, and settings survive rush weeks. Publish the same number on your website, so a customer meets it before they invest time in a conversation they were always going to lose.
Printer's Friend can hold a per-method minimum on your price matrix so a quote that falls under it flags before it goes out, and your affiliate stores can enforce their own floor at checkout. See also pricing so you win the job.