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Start a Business Formation

How much does it cost to start a clothing business?

Estimate what it costs to launch a clothing brand, from tech packs and sample rounds through the production run itself, freight and duty, labels and packaging, photography, the online store, the launch budget and an operating buffer. See the total, a realistic range, and how much of it is inventory sitting in a room.

§ 01 Your numbers

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Distinct garments, not colours of the same garment: a tee, a hoodie, a cap and a pair of shorts is four. Each style carries its own pattern, its own tech pack and its own sample rounds before it carries any stock, so the style count drives the development spend as well as the order.
How many colours you order of each style. This is the input people underestimate. A factory minimum is usually charged per style per colour, so a second colourway is a second full production run rather than a variation, and it doubles the units you have to sell before that style has paid for itself.
The smallest quantity the maker will accept for one style in one colour, split across your size run. Screen printers working on blanks will go far below this, cut-and-sew factories are typically well above it, and the minimum is the single most negotiable term on your first order. Use the number on your own quote.
What one finished garment costs you at the factory door: the blank or the fabric, the cut and sew or the print, the trims and the maker's margin. Ask for this quoted at your actual order quantity, because a per-unit price quoted at ten thousand units has nothing to do with a first drop.
The specification a factory can actually work from: measurements graded across the size run, construction notes, stitch and trim callouts, placement art. Turning up with a sketch instead is the usual reason a first sample comes back wrong and the sample rounds multiply.
How many times you expect to see a physical sample before you approve production. First sample, corrections, confirmation is a realistic three. Approving early to save a round is how a brand ends up owning several hundred garments with a collar it dislikes.
One sampled garment including the maker's setup and the courier both ways. Samples are priced well above production units because the factory is doing a run of one, and international shipping on a single package is its own line.
Ocean or air freight, the customs broker, duty on the goods and inland delivery, as a share of what the order itself cost. Apparel duty rates are set by fibre and construction and vary widely between them, so ask your broker for the rate on your own garments rather than assuming one.
Woven neck label, care and content label, hang tag, polybag and the mailer it ships to a customer in. Small per garment and not small across a whole order, and the care and fibre content labelling is a legal requirement on apparel rather than a branding choice.
Registering the business, the trademark filing on the name, and the logo and brand work that goes on every label. The trademark search matters more here than in most businesses, because your name is printed on several hundred garments before you find out somebody else owns it.
A shoot day, a model, a stylist and the retouching, plus the flat-lay and detail shots a product page needs. Online, the photograph is what the customer is shopping, so this is closer to a sales line than a vanity one.
The store platform for a year, the domain, a theme, the apps you end up adding and the setup time. Payment processing is charged on sales rather than upfront and so is not on this ledger.
Paid ads, seeding product to people with an audience, and the samples you give away to get worn photographs. Set it against your order: a large first run with no budget to move it is the shape most stalled brands have in common.
Cash held back for the reorder of whatever sells out, returns and exchanges, a mis-sewn batch you have to replace and the months between paying the factory and being paid by customers. Spending your last dollar on inventory is the classic first-drop mistake.
Estimated cost
$26,768

Typical range $9,369 – $64,243

  • Tech packs & patterns$1,200
  • Sampling$1,440
  • Production run$11,200
  • Freight, duty & customs$1,568
  • Labels, tags & packaging$960
  • Formation, trademark & brand design$2,200
  • Photography & content$1,800
  • Online store & platform fees$900
  • Launch marketing$3,000
  • Operating buffer$2,500
  • Total$26,768
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$8,000 to $40,000 is the common range for a real first collection: several styles, more than one colourway, tech packs and sample rounds, a factory minimum in the hundreds and freight on top. Watch how much of that total is stock rather than setup.

What this assumes, and where it could be wrong

Every one of these is a place the number could be off. They are here because you should be able to check our working, not because we are hedging.

EVERY NUMBER HERE IS YOURS, BECAUSE THERE IS NO PUBLISHED FIGURE TO LOOK UP.
What it costs to start a clothing brand is set by the factory that quotes your run, the minimum it will accept, the fabric or blank you chose and the freight lane your goods travel. None of that is a federal statistic, and we would rather itemise our model in front of you than dress it up as a measurement. The defaults on this page are ours and every one is editable, so replace them with the figures on your own quotes as they arrive. This page prices getting a first drop made and launched. It does not price a second drop, and for a brand that sells through, the reorder arrives before the first run's cash has finished coming back.

The order is priced per style per colourway, and that is the multiplier to watch. Your unit count is styles times colourways times the factory minimum, so a fourth style or a second colour is a whole extra production run rather than a variation on an existing one. Cutting the range and going deeper on fewer style-colour combinations is the single largest lever on the total above, and it also concentrates your sizes where the demand actually is.

Most of this ledger is not spent, it is converted. Everything above the packaging line turns cash into garments, and it only turns back into cash at the rate you sell. That is a different kind of risk from a service business, where the money mostly leaves as wages and rent: here you can be profitable on paper and out of cash at the same time, holding the difference in a room. Judge the total by how much of it is in the production run rather than by the number at the bottom.

Sampling looks like the line to cut and is the line that protects the order. Each round costs a fraction of one garment in the run, and approving a sample early to save one is how a brand ends up owning several hundred pieces with a fit it will not stand behind. Set the sample rounds input to what you will genuinely need on a first relationship with a factory rather than to what you hope.

Freight, duty and labelling are ordinary costs on apparel rather than edge cases. Imported garments carry duty at rates set by fibre and construction, a customs broker charges to clear them, and finished apparel has to carry care and fibre content labelling before it can be sold. Ask your broker for the rate on your own garments and price the labels into the per-unit line above, because a landed cost quoted at the factory door is not the cost of a garment in your hand.

Frequently asked questions

How much does it cost to start a clothing business?
A single printed style on blanks, in one colour, with your own photography can start in the low four figures. A cut-and-sew collection of several styles in multiple colourways, at a factory minimum in the hundreds, commonly runs well into five figures before the first sale. The production run is usually the majority of the total, so the range comes almost entirely from how many style-colour combinations you ordered and what a garment costs to make. Build the number from your own factory quote using the calculator above.
Why does the factory minimum matter so much?
Because it usually applies per style per colourway rather than per order. Four styles in two colours at a hundred-unit minimum is eight separate runs and eight hundred garments, even though the moodboard only had four things on it. That is why adding a colour is never a small decision on a first drop, and why the most useful thing you can negotiate on a first order is the minimum rather than the unit price.
Is it cheaper to print on blanks than to have garments made?
For a first drop, usually yes, and by a wide margin. Printing on existing blanks skips the patterns, the grading and most of the sampling, minimums are far lower, and you can order again in weeks rather than months. Cut-and-sew buys you a garment that is yours rather than a printed blank, at the price of a longer development cycle and a much larger opening order. Many brands print first, learn which styles and sizes actually move, and only then commission their own.
How much should I hold back rather than spend on inventory?
Enough to reorder what sells out and to survive what does not. The awkward stretch is between paying the factory, which happens upfront and often in two instalments, and being paid by customers, which happens across the months after delivery. Returns, exchanges and a mis-sewn batch all land in that window too. The operating buffer input above exists so that money is on the ledger rather than being the part you discover is missing.

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