A custom apparel fundraiser works one of two ways. Either your group buys the gear and resells it at whatever price you set, or we host an online store, sell to your members directly, and pay your group a cut of every sale. Both raise money. They put the risk in completely different places, and that is the part most groups do not think through before they commit.
Below is what each one actually costs and what each one actually returns, with the real rate card instead of round numbers.
The two models at a glance
| Model | How it works | Cash to start | What your group earns | Who owns unsold gear |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Pre-sell bulk order | Set a deadline, collect orders and money from your people, then place one bulk order with us and hand out the gear. | Yes. You pay for the whole run. | Whatever you mark it up. You set the price. | Your group. |
| Team store | We build and host a store for your group. Members buy from it during a set window. We produce and ship. | None. | 10% of every sale. | There is none. Nothing prints until it sells. |
Model 1: the pre-sell bulk order
This is the fundraiser most people have run before. Your group picks a design, announces a two to four week window, collects orders and money from supporters, and then places one order with us for the final quantities. You pay for the run, we produce it, and you hand out the gear. Anything you charged above your cost is what your group raised.
How it runs
- Pick the garment and the design. Send us the logo file and we will tell you honestly whether it holds up on fabric.
- Work out your cost per piece before you announce a price. The pricing guide has a live estimator for the decoration side.
- Set your selling price and your goal, then open the window. Two to four weeks is normal.
- Collect the orders and the money. This is the part that takes volunteers.
- Send us final sizes and quantities. Approve the digital proof. Nothing prints until you do.
- We produce the run and ship it to you. You distribute.
What the numbers look like
Say a soccer booster club wants 100 custom t-shirts with a one-color logo screen printed on the front.
Screen printing at 100 pieces is $5.00 per piece, plus a flat $50 screen setup spread across the run, so $5.50 per shirt. A Gildan Heavy Cotton tee is $18.97. That puts you at $24.47 a shirt landed, or $2,447 for the run. Price them at $30 and your group clears $5.53 a shirt, which is $553 on 100 shirts.
Volume moves that number more than price does. Take the same design to 250 pieces and the screen print rate drops to $2.50, the setup spreads down to 20 cents, and your landed cost falls to $21.67. At the same $30 price you clear $8.33 a shirt, or $2,082 on 250. The catch is that you now need $5,417 in the bank before a single shirt gets printed.
It cuts the other way too. At the 25-piece screen print minimum the print rate is $7.00 and the setup spreads to $2.00, so you are at $27.97 landed. You have to charge $35 to make it worth running, and 25 shirts at $7.03 of margin raises $176. Small pre-sell runs are usually not worth the volunteer hours.
The real risk is not the math. It is the gap between how many people said they would buy and how many showed up with money. Order 100 and sell 60 and your group owns 40 shirts and a hole in the budget. Pre-sell works when you have a committed core who will actually pay, which usually means school families, team parents, or a church membership you can name.
Model 2: the team store
A team store fundraiser flips who carries the risk. We build an online store with your group's logo and colors, you share one link, and your members buy from it directly. We take the payments, produce the whole run in one batch after the store closes, and ship. Your group keeps 10% of every sale and never puts up a dollar.
How it runs
- Send us your logo and tell us who the group is. We put together a short product list instead of dropping your people into a wholesale catalog.
- We build the store. No setup fee, and no minimum number of buyers.
- You share one link in a newsletter, a group text, or a Facebook post. No order forms and no cash envelopes.
- The store runs for a set window. Two weeks is typical. Long enough for everyone to see it twice, short enough that nobody puts it off.
- We close the store, produce everything in one batch, and ship. Your group's 10% is settled after it closes.
- Groups that want to run again usually reopen the store seasonally rather than leaving it up year round, because a deadline is what makes people order.
What the numbers look like
Same booster club. The store carries a Gildan Heavy Cotton tee and a Gildan Heavy Blend hooded sweatshirt, both with the same one-color screen printed front.
The tee is $18.97 with $5.50 of screen printing, so $24.47 in the store, and the group keeps $2.45 of it. The hoodie is $28.04 with the same print, so $33.54, and the group keeps $3.35.
Ninety members buy a shirt and forty buy a hoodie. That is $2,202 in tees and $1,342 in hoodies, so $3,544 in sales and $354 back to the group. No volunteer collected a check, no one guessed a size, and nothing was left over.
Side by side on the same club
| Pre-sell, 100 shirts | Team store, 130 items | |
|---|---|---|
| Cash needed to start | $2,447 | $0 |
| Raised | $553 | $354 |
| Volunteer hours | Collecting money, tracking sizes, handing out gear | Sharing a link |
| If half your people do not buy | You own the leftovers | You raised less. Nothing else happens. |
Pre-sell earns more per item. It has to, because your group is the one fronting the money, eating the wrong sizes, and doing the collection work. The team store earns less per item and costs you nothing but a link. Which trade you want depends on how much cash your group can risk and how many volunteer hours you actually have.
Why both beat buying a pallet of blanks
The old version of this was buying 200 shirts, setting up a table at a game, and hoping. Three things go wrong with that, and the two models above deal with them differently.
You guess the size breakdown and you guess wrong, so you sell out of larges in an hour and still have forty smalls in October. You need the cash before you have sold anything, which not every group has sitting in an account. And whatever does not sell gets donated or thrown out, which quietly eats the money you did raise.
Pre-sell fixes the guessing because you collect real orders first. A team store fixes all three, because every buyer picks their own size and color and nothing gets printed until somebody has paid for it.
What decoration actually costs
Minimums and setup fees depend on how the gear is decorated, not on how big your group is. These are the published rates, and they apply the same way in both models.
- Screen printing starts at 25 pieces and carries a flat $50 screen setup for the run. The print itself is $7.00 a piece from 25 to 49, $5.00 from 50 to 149, and $2.50 at 150 or more.
- Embroidery starts at 3 pieces, with a one-time $50 digitizing charge to turn your logo into a stitch file. We keep the file, so reorders never pay it again.
- DTF printing starts at 1 piece with no setup fee, which is what makes small stores and one-off samples possible.
- Laser engraving starts at 1 piece, which covers tumblers and drinkware for raffle prizes and donor gifts.
All of that is decoration only, for one print location, on top of the garment. The decoration methods guide covers which method suits which garment, and the pricing guide has an estimator you can run your own numbers through.
Getting started
Either way, we handle production, decoration, and shipping. You bring a logo file and a rough headcount. Everything is printed and decorated in-house in the United States and ships anywhere in the country with tracking.
Nothing goes to press until you approve a digital proof. After production, standard shipping is 3 to 5 business days, and expedited 3-day is available if you are up against an event date. The turnaround guide has the full timeline. If you have a hard deadline, say so at the start and we will tell you straight whether it is doable.
Common questions
What is the minimum order for a pre-sell campaign?
It depends on the decoration method, not the campaign. Screen printing starts at 25 pieces, embroidery at 3, and DTF printing and laser engraving at 1. Practically, screen printed pre-sells under about 50 pieces rarely justify the volunteer hours, because the flat $50 setup and the higher per-piece rate eat the margin.
How much does our group keep on a team store?
10% of every sale. On a $24.47 screen printed tee that is $2.45, and on a $33.54 hooded sweatshirt it is $3.35. A store that does $3,500 in sales returns about $350. Payout details are settled when we set up your store.
Can we change the design partway through?
On a pre-sell, lock the design before you announce it. Changing it midway means re-quoting and re-proofing, and it confuses the people who already ordered. On a team store we can swap products or artwork between windows, so save changes for the next run.
How long does it take once the window closes?
You approve a digital proof, we produce the batch, and standard shipping is 3 to 5 business days after that. Expedited 3-day shipping is available. Tell us your event date up front and we will confirm whether it works before you launch.
Do we need finished artwork, or can you help?
Bring whatever you have. A vector logo is ideal, but a decent raster file usually works and we will tell you if it will not. We handle placement and sizing, and you see it all on the proof before anything prints.
Can a nonprofit run a team store for an event?
Yes, and it is the most common reason groups open one. Run the store ahead of the event so supporters show up already wearing the gear, or open it afterward while attention is high. Either way the nonprofit carries no inventory and no upfront cost. Full details are on the fundraisers and team stores page.