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AS Colour vs Gildan: Which Blank T-Shirt is Right for Your Print Job?
Mar
This guide breaks down everything you need to know to make the right call: weight, fit, print surface, price, colour range, and which jobs each blank genuinely excels at. Both brands are available at wholesale prices through PS Apparel’s AS Colour range and PS Apparel’s Gildan range — so once you’ve decided, you’re one click away.
The quick answer
If you want a brief verdict before diving into the detail:
- Choose AS Colour if print quality, retail feel, and customer satisfaction are your top priorities — and if your margins can absorb a higher blank cost.
- Choose Gildan if you’re printing in volume, running a tight budget, or producing promotional merchandise where cost-per-unit is the deciding factor.
Now let’s look at why.
Brand overview
AS Colour
Founded in New Zealand in 2005, AS Colour built its reputation on a simple idea: make genuinely well-made basics that are actually worth wearing. The brand quickly became a staple for the Australian screen printing and decoration industry, and today it’s arguably the most respected blank apparel brand in the market. The AS Colour Staple Tee and Classic Tee are what most decorators think of first when a client wants “something premium.”
Gildan
Gildan is a Canadian brand and one of the world’s largest manufacturers of blank apparel — producing billions of garments annually across facilities in Central America, Bangladesh, and beyond. That scale is their advantage: Gildan blanks are consistent, widely available, and significantly cheaper per unit than premium alternatives. The Gildan 5000 Heavy Cotton T-Shirt is almost certainly the most printed blank in Australian history.
Head-to-head comparison
| Factor | AS Colour (Staple Tee 5001) | Gildan (5000 Heavy Cotton) |
|---|---|---|
| Weight | 180gsm | 180gsm |
| Fabric | 100% combed & ring-spun cotton | 100% preshrunk cotton (US sizes), cotton/poly (some AUS) |
| Fit | Relaxed, slightly dropped shoulder — fashion-forward | Classic regular fit — true to size, boxy |
| Print surface | Excellent — tighter weave, ink sits cleanly | Very good — smooth, consistent, proven |
| Colour range | 50+ seasonal colourways, updated regularly | 30+ core colours, highly consistent batch to batch |
| Wholesale price | Higher — premium positioning | Lower — volume-friendly pricing |
| Label / feel | Woven stitched label, retail hand feel | Grey pearlised tear away label |
| Size range | XS–5XL | S–5XL |
| Best for | Merch brands, retail, premium uniforms, DTF | Promotional merch, events, bulk orders, budget runs |
Print performance: what decorators need to know
Screen printing
Both blanks perform well under a screen printing press, but for different reasons. The AS Colour Staple’s tighter, combed ring-spun weave holds fine detail better — fine lines and halftones reproduce more crisply. For a merch brand printing a multi-colour design on a fashion tee, the AS Colour result simply looks better straight off the press.
The Gildan 5000, however, is a proven workhorse. Its slightly coarser weave absorbs ink reliably and consistently across thousands of units without variation — which matters enormously when you’re running a 500-piece order and need batch-to-batch uniformity. Most experienced printers can screen print the Gildan 5000 in their sleep, and that familiarity translates to fewer reprints.
DTF (Direct to Film) and heat transfer
AS Colour wins here for finished look. The smoother hand feel and tighter weave means transfer films adhere cleanly and the print lays flatter — important for photographic detail and fine typography. Gildan is still perfectly printable via DTF, but on very detailed designs you may notice slightly more texture showing through on lighter colours.
Embroidery
For embroidery, fabric stability is everything. The Gildan 5000’s slightly denser construction actually provides a slightly firmer embroidery base, making it marginally easier to work with on chest logos and simple text. AS Colour’s softer fabric requires proper backing to prevent puckering on larger embroidery designs, but the finished result on a premium blank is noticeably more retail-quality.
Tip: If you’re not sure which blank suits your specific printing method, contact the PS Apparel team before your next order. We print in-house using all the major methods and can advise based on your artwork and quantities.
Fit and sizing: what your customer actually wears
This is where the two brands diverge most noticeably — and it matters more than most decorators realise, because the blank you choose affects whether end customers reorder.
The AS Colour Staple Tee has a relaxed fit with a slightly dropped shoulder seam — it’s contemporary and fashion-forward without being oversized. It sits well on a wide range of body types and looks intentional rather than generic. Customers who receive a print on an AS Colour tee tend to keep it as a wearable garment long after the event or promotion it was made for. That’s the best marketing a printer can deliver.
The Gildan 5000 is a traditional regular fit — slightly boxy through the body, with a higher armhole and a more structured look. It’s exactly what most people picture when they think “t-shirt.” That’s not a criticism — for workwear, hi-vis underlays, and promotional merchandise, a clean, consistent, traditional fit is exactly right. But if your client is a streetwear label or premium merch brand, the Gildan 5000 will feel dated next to what their customers expect.
Price: the real cost of the cheaper blank
Gildan is unambiguously cheaper per unit at wholesale, typically by a meaningful margin. For a 500-piece event run where the tees will be given away at a festival and the budget is fixed, that saving is real and significant.
But consider the full picture. If a customer reorders because they loved the AS Colour tee they received, the higher blank cost is absorbed across multiple orders. If they never wear the Gildan tee after the event and have no association with your brand or your client’s brand, the “cheaper” blank was actually the more expensive marketing decision.
The right choice depends entirely on the use case — not on which brand costs less per unit.
When to choose AS Colour
- Merch brands, clothing labels, and creative businesses where the tee itself is a product
- Premium corporate gifts and branded uniforms where retail quality matters
- Smaller runs where per-unit cost is less critical than the end result
- Fashion-forward designs where fit and silhouette are part of the creative brief
- DTF and fine-detail screen printing where print surface quality shows up in the result
When to choose Gildan
- Event merchandise, charity runs, and festivals where volume and budget are the brief
- Promotional merchandise that will be given away rather than sold
- School and club fundraisers where affordability matters most
- High-volume orders where consistent batch-to-batch colour accuracy is critical
- Simple 1–2 colour screen prints where the design leads and the blank is secondary
Our recommendation
Use AS Colour as your default blank for any client who will sell or prominently feature the finished garment. Use Gildan as your default blank for event and promotional runs where price and volume are the primary brief. And keep both in stock — because different clients need different solutions, and being able to offer both puts you in a stronger position than a printer who only carries one.
Browse the full AS Colour wholesale range and Gildan wholesale range at PS Apparel, however there are additional choices apart from AS Colour vs Gildan. Explore all wholesale blank t-shirts and singlets in our collection or drop us a note with your projects and we would happily recommend other tees to consider.
Need both blank and printed? PS Apparel supplies the blank stock and prints in-house: screen printing, transfers, embroidery, and sublimation all under one roof.
