Promotional Apparel Manufacturing
Promotional apparel is bought against a budget and a date, usually in one run, and usually to be given away. That makes it a different problem from a uniform programme: the cost per piece decides the quantity, the artwork is fixed before the garment is chosen, and there is rarely a second chance to reorder once the campaign is live. Wearzo prints and embroiders promotional wear in its own Hyderabad unit, so the price you are quoted is a manufacturer's price rather than a reseller's.
What Actually Moves the Price
Most promotional budgets are fixed before the specification is. It helps to know which levers change the per-piece cost, because two of them cost nothing to pull.
- Quantity — the largest lever. Screen printing carries a setup cost per colour that is spread across the run, so the per-piece cost falls sharply as the quantity rises.
- Number of print colours — each spot colour in a screen print is a separate screen. A two-colour logo is materially cheaper to run than a five-colour one, and simplifying artwork costs nothing.
- Print positions — one chest print is cheaper than chest, back and sleeve. Decide what the garment has to do before adding positions.
- Fabric and GSM — a 160 GSM carded tee and a 180 GSM combed tee feel different and cost differently. For a giveaway the lighter build is often the right call; for something people keep, it is not.
- Branding method — screen printing is the volume choice, DTF suits full-colour and shorter runs, embroidery is the durable premium finish and the usual choice for caps and polos.
Pricing is quoted, never listed — it depends on all five together. Send the garment, quantity and artwork and you get an itemised quotation, typically within 24 hours.
The Garments That Suit a Campaign
Promotional runs concentrate on a handful of garments. Full specifications — fabric, GSM, yarn count and sizes — are on the garment pages.
Round-Neck T-Shirts
The default promotional garment. Cotton and poly-cotton knits, 160–200 GSM, and the cheapest surface to print at volume.
Specifications →Polo T-Shirts
A step up in perceived value for staff-facing or client-facing campaigns. Takes embroidery cleanly on the chest.
Specifications →Hoodies & Sweatshirts
Higher unit cost, far higher retention — people keep and wear these long after the campaign. Large front and back print panels.
Specifications →Where Promotional Runs Go Wrong
The size mix. Giveaway apparel goes to people whose sizes nobody recorded. Ordering a flat spread across S to XXL leaves you with unwanted extremes at both ends. A weighted mix — heavier in M and L — wastes less, and it is worth deciding deliberately rather than defaulting.
Artwork supplied too late. The artwork has to be production-ready before screens are made. Supplying a low-resolution logo lifted from a website is the most common cause of a delayed promotional order, and no amount of production capacity fixes it. Send vector artwork where you have it.
Shade assumed rather than approved. A brand colour on a screen is not the same as that colour on cotton. Shade is approved on a physical sample before bulk, and for a campaign with a hard launch date that approval step has to be built into the timeline rather than squeezed at the end.
Treating it as a one-off when it is not. Campaigns repeat. If there is any chance of a second run, say so at the quotation stage — the approved shade and artwork are held on record, and a reorder that matches the first batch is far easier to guarantee when it was expected.
One Supplier, Not a Chain
Most promotional apparel in India is sold by resellers who buy blank garments and send them to a printer. That chain is where campaign deadlines are lost.
- Fabric, cutting, stitching, embroidery, DTF, screen printing, labelling and packing all happen on our own site — nothing is job-worked out.
- A shade or print correction is a conversation on the floor, not a negotiation between three companies.
- You buy at a manufacturer's price, without the markup a reseller adds for coordinating the same steps.
- The same line runs institutional uniform programmes of 20,000+ pieces, so a 500-piece campaign is not straining the capacity.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the minimum order for promotional t-shirts?
Can you print full-colour or photographic artwork?
How do I choose a size breakdown when the apparel is being given away?
Will Wearzo branding appear on the garment?
Working to a campaign budget and a date?
Send the garment, the quantity, the artwork and the launch date. You get an itemised quotation — typically within 24 hours — showing exactly what drives the per-piece cost.