How Much Do Wholesale Caps Cost?
By The Velocity Wear Team
Wholesale caps start at $12 a piece at our fifty-piece minimum. From there the price falls as the order grows, by up to 35% against that fifty-piece figure at the highest band. The tiers are 50–99, 100–249, 250–499, 500–999 and 1,000+. Decoration method and stitch count move the number within a tier; the blank itself barely does.
What does a cap cost at the minimum?
Fifty pieces at $12 is the entry point, and it is a real price rather than a teaser for an order nobody places. Fifty is a genuine minimum: a cafe kits out a team and sells the rest, a society covers a committee, a brand tests a colourway. What the $12 covers is the blank, the decoration and the standard make-up. It is quoted per piece, so mixing sizes and colours inside the fifty does not change it, provided the artwork stays the same on every cap.
How far does the discount go?
Up to 35%, measured from the fifty-piece price, and you reach it at the 1,000+ band. The steps between bands are not even. The jump from 50–99 to 100–249 is the one most buyers feel, because doubling an order of fifty is an easy decision and the saving is immediate. After 500 the curve flattens; by then you are paying mostly for cloth and thread and there is less setup left to spread. The practical reading is that if you are hesitating between 80 and 110 caps, order 110. Full tier detail sits on the pricing page.
What else lands on the invoice?
Three things beyond the per-piece price. A sample, if you want one, at £150 — credited back against the bulk order, so it is a deposit more than a cost. Delivery, which varies with destination and weight and goes to the UK, USA and Europe. And any private-label extras: woven neck labels, tear-out labels, swing tags or individual polythene bagging. Caps are light and pack densely, so freight per piece is lower than on hoodies or jackets, which is one reason cap orders scale cheaply.
Which choices move the price and which do not?
Decoration moves it. Embroidery is priced against stitch count, so a dense crest with a shaded fill costs more per cap than a simple wordmark — how embroidery stitch count affects cost shows the relationship in detail. A second decoration position, a side panel or a rear mark, adds a run through the machine and therefore adds cost. What does not move it much: choosing a five panel over a six panel, a snapback over a strapback, or a dark colour over a light one. Buyers often optimise the blank and ignore the stitch count, which is backwards.
If you want a firm number, send the artwork, the quantity and the cap style together — those three decide the quote. Current from-prices for every headwear option are on wholesale caps, and the £150 sample process is set out in sampling caps before a bulk order.
How do you bring the cost down without buying more?
Three levers, in order of effect. Simplify the mark: a crest with a shaded background and a strapline can often be reduced to the crest alone, and the stitch count falls with it. Use one decoration position instead of two, since a side or rear mark is a second pass through the machine on every cap in the run. And consolidate designs — two variants of fifty each cost more than one design of a hundred, both in setup and in the tier you land in. What does not help is hunting for a thinner blank. The saving is small, the cap feels worse in the hand, and on staff kit you pay for it again when the order needs replacing a year early. The cloth is the one part of a cap nobody can be persuaded to overlook.
