Resources for clothing brands

They are free and there is no email gate on any of them. The calculators run entirely in your browser, so nothing you type is sent to us or stored — you can use the MOQ, pricing, AQL and GSM tools without us knowing you were here. The tech pack template is a direct PDF download with no form in front of it. We built them because the questions they answer are the ones we get asked constantly, and because a founder who understands MOQ maths and AQL sampling before approaching any factory has a much better conversation than one who does not. That is useful to us even if you never place an order, and it is the honest reason there is no lead capture attached.

It depends where you are. If you have not manufactured before, start with the step-by-step Start Here path rather than a calculator — it puts the decisions in the right order. If you know what you want to make but not what it will cost you, use the MOQ calculator to size your first run and understand how minimums multiply across colourways, then the pricing calculator to check the retail price actually leaves you a margin worth having. If you are mid-project and choosing fabric, use the GSM converter and the fabric guide together. If you already have an order in production and are agreeing inspection terms, the AQL calculator gives you the exact sample sizes and accept/reject numbers to put in your purchase order.

It answers the question that trips up nearly every new brand: what your minimum order really adds up to once colour is factored in. A 100-piece minimum sounds like 100 garments, but it is counted per style and per colour, so three colourways of one hoodie is a 300-piece commitment. The calculator lets you enter styles and colours to see the true total, then suggests a sensible size split across a curve — usually weighted toward the middle sizes, because that is where demand sits for most brands. It is deliberately manufacturer-agnostic: the maths is the same whoever you produce with, so it is useful for sanity-checking any factory's quote, not just ours.

AQL stands for Acceptable Quality Limit, and it is the statistical method the apparel industry uses to inspect a bulk order without checking every single garment. Enter your order quantity and the calculator returns the inspection sample size plus the maximum number of defects allowed before the batch fails, based on the standard tables published as ISO 2859-1 and ANSI/ASQ Z1.4. You need it when you are agreeing inspection terms for a production run — the widely used apparel standard is AQL 2.5 for major defects and 4.0 for minor, with zero tolerance for critical safety defects. Specify those numbers in your purchase order before production starts, because agreeing them upfront turns a later quality dispute from an argument about opinions into a numerical check.

You do not need one to start a conversation with a manufacturer — a sketch or a reference garment is enough for a quote — but you will need one before production, because it is the document a factory actually works from. Our template covers the fields that matter: technical sketch, materials and fabric weight, points of measure across your size range, colourways, trims, labels and packaging. It is deliberately a fillable PDF rather than a locked-down system, so you can complete what you know and leave the rest for the factory to advise on. Pair it with the tech pack checklist, which explains why each field exists and what happens when it is left blank — usually a decision made for you rather than by you.

Yes, entirely, and they are built that way on purpose. Nothing in the calculators or the guides is specific to our factory — MOQ arithmetic, AQL sampling tables, GSM conversion and pricing margin maths are industry-wide, and the glossary explains terms you will meet with any supplier. Where we mention our own numbers, such as the 100-piece minimum, it is labelled as ours rather than presented as a universal standard. Use them to evaluate quotes from anyone, including to check whether a supplier's answers hold up. A founder who arrives at a factory already understanding these mechanics gets treated better and makes fewer expensive mistakes, which is the point.