Custom Printing for Marketing Agencies: White Label, Trade Pricing and Bulk Options

White label printing means we produce your custom garments and ship them in completely plain packaging, with zero Brandum branding anywhere. Your client never knows we exist. We handle the printing, packing and dispatch; you handle the client relationship and keep the margin.

About 30% of our monthly orders now come from agencies, resellers and freelance designers who use us this way. This guide covers exactly how it works, what it costs at trade volumes, and how to build printed merchandise into your agency's offering without buying a single heat press.

What Does White Label Printing Actually Mean?

In practical terms, it means three things. First, every order leaves our East London workshop in unbranded poly bags or plain brown boxes. No Brandum stickers, no invoices, no business cards tucked inside. Second, we can ship directly to your client's address (or multiple addresses if it's a multi-site rollout) using a plain shipping label. Third, we never contact your end client. If there's a query about an order, you come to us, and you relay the answer.

This is different from private label, where we'd be producing garments exclusively for one brand with sewn-in branded labels and neck prints. We offer that too (our custom t-shirt printing page has the details), but white label is the simpler, faster option that most agencies start with.

One thing worth saying upfront: white label works brilliantly for printed garments, but embroidery orders are harder to keep anonymous because the production time is longer and the proofing process sometimes needs direct communication. For embroidered workwear, we usually recommend a slightly different workflow where you stay more involved in the approval stages. Our embroidery page explains the process.

How Does Trade Pricing Work for Agencies?

We run a tiered trade pricing structure. The more you order across a quarter, the better your per-unit rate gets. Here's a realistic breakdown using our most popular blank, the Gildan GD005 Heavy Cotton Tee, with a single-position DTF print (up to A3 size):

These prices include the blank garment, DTF transfer, pressing and plain packaging. They don't include delivery (which runs £5.95–£8.95 for most UK orders) or artwork setup, which is free if you send us print-ready files.

The margins are healthy. I've seen agencies charge anywhere from £10 to £18 per printed tee depending on the end client. A design agency pitching to a premium restaurant chain will charge more than a social media manager ordering staff tees for a startup. Both are using the same base product from us.

One thing that catches agencies out: we price per colourway of garment, not per design. If your client wants 50 black tees and 50 white tees with the same print, that's two runs of 50, not one run of 100. The setup is the same either way, but the blank garment price differs slightly between colours on some ranges.

For DTF transfers on their own (ready-to-press sheets without garments), trade pricing starts at about £1.60 per A4 transfer at volumes over 50. Some of our agency clients buy transfers in bulk and press them onto garments they source themselves. That works well if you've got your own heat press or a client who does.

What Kind of Agencies Use This?

The mix has shifted in the two years we've been running trade accounts. Early on it was mostly small design studios ordering 20–30 tees for a client's brand launch. Now we work with four broad groups.

Marketing agencies are the biggest segment. They pitch branded merchandise as part of wider campaigns. One Shoreditch agency sends us work every six to eight weeks tied to their clients' product launches and seasonal pushes. Their average order is around 80 pieces across tees, hoodies and tote bags. They mark everything up about 65% and present it to clients as part of a packaged campaign cost.

Event companies are the most time-sensitive. We did a job last September for an events firm that needed 200 printed crew tees for a Hackney food festival. They confirmed artwork on Monday afternoon. We dispatched Wednesday morning. That kind of turnaround only works because we keep popular blanks (Gildan, Fruit of the Loom, AWDis) in stock and our DTF printers run daily. If they'd wanted Stanley/Stella or Bella+Canvas in unusual sizes, we'd have needed an extra day or two for blank sourcing. Our blank garment comparison guide is worth reading if your clients care about the garment brand.

Freelance designers and brand consultants make up about 20% of our trade accounts. They're building brand identity packages for startups and small businesses, and printed merchandise is part of the deliverable. Volumes are smaller (typically 10–30 pieces) but the work is consistent.

The fourth group is print resellers, people running Etsy shops, Shopify stores or local merch services who don't own printing equipment. They take orders through their own website, forward them to us, and we produce and ship. Our guide on DTF for Etsy shops and small brands covers this model in detail.

How We Handle Artwork Across Multiple Client Brands

This is where agency work gets complicated, and honestly, it's where the most mistakes happen. When you're managing printed merch for six different clients through one supplier, file management becomes critical.

We need artwork as PDF, PNG or AI files at 300 DPI minimum, in the exact print dimensions. CMYK colour space preferred, but we can convert from RGB (our colour management guide explains why this matters for colour accuracy).

What we've learned from working with agencies is that a shared Google Drive folder with subfolders per client works better than email attachments. We've had situations where an agency emailed six different artwork files for six different clients in one thread, and the file names were all "logo_final_v2.pdf". That's a recipe for printing the wrong logo on someone's staff uniforms.

Our proofing process for agency accounts works like this: you submit artwork, we send back a digital mockup within 24 hours showing the print positioned on the actual garment colour you've ordered. You approve or request changes. We don't start printing until you've signed off. For first orders with a new client brand, I'd always recommend ordering a single sample first. It costs the same per unit as a small order, but it lets you check colours, positioning and garment fit before committing to 200 pieces.

What Doesn't Work Well (Honest Limitations)

White label printing through us isn't the right fit for every situation, and I'd rather tell you that upfront than have you find out mid-project.

Large-volume single-colour orders above 500 units are often cheaper through screen printing. We use DTF for everything, which is brilliant for full-colour, photo-quality designs at low to medium volumes. But if your client wants 1,000 black tees with a one-colour white logo, a screen printer will beat us on per-unit cost. DTF's strength is flexibility and colour range, not competing on price for massive single-colour runs. Our print method comparison guide breaks down exactly when each method makes sense.

We can't do same-day turnaround consistently. If it's a quiet week and you need 20 tees urgently, we can sometimes get them out same day. But I won't promise that as a standard offering because it depends on what else is running through the workshop. 48-hour rush is reliable. Same-day is a favour, not a service.

We also don't currently offer automated API integration for Shopify or WooCommerce stores. If you're a reseller doing high-volume drop-shipping with dozens of orders daily, you'll need a print-on-demand platform with direct e-commerce integration. We're better suited to agencies and resellers placing consolidated orders of 10+ units, where there's a human placing the order and reviewing the proof.

Waterproof and technical fabrics are tricky with DTF. The coating on waterproof jackets stops the adhesive powder from bonding properly. For outdoor workwear, we'd steer you towards embroidery instead.

How to Pitch Printed Merchandise to Your Clients

If you're an agency that hasn't offered custom printing before, here's what works based on what our most successful agency partners do.

Start with a sample kit. Order five or six pieces across different garments (a tee, a hoodie, a tote bag, a polo) printed with either your agency's own branding or a generic "sample" design. Physical samples close deals that PDFs and mockups can't. Research from the Promotional Products Association International found that 76.2% of promotional product recipients could recall the specific product, the advertiser and the message up to two years after receiving it. A well-printed hoodie sitting on a client's desk sells harder than any pitch deck.

Price it as a package, not a line item. The agencies making the best margins from us don't sell "50 printed t-shirts at £12 each." They sell "a branded merchandise package for your product launch" at a project fee that includes design, print, packaging and delivery. When merch is buried inside a campaign budget, nobody's Googling whether they could get tees cheaper elsewhere.

The UK promotional merchandise market hit £1.23 billion in 2024 according to Sourcing City's annual report for the BPMA, growing 4.2% year-on-year even while the wider UK economy only grew 0.8%. Wearables are the single largest segment of that spend. There's real money in this for agencies willing to add it to their services.

Setting Up a Trade Account with Brandum

There's no application form or minimum commitment. Email us or get in touch through the website and tell us you're an agency or reseller looking for trade pricing. We'll set up your account, walk through pricing for the products you're interested in, and send you a rate card.

From there, the process for each order is straightforward. You send us artwork and tell us what garments, sizes and quantities you need. We send back a mockup proof. You approve it. We print, pack in plain packaging and ship wherever you need it to go. Payment is upfront for new accounts. After three completed orders, we can discuss 14-day terms.

If you want to test the quality before committing to a trade relationship, order a few pieces at retail through our website first. We'd rather you see the print quality in person than take our word for it.