How Much Do Custom Hoodies Cost?

It can cost as little as around $40 or up to $170 per unit or more to design, print, and ship a custom hoodie, depending on your customization needs and desired turnaround time. displaying your logo as effectively as possible, read through this guide to hat logo size and placement first.

Quick, what costs more: a boring hoodie off the rack or a one-of-a-kind piece custom-designed by you?

You might be surprised to find it can be cheaper (or at least comparably priced) to design your own than to buy a pre-designed one from a store — and that’s without factoring in bulk pricing. However, it can also cost multiple times more per unit. It all depends on what you want to do with your design, how and where you want to print that design, and — maybe most importantly — how soon you need it.

So, how much does it cost to make a hoodie yourself? Here’s what goes into pricing, and how you can keep costs down.

How Much Does a Hoodie Cost to Design and Print?

At the low end of this experiment, the cheapest custom hoodie design came out to $40.08 per unit, and the most expensive one added up to $171.10 (for six units each).

These prices account for several factors influencing how much hoodies cost, using the RushOrderTees Standard Hoodie as a low watermark and the Carhartt Midweight Hooded Sweatshirt as a high watermark. 

Note that these exact figures are subject to change and only reflect specific parameters for these two types of hoodies. These aren’t meant to be definite figures — printing more units would bring that minimum price down significantly, and adding further customizations on premium hoodies could bump the max price up even more.

But for the purpose of experimentation, here’s what went into calculating those hoodie customization costs:

Quantity

To keep all things equal, I went with six units each because embroidered designs require a six-unit minimum.

Brand

To find the highest cost possible, I chose to compare the baseline standard hoodie to a premium brand — namely Carhartt, whose hoodies are renowned for their durability and quality.

Printing Locations

For the lowest cost, I printed only on the front; for the highest cost, I printed on the front and back.

Printing Method

Since digital printing is cheaper than embroidery, I picked the former for the standard hoodie and the latter for the Carhartt hoodie.

Shipping Timeline

This was a huge factor in the overall cost. For the standard hoodie, I picked free 9-12 day shipping, and for the Carhartt hoodie I picked the fastest turnaround of 4 days.

Sizing

Printing costs increase after XL for many hoodies, so I picked Medium for the standard hoodie and 4XL for the Carhartt hoodie.

Additional Customizations

Unique customizations would increase the cost even more, but these are by request only. For example, you can technically print in many more locations than the front and back, but I stopped at the two standard options.

Factors Affecting Hoodie Costs

Just like a custom hoodie itself, custom hoodie pricing isn’t one-size-fits-all. Some design choices like adding or cutting a few characters of text or making small tweaks to logo sizes may not notably affect per-unit pricing, but others can have noticeable impacts on the cost to print each piece.

Below, we’ll walk through factors that will affect prices for custom hoodies in real dollar amounts. For reference, here are the basic specs I used for that standard hoodie:

• One unit
• Poly-cotton blend
• Printed text
• One color
• Standard Shipping
• Size M
• No added customizations

Cost: $42.26

Order Quantity

No matter how you customize your hoodie, one of the biggest ways to change the pricing is changing the quantity. You’ll virtually always find that the higher the quantity of units you order, the lower the per-unit cost (aside from standard print-on-demand price models). How that discount is applied, however, can vary from printer to printer.

For most companies, that usually means tiered pricing models, where discounts are applied in multiples of 12 units, like 12, 36, 72, and 144. RushOrderTees, on the other hand, applies a rolling volume model. That means your per-unit price goes down with every single unit you order — not just at tiered increments.

Example pricing: $42.26 (1 unit), $42.07 (2 units), $41.75 (3 units), etc.

Brand Name

As with any other custom garment, you’ll almost always pay more for hoodies produced by popular brands like Nike and Carhartt. On one hand, you can still get a quality product without having to pay more for a known name. On the other hand, name recognition can lend some trustworthiness and legitimacy to your own brand.

When it comes to the material itself, most custom hoodies are some version of a poly-cotton blend; higher-end products just have a different combination of fibers. While many hoodies are 50/50 cotton/polyester, top-shelf hoodies can contain upwards of 80% or even 100% cotton for maximum softness. They can also feature added stitching or detail for more polished, durable builds — like Carhartt’s signature triple-stitched seams. 

To help you find the right balance between features and frugality, we categorize each product into three broad pricing labels: budget, standard, and premium. 

• If you’re looking to cut down per-unit costs, consider hoodie from a lesser-known manufacturer in the budget or standard categories. 
• For smaller batches or if you’ve got the budget, consider paying up for an option with a premium label.

Example pricing (per unit for 6 units): RushOrderTees Standard Hoodie, $40.08; Gildan Heavy Blend Hoodie, $43.73; Nike Club Fleece Pullover Hoodie, $87.02; Carhartt Midweight Hooded Sweatshirt, $98.67

Number of Printing Locations

As you’d probably guess, the more places you print text or logos on your hoodie, the more it’ll cost. You can add design elements to the front, back, or both within our Design Studio to see your creation as you customize it in real-time. Single locations cost the same, whether the front or the back, but combining the two will bump the price a little.

But you don’t have to stop there. You can add designs to virtually any part of your garment with RushOrderTees. To get a custom quote, you’ll just have to include instructions within the Design Studio then proceed through checkout, or contact customer support for review.

Example pricing: Front only, $42.26; back only, $42.26; front and back, $50.16

Printing Method

When you’re customizing your hoodie in the Design Studio, you’ll see two printing methods: screen printing and embroidery. While we offer several other printing services across garment types, when designing a hoodie, those are the two you’ll see. Here’s how they differ:

• Printing — HDD or Screen Printing: This quick, low-cost method leaves a two-dimensional rendering of your design on the hoodie. Pricing is based on the number of colors, making it less suitable for small orders or designs with lots of colors.
• Embroidered: With textured, three-dimensional stitching, embroidered designs cost a bit more than printed ones. You’ll generally see these used for small logos. Note that even for garments with no minimum quantity for printed designs, garments with embroidered designs may require minimums.

Example pricing (per unit for 6 units, 1 color): Printing, $40.84; embroidery, $45.83

Shipping Timeline

It may not be part of the design process, but the printing timeline plays a huge role in the price of your order. But when you need your custom hoodies approximately yesterday, we’ve got options to fit just about any deadline (as long as you don’t need time travel to make it happen).

Shipping costs start at a rock-bottom $0 for those who can afford to wait upwards of two weeks for their product. Every day you cut off your delivery timeline increases the cost, peaking at next-day delivery. (Note that not all designs are available for next-day delivery.)

Example pricing:

Sizing

In traditional retail pricing, the additional material cost of larger garment sizes isn’t always reflected in the price of the garment. When it comes to custom hoodies, you’ll start seeing price changes at 2XL. From Small to XL, every size costs the same. After XL, the price may continue going up at each increase or could plateau after 2XL.

Example pricing:

Additional Customizations

Generally speaking, the more bespoke customizations you add to your design, the more your hoodie will cost. If you’re looking to get your logo printed in a non-standard area, with a specialty text style, with additional colors, or with any atypical creative tactic you cook up to turn your hoodie into a unique work of art, you could see a bump in cost.

It’s impossible to estimate that increase here since pricing for non-standard customizations is by request only. But if you can dream it, we can probably print it. So just upload your art and add a design note, or contact customer service to get a quote catered to your distinct design idea.

5 Tips for Keeping Custom Hoodie Costs Down

Like piling your favorite toppings into a cup of FroYo (back when that was a thing), all those custom ideas you add to that high-end hoodie can quietly start adding up fast. 

If you’ve got a budget to stay under, these tips will help you decide which design elements to prioritize and which you can compromise on.

• Order in bulk: As the adage goes, the more you buy, the more you save. You can cut costs significantly by making fewer orders of larger quantities of hoodies. 
• Plan ahead: As turnaround times go down, prices go up. Aim to have your hoodie designed and purchased at least two weeks ahead of the date you need it to lock in free shipping.
• Consider avoiding popular brands: You might have your heart set on a custom Adidas hoodie — but is your budget set up for that? Brand names bring quality and name recognition, but they can also bring up the per-unit cost by up to double the price.
• Print in one spot: Can you print your logo on the cuff, a custom design on the front, a second design on the back, and another logo on the hood? Absolutely. Whether you have the budget for a run of a thousand of those is another question. Remember that the more places you print, the higher the cost.
• Reconsider the custom request: Unless the bedazzled secret logo on the interior pocket lining is non-negotiable, you can keep costs down by keeping your design customizations a little less custom. As a rule of thumb, if it requires a unique request, it’ll likely drive up the price.

How to Make a Custom Hoodie

So you can perfectly visualize your design and are ready to turn it into a truly unique custom hoodie that shows off your brand, your organization, your event, or even just your personality. Now what? 

Here’s how to get it printed in just a few simple steps:

1. Select the specific hoodie you want by browsing our catalog of customizable sweatshirts.
2. Pick the base color you want for your custom hoodie.
3. Toggle between embroidery or printing.
4. Choose between printing on the front, the back, or both.
5. Enter and edit the text you want, upload your design file, or create a new design from our clipart library.
6. Add design notes if you want to give extra direction.
7. Select the quantity you want to print of each available size.
8. Add the order to your cart, review your price, pick a shipping option, and let us do the rest.

Got more design ideas than just custom hoodies? Check out the entire RushOrderTees catalog to start customizing your next promotional item.