Custom printing reference
Custom printing & small business statistics.
Official U.S. numbers that help put custom apparel, personalized products, and the businesses behind them in context.
Last updated October 27, 2026The big picture
Custom work lives in a world built by small businesses.
Brooklyn’s Custom Designs makes personal pieces for real occasions, ideas, and local brands. This reference brings together recent public data about small businesses and U.S. printing, making the broader landscape easier to understand and cite.
These figures describe the wider market, not Brooklyn’s Custom Designs’ own sales, capacity, or turnaround times.
34.8M
small businesses in the U.S.
The SBA’s 2024 profile counts 34.8 million small businesses nationwide.
Source: U.S. Small Business Administration, 2024 ↗99.9%
of U.S. businesses are small
Small businesses make up nearly every U.S. business, which keeps local and independent brands central to the economy.
Source: U.S. Small Business Administration, 2024 ↗59.0M
people work for small businesses
The SBA reports that small businesses employ 59.0 million people, or 45.9% of U.S. employees.
Source: U.S. Small Business Administration, 2024 ↗21,354
printing establishments with employees
The Census Bureau’s 2023 profile for the broader U.S. printing industry reports 21,354 employer establishments.
Source: U.S. Census Bureau, 2023 ↗15,140
commercial printing establishments with employees
The Census Bureau’s 2023 profile for commercial printing, excluding screen and book printing, reports 15,140 employer establishments.
Source: U.S. Census Bureau, 2023 ↗1.3M
U.S. establishments opened in one year
Between March 2022 and March 2023, 1.3 million U.S. establishments opened. Small businesses accounted for 1.2 million of those openings.
Source: U.S. Small Business Administration, 2024 ↗Methodology & sources
Built for clear, careful citation.
This page uses public data from the U.S. Small Business Administration and U.S. Census Bureau. Each number above links directly to its source and carries the source’s reported year. The figures are selected for relevance to the small businesses, commercial printers, and creative shops that make custom work possible.
The Census Bureau’s commercial-printing classification specifically includes heat-press printing of apparel and textile products, while noting that classifications depend on the business’s primary activity. Read the Census classification ↗
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Brooklyn’s Custom Designs LLC. “Custom Printing & Small Business Statistics.” Updated October 27, 2026. https://brooklynscustomdesignscomgns.shop/custom-printing-statistics
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