Blog / Beginner's handbook / How Much Does It Cost to Start a Clothing Line?
Blog / Beginner's handbook / How Much Does It Cost to Start a Clothing Line?
In this guide, we’ll unfold the layers of how much does it cost to start a clothing line: materials, production, design, labor, and other critical costs included. Understanding these expenses is important to start a clothing business with realistic expectations—it will help create a solid business plan and build a successful business.
Starting a clothing line can cost anywhere from $100 to several thousand dollars, depending on the scale and business model. Clothing line costs vary depending on the production process, materials, marketing, and other aspects.
If you want less upfront costs, you can use the print-on-demand (POD) business model for your clothing brand. The POD model eliminates buying inventory in bulk, which means you must only cover the setup and marketing costs of your online store and pay for the products you sell.
Source: ChatGPT
Let’s get into the specific costs of launching your clothing business. This overview will give you a good understanding of how the costs of starting a clothing line compare depending on the manufacturing model you choose.
Starting your own clothing line from scratch requires a substantial investment, covering materials, production, and operations. In contrast, the upfront investment to sell clothes with a print-on-demand (POD) service is minimal. The POD model allows you to direct your spending on design and marketing, making it ideal for newcomers with limited capital, as it lowers the financial barriers to entering the fashion industry.
Some expenses, like marketing costs, are inevitable regardless of the business model you’ve chosen for your fashion business.
Now, let’s look at the startup costs for small businesses more closely.
We’ll begin by looking at how much it costs to get your fashion brand off the ground. There’s a stark difference between the capital needed to start a clothing line yourself and using a POD provider.
Read more: How to Grow Your Brand with On-Demand Clothing Manufacturing
Launching a clothing line with self-managed manufacturing includes raw materials, pattern maker costs, manufacturing costs, quality control, and packaging.
We’ll delve into the expenses involved in greater detail, starting with raw materials. Material costs vary widely, from $1 to $40 per yard for fabric, depending on quality, quantity, and origin.
Pattern drafting, a critical step in creating unique garments, may range between $200 and $2000, depending on design complexity. The difference in costs for pattern drafting comes down to the skill and time needed to make clothes look and fit just right. Even a simple garment like a t-shirt takes a lot of know-how to fit and look well. Good pattern makers understand:
How fabrics work (e.g., which fabric suits a particular garment)
How to do grading—create a range of sizes for each design, ensuring each size maintains the correct proportions and fit of the original pattern
How to measure bodies accurately
Their expertise affects the quality of the clothes and how much people will like them.
Self-managed manufacturing costs include:
Labor—payments to skilled workers for cutting, sewing, and finishing the garments. The expenses will vary depending on how many employees you have, how much they must work, and the benefits you want to offer.
Equipment—costs for sewing machines, cutting tables, and other equipment. Take into consideration that you need to buy and upkeep the machinery.
Utilities—electricity, water, and other utilities needed to operate the manufacturing facility. These will vary greatly depending on your manufacturing site’s location.
Quality control—costs for inspecting and ensuring each garment meets the desired quality standards.
Packaging—expenses for labels, tags, bags, or boxes used to package the final products. The manufacturing cost of the packaging depends on the materials you decide to use.
Transportation—costs to ship materials to the manufacturing site and to distribute the finished products to stores or customers. Delivery costs are fully dependent on the shipping company you partner with.
To get more precise information on the expenses you can expect, research the materials you plan to use and the suppliers that offer them. Plus, research the available shipping partners to find the best deals.
Now, the expenses involved with customizing ready-made clothing are considerably lower. That’s because most of the work is done by clothing manufacturers. There are 2 ways to go about pre-made garments:
Bulk. Buying pre-made garments in large quantities at wholesale prices means lower costs per item but requires a significant upfront investment. It’s excellent for large orders or collections but demands careful inventory management to avoid excess stock. Plus, there are extra costs for storage.
Print-on-demand. Costs per item are higher, but this model offers flexibility and scalability, ideal for testing the market or catering to niche preferences without the burden of holding stock. The product options are limited to your POD partner’s product catalog.
Let’s examine how much a white Bella + Canvas 3001 staple t-shirt would cost you using each model. Below you can see how much this t-shirt would cost if you bought it with Shirt Space.
Source: Shirt Space
It’s important to note that this price covers a plain, white tee. Additionally, you’d pay for warehousing and fulfillment. To buy the same tee with Printful, you’d pay $11.50.
Source: Printful
That’s more than double the wholesale price, but warehousing, fulfillment, and print are already included. Plus, you don’t have to worry about managing inventory or dealing with unsold stock.
Printful’s fulfillment facility. Source: Printful
As you venture into the design phase of your clothing line, you’re presented with a choice of hiring a professional designer or embracing the challenge yourself. Each option has its merits, shaped by your budget, expertise, and vision for your brand.
Hiring a professional designer ensures your ideas are polished and professional, with costs varying from a few dollars to several hundred. The price tag reflects the designer’s experience, reputation, and the complexity of your design. Hiring an established designer to create your clothing line is a wonderful way to free up your time. When budgeting for a designer, consider their portfolio and how their style aligns with your brand.
You can hire a freelance designer through Fiverr with 10% off your first order. Learn more about the coupon code and how to use it here. As you can see in the screenshot below, you can get designs for custom t-shirts starting from $10.
Source: Fiverr
For those looking to trim costs or take a hands-on approach, there are free design tools that help bring your creative vision to life. E.g., Canva is incredibly user-friendly and offers a wealth of templates, graphics, and fonts perfect for beginners. It enables you to design everything from logos and labels to promotional materials. Canva also provides tutorials and resources to help refine your designs, making it a terrific tool for clothing line owners who want to manage their visual branding directly.
Source: Canva
Alternatively, you can create your designs straight in Printful’s Design Maker. It provides free design tools and resources for design creation and adjustment. We’ve created a handy blog about Design Maker’s features to explain its possibilities. You can also create product mockups for your social media accounts with the Design Maker.
Tips for success:
If you spend money on a designer, communicate your vision clearly and provide examples of styles you like
Explore multiple design platforms to find the one that best suits your needs
Consider taking online courses or tutorials to enhance your design skills if opting for the DIY route
Choosing between professional design services and DIY tools depends on your budget, time, and desired involvement level. By carefully weighing the costs and benefits, you can select a path that aligns with your business goals and creative vision.
You’ll also need to build an online store, so your clients can find and buy your collection. There are 3 routes you can take—hire a professional website designer, build a custom website on an ecommerce platform, or open an online store on an ecommerce marketplace.
Ecommerce platform is like a toolbox you use to build your store as a standalone website.
Ecommerce marketplace is like a digital shopping mall where many smaller vendors set up their stores.
Hiring a professional website designer will be the most expensive way to go about it. Here are the professional web designer service prices on Fiverr.
Source: Fiverr
Platforms and marketplaces cost less than a designer but still entail some expenses. Most have a monthly fee to get valuable tools for building, personalization, or analytics.
Valuable read:
Top 10 Best Ecommerce Platforms for Dropshipping Business
Top 10 Best Online Marketplaces for Print-on-Demand Sellers
For example, let’s look at Wix, one of the most popular website builders in 2023. It’s one of the top ecommerce platforms for dropshipping because of the intuitive drag-and-drop interface.
Source: Statista
Wix subscription plans start at $27/month.
Source: Wix
Additionally, you pay a percentage-based transaction fee per order.
Source: Wix
There are other costs you may endure, depending on your chosen platform. E.g., listing fee, additional plugins, cost for customization, or premium features.
When starting, many store owners will take on the full workload of running a fashion brand. But as the business grows, it might be more cost-effective to delegate some of the workload to hired help.
To hire a full-time employee, you must know a lot of legal requirements: taxes, regulations, laws, etc. It’s much easier to hire a freelancer using platforms like:
It’s worth mentioning that many successful print-on-demand stores are run by the store owner, so don’t feel like you must hire people to run a profitable business.
In both business models, you might have to spend money on marketing to gain visibility and reach the target market faster. Marketing expenses vary widely, from paid ads on search engines and social media advertising to influencer partnerships and sponsored content placements.
Paid marketing allows you to reach people fast and is great for boosting brand visibility and driving immediate sales. But paid marketing should complement organic brand growth strategies like SEO for a balanced approach.
Some tips to ensure your marketing budget is spent well:
Target precisely—use demographic and psychographic data for laser-focused targeting
Invest in quality visuals—high-quality visuals and videos are non-negotiable
Monitor and adjust—continuously review campaign performance and tweak for better results
Engage with influencers—partner with influencers who align with your brand to reach your target audience
Use retargeting—implement retargeting campaigns to convert interested visitors into buyers
Building a strong organic presence supports long-term growth and fosters genuine customer relationships. Here’s what to look out for:
SEO optimization—ensure your website and content are optimized for search engines to increase visibility
Engage on social media—regularly post engaging content and interact with your followers
Create valuable content—offer informative, interesting content that resonates with your audience
Use email marketing—build a mailing list and send out newsletters and offers to keep your brand top of mind
Encourage user-generated content—inspire your customers to share their experiences with your brand, enhancing credibility and reach
A balanced marketing strategy combining paid and organic efforts is key to a successful clothing line. You can build a brand that reaches and connects its target audience by fine-tuning your approach to include targeted paid campaigns and authentic organic interactions.
Shipping companies often offer better rates as the product volume increases. That’s why print-on-demand companies get lower rates—they ship large product quantities. Plus, they often partner with multiple shipping carriers for competitive pricing and to get a range of options, ensuring flexibility and efficiency in fulfilling orders.
If you partner with Printful, you can customize the tracking page, so you and your customers can follow the product journey. To see the shipping speed and pricing for Printful, check out our shipping page.
Printful’s shipping partners. Source: Printful
When managing your own clothing line, you must find a balance between affordable shipping for your customers and maintaining your profit margins. Negotiating rates with shipping carriers, considering hybrid shipping services, and offering tiered shipping options can help reduce the costs involved with shipping.
In the fashion industry, the women’s apparel segment brings in most of the revenue, so it might be considered the most profitable segment for a clothing company. This segment’s success is attributed to a wide range of products, high demand for the latest fashion trends, and frequent shopping habits.Source: Statista
It’s still important to note that profitability depends on brand positioning, marketing strategies, and the ability to persuade potential customers. It’s essential for clothing companies to understand their target audience and continuously innovate to maintain relevance and profitability in this highly competitive sector.
Creating a thorough business plan is vital when starting a clothing line. This plan should detail your financial framework, outlining your anticipated expenses from material costs to delivery costs, plus expenses for marketing efforts and ongoing operational costs.
Source: ChatGPT
If you’re using standard manufacturing, you’re responsible for:
Sourcing materials—bulk fabric costs ranging from $1 to $40 per yard
Pattern making—ranging from $200 and $2000, depending on the design’s complexity
Production costs—vary based on quantity, starting at $500 for small orders to tens of thousands for larger batches
Quality control—estimates range from $500 to $3,000 to ensure product standards
Warehousing—monthly fees can be from $100 to thousands, based on inventory size
Shipping and fulfillment—costs depend on order volume and shipping distance, starting from $100
Sales and distribution—varies widely for online platforms and brick-and-mortar stores
Marketing and advertising—budgets depend on your sales channels and needs
Packaging, labels, and tags can add up, costing from $0.05 to $1.00 per item, and customized packaging can propel this cost to between $4 and $10 per box. Choosing sustainable fashion materials like organic fabrics can increase initial expenses but offer a lower long-term environmental impact.
Alternatively, you can partner with a reliable manufacturer to handle the manufacturing process. Starting a clothing brand with print-on-demand dropshipping means you eliminate the need for upfront investment in inventory, significantly reducing initial costs. This model allows for design and product offering flexibility without the risk of unsold stock.
Here’s what you must be aware of if you’re using print-on-demand:
Material and production costs—typically, products range from $6 to $50, and the materials and production are included in the price
Design costs—you can avoid paying anything for designs if you partner with a company like Printful that offers free design resources
Quality control—handled by your POD provider; sampling costs vary based on your partner (with Printful, you get a 20% sample discount for 1 order with up to 3 products every month)
Warehousing and inventory—all the costs are already included in the product price
Shipping—depends on your product count and destination, but starts at $4.79 for a t-shirt with Printful
Sales and distribution—costs vary based on the platform or marketplace you choose
Packaging, labels, tags—with Printful, you can personalize packaging, packaging slips and inserts, as well as clothing labels and tags
With on-demand production, you pay for the product and shipping only when a customer buys from you, making it a cost-effective option for new entrepreneurs. Print-on-demand services often provide a wide range of products, enabling you to expand your clothing line with minimal effort. You must pay for online marketing, ecommerce platform or marketplace, and the products you sell.
It depends on what production model you use—you can self-manufacture from scratch or print and embroider ready-made products and pay anywhere between a couple of hundred to thousands of dollars. Or, you can create your fashion line with on-demand fulfillment, and your costs will drop significantly.
There are pros and cons for each approach. Self-managing gives you more control and oversight over the quality but it also takes significantly more money and effort to launch and upkeep. Print-on-demand gives you less control over the outcome but more time and freedom to do other things to grow your brand.
Ultimately, the choice comes down to your budget and how hands-on you want (or can) be.
Read next:
The most popular print-on-demand items in 2023 were custom hoodies and custom hats.
The get more insights into the print-on-demand industry, check out our article on print-on-demand statistics.
Here’s how you can find trending products to add to your store:
Use Google Trends to find the most searched products
Visit our article on trending products
See the best-selling category on the ecommerce platform you’re using
Follow hashtags and trends on social media
Here are some of the most profitable print-on-demand niches in 2024:
Fashion
Animals and pets
Humor
Sustainability
Music
Hobbies
Pop culture
Home goods
To see more niches and get product inspo for each one, read our article on print-on-demand niches to watch in 2024.
The cost of starting a clothing line depends on the size of your business. A small clothing business can be started with roughly $500, a medium-sized line will cost around $1500–5000, and for a large-scale fashion business, you could be paying tens of thousands. But if you start a clothing line with print-on-demand, it can cost less than $50.
Starting your own clothing brand is not hard if you use print-on-demand services. It still takes time to set up a store and choose and design products, but it requires minimal upfront investment. The challenge lies in branding, marketing, and distinguishing your products in a competitive market.
To start a clothing line, you can begin with as few as 5 pieces. Focus on quality and uniqueness to capture attention. Then, scale up based on demand and feedback.
Here’s how to create your clothing brand in 7 steps:
Define your niche. Identify your target market and unique selling proposition.
Create your brand identity. Design a logo, choose a brand name, and develop your brand’s visual aesthetic.
Design your clothing line. Create your designs or work with a designer.
Get a reliable print-on-demand (POD) partner. Find a POD supplier with a good reputation.
Build your online presence. Set up an ecommerce store through a platform or marketplace and social media profiles.
Market your brand. Use social media, influencer partnerships, organic marketing, and ads to reach your target audience.
Launch and sell. Start selling your clothing online.
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By Karlina Rozkalne on Mar 6, 2024
Karlina Rozkalne
SEO Content Writer
Karlina is an SEO Content Writer specialist at Printful. As a firm believer in attitude over aptitude, Karlina gives her 100% whenever she works on something new. Karlina spends her free time reading, traveling, and doing yoga.
Karlina is an SEO Content Writer specialist at Printful. As a firm believer in attitude over aptitude, Karlina gives her 100% whenever she works on something new. Karlina spends her free time reading, traveling, and doing yoga.
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14 min read Mar 6, 2024
By Katrina Resne 11 min read
By Karlina Rozkalne 21 min read
By Cloe Ann Montoya 20 min read
By Una Berzina-Pudule 13 min read
By Gabriela Martinez 20 min read
By Karlina Rozkalne 9 min read