Yes, but only with certain production methods. Traditional screen printing and embroidery both require setup work that only makes financial sense spread across many units. Cut and sew sublimation printing has no comparable setup cost per order, so suppliers using that method can produce a single jersey as cost-effectively as a run of fifty.
Screen printing requires a physical screen — a mesh stencil — for each color in a design. Setting up those screens takes time and materials, and that cost is fixed regardless of how many shirts you print. Spread across 100 pieces, the setup fee is manageable. Spread across 5 pieces, it makes the per-unit price painful enough that most print shops simply refuse small runs.
Embroidery has a similar problem: every design has to be digitized into a stitch file, a process that can cost $25 to $75 per design alone before a single thread is sewn. That digitization cost is sunk whether you order 1 jersey or 500.
Neither method is wrong. For a league ordering 200 identical jerseys per season, screen printing is efficient and the unit cost is low. For a youth soccer club that needs 14 jerseys with individual player names, or a company ordering 8 jerseys for a charity tournament, the math stops working.
Sublimation is a printing process where dye is transferred into polyester fabric under heat and pressure, bonding at the molecular level. The result is print that will not peel, flake, or crack because it is part of the fiber rather than sitting on top of it.
Cut and sew means the fabric is printed as flat panels, then cut and sewn into the final garment. Every panel — front, back, sleeves — is printed before construction, so the design covers the entire surface with no white borders, no blank seams, no limits from a screen's frame size.
The critical difference from screen printing: there is no screen to set up. A digital file goes to a printer, the printer outputs exactly as many panels as the order needs, and those panels are sewn. One jersey or fifty, the process is the same. The per-piece cost does not change because the order is small.
One honest tradeoff worth stating upfront: sublimation only works on polyester (or high-polyester blends). If your team wants a 100% cotton jersey with a soft, matte feel, sublimation is not the right tool. You would need DTG (direct-to-garment) placement prints, which work on cotton but are not truly all-over and carry their own limitations on color vibrancy. Most performance jerseys — basketball, soccer, baseball, football, rash guards — are polyester by nature, so this rarely matters. But it is worth knowing before you commit to a method.
Without minimums, the per-piece price is the full cost. There is no bulk discount built into low quantities, because there was never a setup cost to amortize. That sounds like a disadvantage, but compare it honestly to the alternative: with screen printing you might pay a $60 screen fee plus $8 per shirt, meaning a run of 6 jerseys costs you $108 just in setup before the shirts themselves. With on-demand sublimation, you pay the per-piece price for 6 jerseys and nothing else.
For orders above roughly 50 pieces, traditional methods often become cheaper per unit, assuming the design is simple (few colors, placement graphics rather than all-over). For orders under 50 pieces, or any order where the design is complex and all-over, on-demand sublimation is almost always more cost-effective in total.
A few other cost differences that are easy to overlook:
On-demand means the jersey does not exist until you order it. There is no warehouse of finished product waiting to be picked and shipped. The supplier receives your order, prints and sews it, then ships it to you or directly to the end recipient.
Production typically takes 4 to 5 business days. Shipping from China (where most cut and sew sublimation production happens) to the US takes about 2 weeks on standard service, or roughly 9 days on express. That means total time from order to delivery in the US is typically around 2 to 3 weeks on standard, or just under 2 weeks on express. Plan accordingly if you have an event date.
One thing on-demand gets right that pre-printed inventory gets wrong: you never order 20 jerseys to avoid a minimum and end up with 6 extras you paid for and do not need.
The range is wider than most people expect. A full-service cut and sew supplier with 150+ unique products typically covers:
Each of these is available all-over-print, meaning your design — team colors, gradients, sponsor logos, player names — covers the entire garment rather than sitting in a chest-high box.
One production detail worth knowing: on quality cut and sew production, each size gets its own scaled print panels rather than one print scaled by machine. That matters because it keeps logos and text proportional on an XS and a 4XL from the same order.
Yes. White label means the packaging and any inside labels show your brand rather than the supplier's. Most no-minimum cut and sew suppliers offer this regardless of order size — there is no minimum quantity required to unlock it, unlike many wholesale relationships that require 500-unit orders before private labeling becomes available. If you are supplying jerseys for a team, club, or event, the players receive something that looks like your product, not a third-party manufacturer's.
With cut and sew sublimation, yes. Names and numbers are built into the design file for each piece, so there is no per-variation surcharge the way there would be with screen printing or embroidery. You submit a separate design (or a template with variables) for each jersey, and each one prints individually.
Most cut and sew suppliers offer jerseys up to 4XL or 5XL on standard runs, with some products available in dedicated plus-size ranges up to 6XL. Check the specific product's size chart before ordering — and note whether the chart shows garment measurements or body measurements, since this is the most common sizing confusion for first-time buyers. Garment measurements are the actual dimensions of the finished jersey; body measurements are what you put into the garment. They are not the same number.
On-demand production treats a 1-piece order exactly like a 10-piece order in terms of process. There may be a small difference in per-unit shipping efficiency, but there is no minimum order fee or rejection of small quantities. A supplier with no minimums means exactly that.
For US delivery on standard shipping, allow at least 3 weeks from order to arrival to have a comfortable buffer. Express shipping cuts that to about 2 weeks. If your event is in 10 days and you are ordering from a supplier producing in China, express is the only realistic option — and even then, it is tight. Order early if the date is fixed.
Heat transfers apply a printed film on top of the fabric, which can peel or crack over time, especially along creases and seam areas. Cut and sew sublimation bonds dye into the fiber, so the print is permanent for the life of the garment with normal washing. For jerseys that will be worn repeatedly through a season, the durability difference is significant.
E-commerce enthusiast & founder @ Subliminator.
