Comfort Colors Tees Wholesale: 2026 Buyer's Guide

Which Option Fits Your Operation?

Last updated: September 2026

Bottom line: a case of comfort colors tees wholesale runs $3.75-$6.50 per unit depending on style and color; a print shop or reseller needs a 2.5x-3x markup to absorb blank cost, decoration cost, and platform fees on a finished garment.Comfort Colors' garment-dyed 1717 tee is the single most requested blank in the screen-print and DTG decorator market, and that demand pulls through to resale — a decorated Comfort Colors tee routinely commands $8-12 more at retail than the same design on a standard ringspun blank, as buyers recognize the heavier 6.1 oz fabric and the faded garment-dye look on sight.

Sourcing comfort colors tees wholesale runs through two distinct channels that behave highly differently. Authorized blank-apparel distributors — S&S Activewear, SanMar, alphabroder — sell first-quality stock by the case (typically 72 units per case for the 1717) at fixed, published pricing with same-week shipping.

Liquidation and overstock channels sell irregulars, discontinued colorways, and closeout runs at 30-50% below distributor pricing, but with less certainty on size-run completeness and color consistency between units.

Matching the channel to what gets printed on it

A decorator running custom orders for a specific client color and size needs the distributor channel — comfort colors tees wholesale from S&S or SanMar guarantees the exact shade and full size run a print job requires, and the 10-15% price premium over liquidation stock is cheap insurance against a client rejecting an off-shade shirt.

A reseller building pre-decorated inventory to sell on Etsy, Poshmark, or at markets has more flexibility and can buy liquidated Comfort Colors overstock at $3.75-$4.25 per unit, accepting a narrower color-and-size selection in exchange for a lower blank cost that widens margin on every unit sold.

Case quantity matters as much as per-unit price. Most distributors sell the 1717 by full case only — 72 units in a single size, or a pre-packed size run across a case — which means a small print shop testing a new color has to commit to 72 units minimum even for a one-off client request.

Liquidation lots break that constraint: a 150-unit mixed-color, mixed-size pallet of comfort colors tees wholesale overstock lets a reseller sample multiple colors for under $600 without locking into a full case of a single shade that may not sell.

How Do the Main Sources for Comfort Colors Tees Wholesale Compare?

Every one of these four channels sells comfort colors tees wholesale, but the price gap between the cheapest and most expensive option is roughly 2.5x per unit, and that gap exists because each channel is solving a different problem for the buyer. A print shop chasing a specific Pantone-matched color for a corporate client cannot use a mixed liquidation lot no matter how attractive the per-unit price looks, while a reseller pre-decorating shirts for general retail has no reason to pay full distributor price for guaranteed color consistency they don't need.

Why the distributor premium exists — and when it's worth paying

S&S Activewear and SanMar both operate as authorized Comfort Colors distributors, meaning every unit is first-quality, tagged, and guaranteed to match the ordered color and size. That guarantee costs $1.50-$2.75 more per unit than liquidation stock, which on a 72-unit case adds up to $108-$198 in extra cost.

For a decorator running a client job where a mismatched shade means a redo or a refund, that premium is cheap insurance — a single rejected order on a $500 client job costs far more than the case-level markup.

Comfort colors tees wholesale bought this way on top of that ships same-week from most regional distribution centers, (a pattern we see repeatedly),which matters when a print shop is working against a client deadline rather than building stock at leisure.

Where the distributor model breaks down is minimum order flexibility. Both S&S and alphabroder sell by the case, and testing a current color or building a small trial batch of five or six shirts in a color the shop hasn't stocked before means buying 72 units regardless of actual call for. That's the gap liquidation and factory-second channels fill.

What liquidation and irregular lots actually deliver

A 200-unit liquidation lot of comfort colors tees wholesale overstock, priced around $4.25 per unit ($850 total), typically spans 4-6 colors. A full adult size range S-3XL, pulled from distributor overstock or discontinued seasonal colors.

The trade-off is predictability: a buyer doesn't choose the exact color mix, and roughly 5-10% of units in a mixed lot may carry a minor irregularity — a slightly uneven garment dye or a mislabeled size tag — that a first-quality buyer from SanMar would never see.

For a reseller building inventory to sell finished, decorated shirts on Etsy or at a local market, that trade-off is usually worth it: the $1.50-$2 per unit saved funds the print or embroidery cost on the front end. , according to U.S. wholesale trade data from Census Bureau

Factory-second and irregular pallets go a step further on price and a step further on risk. At $2.50-$3.50 per unit, a 300-unit pallet costs $750-$1,050, roughly half of distributor pricing.

Expect 15-20% of units to carry a visible flaw — an off-center dye job, a small hole near a seam, or a printed size tag that doesn't match the actual cut. These lots work well for large-graphic screen prints or full-front DTG designs that cover or distract from minor flaws.

Poorly for anything requiring a clean, unprinted garment surface like a pocket tee or a subtle embroidery placement.

Freight and volume discounts change the math on all four channels once a buyer moves past a single case or single pallet. S&S and SanMar both offer volume breaks starting around 10-case orders, which can push per-unit cost on comfort colors tees wholesale down toward $5.00 for a shop ordering multiple colors at once.

Liquidation sellers rarely offer that kind of tiered discount on a single lot, but buying two or three lots from the same source over a few months often unlocks a repeat-buyer rate 5-8% below the first-lot price, since the supplier is clearing inventory faster with a known, reliable buyer.

Quick tangent — I use the Closo Crosslister to track what is actually moving right now, which saves me about three hours a week of manual search. Worth a peek before your next haul.

What Does the Resale Data Actually Show?

Bottom line: decorated Comfort Colors tees sourced through comfort colors tees wholesale channels sell through 25-35% faster than the same design printed on a standard ringspun blank, and the garment-dye colorway a buyer picks predicts sell-through as much as the print design itself.Sellers running boutique-style storefronts on Etsy, Poshmark, and at pop-up markets consistently report that neutral and pastel Comfort Colors colorways — Ivory, Blossom, Chalky Mint — outsell saturated colors like True Navy or Crimson by a wide margin in spring and summer, while the reverse holds from September through December.

Seasonality changes the reorder math more than most sellers price for. A seller who buys a 200-unit comfort colors tees wholesale lot weighted 60% pastel colors in March will typically clear that inventory in 5-7 weeks; the same lot bought in October with the same color mix can sit for 12+ weeks. The pastel colors are out of season demand.

Sellers who track their own sell-through by color, not just by design, consistently find that a $4.25 shirt in the right seasonal color outperforms a $3.75 shirt in the wrong one, even before accounting for the print cost layered on top.

Where the margin actually lands after decoration

A typical DTG or screen-print job on a Comfort Colors 1717 blank costs $2.50-$4.00 per unit depending on design complexity. Print run size, on top of a $4.25-$6.50 blank cost from comfort colors tees wholesale sourcing. That puts total cost-of-goods at $6.75-$10.50 per finished shirt.

Retail pricing for a decorated Comfort Colors tee typically runs $28-$38 on Etsy or at in-person markets, which nets a gross margin of roughly 65-75% before marketplace fees. After Etsy's 6.5% transaction fee plus payment processing, or Poshmark's flat 20% commission on sales over $15, realized margin typically settles between 45%.

55% — still strong for the category, but meaningfully below the headline gross number.

Bundle behavior differs from plain-blank resale too.

Buyers shopping for decorated Comfort Colors tees rarely buy just one; sellers report average order values 30-40% higher than single-unit transactions when a storefront offers matching designs across two or three colorways, since Comfort Colors' garment-dye finish photographs distinctly enough that buyers can visually tell it apart from cheaper blanks and want more than one.

Size distribution inside a lot affects sell-through in a way many buyers underweight.

Comfort Colors' garment-dye process runs on a heavier cotton than most competing blanks, which pushes buyer preference toward true-to-size or one-size-up fits — meaning a comfort colors tees wholesale lot skewed toward mid-range sizes (M, L, XL) clears faster than one weighted toward extremes (S, 2XL, 3XL), since the middle of the size curve simply represents more of the buying population.

A 200-unit lot with 55% of units in M-XL sells at a materially different pace than the same unit count spread evenly across S through 3XL, even when the color mix. Design are identical. , according to SBA wholesale business resources

What Questions Come Up Before You Buy?

What's a realistic starting order for comfort colors tees wholesale?

Most first-time buyers start with a single 72-unit case from a distributor like S&S Activewear (roughly $400-$470) or a 100-150 unit liquidation lot ($375-$640) to test a specific color and size mix. Agreeing to multiple cases before confirming which colors sell in a given market usually ties up capital in shirts that sit past a season.

Are liquidation Comfort Colors tees the same product as distributor stock?

Mostly yes — liquidation lots are typically genuine overstock or discontinued-color runs pulled from the same manufacturing supply as distributor stock, not a separate lower-grade product. The difference is quality control: distributor stock is guaranteed first-quality, while liquidation lots may include 5-10% units with minor irregularities like uneven dye or a mislabeled tag.

How much markup does a decorated Comfort Colors tee support?

With blank cost at $4.25-$6.50 and decoration at $2.50-$4.00, total cost typically runs $6.75-$10.50 per shirt. Retail pricing of $28-$38 nets 45-55% realized margin after marketplace fees, which is 10-15 points higher than the same margin on a standard ringspun blank, reflecting the price premium buyers pay for garment-dyed Comfort Colors fabric.

Which Comfort Colors colors move fastest for resale?

Neutral and pastel colorways — Ivory, Chalky Mint, Blossom — outperform in spring and summer, while saturated tones like True Navy and Crimson sell better September through December.

A lot mismatched to the current season can take 2-3x longer to clear even at an identical unit cost, so timing the buy to the calendar matters as much as the color choice itself.

Do I need a resale certificate to buy comfort colors tees wholesale?

Distributors like SanMar and alphabroder generally require a business license or resale certificate to open a wholesale account, since they sell only to businesses, not individual consumers. Liquidation marketplaces are typically more flexible and will sell to individual resellers without a resale certificate, though having one avoids paying sales tax on inventory purchased for resale in most states.

Where Do You Go From Here?

Bottom line: a first buy of comfort colors tees wholesale in the $400-$650 range, matched to the current season's color demand, is the lowest-risk way to test which colorways and sizes actually move in a given market before pledging to multi-case orders.Sellers who succeed in this category treat the first case or lot as a data point — tracking which colors sell fast, which sizes clear first, and what the realized margin looks like after decoration and platform fees — rather than betting a full season's budget on one supplier or one color mix.

Building a repeatable sourcing rhythm

Once a lot of comfort colors tees wholesale sells through and the numbers are clear — say a 150-unit test buy at $4.25 per unit nets $520 after decoration.

Fees over six weeks — that result tells a seller whether to reorder the same color mix, shift toward a distributor for guaranteed colors on client work, or expand into a second liquidation lot from the same supplier.

Sellers running multiple marketplaces at once — Etsy for custom orders, Poshmark for pre-decorated inventory, a local market booth on weekends — face a listing-speed bottleneck once sourcing is dialed in, since each finished shirt needs its own photos. Description across every channel it sells on.

The Closo blog distribution point covers both halves of that operation: sourcing economics for wholesale apparel categories like this one. The cross-platform listing tools that keep inventory synced once it's live across marketplaces.

Capital pacing matters here the same method it does in any wholesale category: scaling from a single test case to a 500-unit distributor order in one jump leaves no room to correct a color or size mistake before it's already paid for.

Moving in stages — one case or lot proven out, then a modest reorder, then a larger volume commitment once a specific color and size range consistently sells within six to eight weeks — keeps a bad guess contained to a few hundred dollars instead of a full season's inventory budget.