How Wholesale Apparel Pricing Actually Works
By The Velocity Wear Team
When a wholesale quote lands in your inbox, it usually shows a single number per garment. That number hides a whole structure of decisions — fabric weight, cut complexity, decoration method, order size and freight — and once you can see those parts, you stop guessing and start negotiating from a position of real understanding.
The four cost pillars inside every garment
Almost every apparel price can be decomposed into four pillars: materials, labour, decoration and overhead. Materials cover the fabric, thread, zips, drawcords, labels and packaging. Labour covers cutting, sewing, finishing and quality checks. Decoration covers printing or embroidery. Overhead covers the factory’s rent, machinery, energy and the margin it needs to stay in business. A good supplier can tell you roughly how each pillar contributes.
- Materials: typically 35–55% of a blank garment cost, driven mostly by fabric weight in GSM.
- Labour: 15–30%, higher for complex cuts like structured jackets or lined trousers.
- Decoration: varies wildly — a one-colour print is pennies; a large embroidery can rival the blank.
- Overhead and margin: the remainder, where order size has the biggest leverage.
Why fabric weight drives more than you think
Fabric is sold by weight, so a 320 GSM heavyweight hoodie genuinely uses more cotton than a 240 GSM mid-weight one. The difference is not just feel — it is raw kilograms of material multiplied across your whole run. If you are price-sensitive, ask what a small GSM reduction does to the unit cost before you assume a supplier is simply expensive. Conversely, a suspiciously cheap “premium” hoodie is often lighter fabric than the photos suggest.
How order quantity bends the curve
Wholesale pricing is built on amortisation. Setup costs — digitising an embroidery file, burning screens, sampling, machine calibration — are largely fixed. Spread across 20 pieces they hurt; spread across 500 they almost disappear. That is why tiered pricing exists, and why the gap between a 50-piece and 200-piece price is often larger than people expect.
- 1Identify the fixed setup costs in your quote (screens, digitising, sampling).
- 2Ask the supplier where the next price break sits — it is often closer than you think.
- 3Calculate whether ordering slightly more per style drops you into a cheaper tier.
- 4Consolidate colours or designs to share setup across more units.
Decoration: the most misunderstood line
Decoration pricing confuses buyers because the methods scale differently. Screen printing has a per-colour setup but a tiny per-unit cost, so it rewards volume and punishes many colours. DTF and sublimation handle full-colour artwork with no screen fees, making them efficient for short, complex runs. Embroidery is priced by stitch count, so a dense logo on a cap can cost more than the cap. Match the method to the artwork and the quantity, not to habit.
A quick rule of thumb
- Simple 1–3 colour logo, large run: screen printing wins on cost.
- Photographic or many-colour artwork: DTF or sublimation.
- Premium, durable branding on hoodies, polos and caps: embroidery.
- 3D puff for caps and headwear when you want a raised, structured look.
The hidden lines: freight, duties and packaging
A quote that looks cheap “ex-works” can become expensive once you add shipping, import duty and VAT. Always confirm whether a price is the factory-gate cost or a delivered cost, and ask how the goods are packed — individual polybags, size-run cartons and clear labelling save you hours at the receiving end and reduce mix-ups.
“The cheapest unit price is not the cheapest order. Landed cost — everything to your door — is the only number worth comparing.”
Reading a quote like a buyer, not a shopper
When you next receive a quote, mentally sort every line into the four pillars and the hidden lines. If a supplier cannot break their price down at all, that is a signal in itself. The best partners are comfortable showing you the structure because their pricing is honest, and that transparency is what lets you plan margins and reorder with confidence.
Velocity Wear builds quotes this way on purpose — clear per-unit pricing with tiered bulk discounts from a 20-piece minimum, decoration matched to your artwork, and tracked delivery to the UK, USA, Europe and worldwide. Send your specs for a free, itemised quote and you will see exactly where every cost sits.