Hoodies for Schools: cost
By The Velocity Wear Team
School hoodies start at $31 per piece at our 50-piece minimum, and the unit price falls as the year group signs up, with the discount reaching up to 35% at the highest volume band. A cohort of 60 pays close to the starting price. A cohort of 240 pays materially less per pupil for the same garment and the same back print.
What does a leavers hoodie cost per pupil?
Start with the garment, not the extras. A brushed-back fleece between 280 and 450 GSM is the body of the cost, and the heavier end of that range costs more because there is more cotton in it. Decoration sits on top, and for a typical leavers hoodie that means a crest on the chest and a name list on the back.
Where schools get caught out is treating the quoted figure as the amount to collect from parents. It is not. Add delivery, add a handful of spares for the pupils who join late or change size, and add whatever the school wants to hold back for staff copies. The pricing page shows how the bands step down, and the wholesale hoodies page lists the current from-price by weight.
How does the price move as the year group grows?
In steps, not smoothly. The bands are 50 to 99, 100 to 249, 250 to 499, 500 to 999 and 1,000 plus. A year group of 96 and a year group of 104 are in different bands, which means eight more sign-ups can lower the cost for everyone. It is worth chasing the last few forms before the order goes in rather than after.
This is also the argument for ordering across a whole cohort rather than per form group. Four tutor groups ordering fifty each pay four times at the entry band. The same 200 hoodies ordered once land two bands lower. If the design has to differ by form, that difference has a real price, and it is worth asking whether a form initial on the sleeve is worth what a separate run costs.
What pushes the unit price up?
- A second colourway, because separate screens make it a separate design against the 50-piece minimum.
- Individual names rather than a shared back list, since each garment then carries its own setup.
- Heavier fleece towards 450 GSM, which is a better garment but more of it.
- Private label details such as a woven neck label or a printed swing tag.
None of those are wrong. They are choices, and a leavers hoodie is worn for years, which is not true of most garments a school buys. But they should be priced before the letter goes out to parents, not discovered afterwards. The full component-by-component breakdown is in the real cost breakdown of custom hoodies.
Who collects the money, and when?
Most schools collect from parents before placing the order, which is sensible because the order cannot be trimmed once it is in production. Set the collection deadline at least three weeks before the date you need stock, because production runs 10 to 15 working days from artwork approval and artwork approval itself needs the final name list locked.
Some schools add a pound or two per hoodie and run the difference into the leavers fund. That is a legitimate way to cover spares and the inevitable pupil who joins in June. Our schools and leavers page covers how the rest of the order fits around term dates, and we invoice in seven currencies if your school pays from an international account.
