Vendor comparison

AffirmGear vs. traditional swag vendors.

Both will put your logo on a hoodie. They differ in what happens before the order and in how the invoice is built. The table compares the two on eleven rows, and after it come the two cases where a traditional vendor is the right call.

5 min readUpdated October 2026

A traditional swag vendor sells a catalog of blank garments from wholesale brands, decorated to artwork you supply and priced as blank plus decoration plus fees. A print-on-demand marketplace prints one piece at a time. We work a third way, with eight garments we specify ourselves, design included in the product and one all-in price. Each of the three is built for a different job.

The comparison, row by row

	AffirmGear	Traditional swag vendor
Design	Included in the price. You give your email, a logo and a sentence about the team. The Studio designs a collection across all eight products and gives you a link, and a designer on our team finishes it.	You supply print-ready artwork. Art time is billed by the hour.
Garments	Eight pieces we specify: 220 GSM ring-spun tee, 200 GSM piqué polo, 330 GSM brushed fleece, 140 GSM cotton oxford.	Catalog blanks from wholesale brands. Weight and cut change by SKU.
Decoration	Embroidery, DTF, DTG or vinyl, chosen per piece. We also screen print; ask us which garments suit it.	Screen print by default. Embroidery and transfers are priced as add-ons.
Samples	Before a bulk run, a paid sample set is available and takes about two weeks.	A paid pre-production sample, or a digital mockup.
Minimums	From 15 pieces. Need fewer? Tell us what you have in mind.	A per-design minimum.
Reorders	Your design and size history stay on file. Tell us the quantity, by email.	The per-design minimum applies again.
Pricing	One all-in price per piece, made of the garment rate and one fee per decoration method. 12% off at 50 pieces, 22% off at 150, counted across the whole order.	Blank price plus setup fee, per-color screen charge, art fee, extended-size surcharge, sample fee and freight.
Sizes	XS to 4XL at one price.	Surcharge from 2XL up.
Packaging	Each piece is sleeved with the wearer's name in a plastic-free paper band.	Poly bags, sorted by size, in a carton. You sort by person.
Shipping	Within the US. One address, or split to each person's home.	Freight is a line on the quote.
Timeline	Three weeks of production and two of shipping, counted from the day you approve the design. Start 8 to 10 weeks before your date.	Set by the decoration queue and blank stock.

Where the price difference comes from

Put our $17.02 printed tee next to a traditional quote and read past the first line. Further down the quote come a setup fee per design, a screen charge per ink color, an art fee if the file needs work, a surcharge from 2XL up, a sample fee and freight.

Our price has two parts and no lines under them. The simple tee is $13.24 and one print adds $3.78, so $17.02 buys the tee, the print, the design work and the name sleeve, in any size from XS to 4XL. Orders over $2,000 or 50 pieces ship free, and below that the shipping is on the quote. For a given piece, only quantity moves the number. At 50 pieces it's $17.02 × 0.88 = $14.98, and at 150 it's $17.02 × 0.78 = $13.28. The pricing page lists every product at all three quantities.

The fair comparison is per delivered piece. Take the whole invoice with samples and shipping in it and divide by the pieces that arrived, then add the hours your own team spends on artwork, size collection and sorting cartons.

What "send us artwork" costs

A traditional vendor starts with a file you already have, which works if you have a brand team and a vector logo. With a PNG from the website and an idea, you're now the designer, picking the garment and the placement and deciding if the logo goes tonal or full color. Most teams land on a centered logo on a black hoodie, and that's why most company hoodies look the same.

The Design Studio starts a step earlier. You enter your email, upload the logo and describe the team, and it comes back with a designed collection on all eight products, saved under your name with a link. A designer on our team finishes it, and the share link lets the team review it and enter sizes in one place.

Garments and decoration on each side

The cheapest tee in a catalog is cheap because it's thin. Our range stops at eight garments we specify ourselves. The tee is 220 GSM ring-spun cotton, the hoodie and two more cuts are 330 GSM brushed fleece, the polo is 200 GSM piqué and the shirt is 140 GSM oxford, alongside a structured twill cap and a 12-gauge cuffed beanie. The fabric guide says what those numbers feel like on the body.

On decoration, the traditional default is screen print, because it's cheapest per piece on long runs of flat-color art. We offer embroidery, screen print, DTF, DTG and vinyl, and choose per piece. Embroidery is permanent and outlives the garment, while DTF print carries full color and gradients and is rated for 50-plus washes. The decoration methods guide covers all of them, including the ones we don't offer.

Print-on-demand marketplaces are a different job

Print-on-demand is for one piece, ordered now with no conversation, and for a single gift or a test design it's the right tool. In exchange you get a print on catalog blanks, no physical sample before the piece ships, no design help beyond a template editor, and a per-piece price that doesn't fall with volume.

Where a traditional vendor wins.

Two kinds of order are better placed with someone else:

A handful of pieces. Our orders start at 15 pieces, and a few tees for one Saturday is a job for a local print shop or a marketplace.
Thousands of giveaway tees. A one-color graphic on a festival run of catalog blanks is a traditional vendor's home ground, and their catalog is bigger than our eight garments.

Event and agency teams often use both, with a traditional vendor for the giveaway tees and us for the staff capsule that has to look better than the giveaways.

Run the comparison yourself in five steps

Ask every vendor for a total on the same order: same products, same quantities, same size spread with 2XL and up, delivered to the same address, with a physical sample.
Divide each total by the pieces delivered to get a per-piece price.
Add your own hours for artwork, size collection and sorting cartons, priced at a loaded rate.
Wash the sample five times. Fleece weight and print durability show up in the wash, not on a mockup.
Ask what a reorder looks like in month four, and whether the design and the size history are still on file or you start from the quote again.

The corporate apparel buying guide has the full checklist, and the glossary decodes the terms on a quote.

Comparison questions we get.

Is AffirmGear more expensive than a traditional swag vendor?

Compare the totals, because the blank is only the first line of a traditional quote. Our simple tee with one print is $17.02, and that number already holds the design, the print and the name sleeve. A traditional quote adds setup, per-color screen charges, an art fee, an extended-size surcharge and a sample fee to its blank price, so divide each total by the pieces delivered.

Do I have to use the Design Studio, or can I send finished artwork?

You can do either. Finished vector artwork goes straight into the Studio, which places it across the eight products with prices attached. If all you have is a logo, the Studio proposes patterns and colorways. A designer on our team finishes every order either way, at no charge.

Does AffirmGear offer screen printing?

Yes, we screen print as well, and you can ask us which garments suit it. Most team apparel is covered by embroidery, which is permanent, and DTF print, which carries full color and is rated for 50-plus washes.

What if I need fewer than 15 pieces?

Fifteen pieces is the smallest run we publish. If you need fewer, tell us the number you have in mind and we'll say whether we can do it. After a first order, the design and everyone's sizes are saved with us, so for the next one you only tell us the quantity.