MOQ by Category — What 50 Pieces Actually Costs

The reference table

Figures below are the typical floor for a fully custom order in each category — your artwork, your colours, your packaging. Lower MOQs are sometimes possible on stock blanks with light customisation; higher MOQs apply when tooling (moulds, dies, screens) has to be created.

          Low floor — under 50
          Medium floor — 50 to 200
          High floor — 200 and up
        

Category	Indicative MOQ	Typical unit price at MOQ	Floor driver
Custom t-shirts	50	$8.50 – $12.90	Screen-printing setup, blank sourcing
Custom hoodies	50	$15 – $22	Knit blank MOQ, embroidery digitising
Custom caps	50	$4 – $8	Embroidery setup, blank panel sourcing
Custom canvas tote bags	100	$3 – $6	Cutting and print setup, fabric lot minimums
Custom enamel pins & badges	100	$0.80 – $1.50	Mould amortisation, plating batch
Custom embroidered patches	100	$0.50 – $1.20	Embroidery frame setup, fabric run
Custom ceramic mugs	100	$3 – $5	Kiln batch minimums, decal printing
Custom stainless steel tumblers	100	$5 – $9	Sublimation wrap, coating batch
Custom glass jars & bottles	200	$2 – $4	Glass furnace minimum run
Custom perfume / fragrance glass	500	$3 – $7	Mould exclusivity, decoration setup
Custom rigid gift boxes	300	$1.50 – $4	Die-cut tooling, paper lot minimums
Custom LED neon signs	20	$30 – $60	Hand-bending labour, low material MOQ
Custom canvas art prints	30	$18 – $35	Print-on-demand, frame sourcing
Custom oil paintings	10	$80 – $200	Artist time, no factory MOQ
Custom school uniform sets	100	$12 – $20	Multi-piece kit, embroidery plus print

Disclaimer: figures are indicative ranges based on typical China factory terms for fully custom work in each category. Final pricing depends on artwork complexity, material choice, packaging and quantity. A written quote always precedes any commitment.

Why MOQs vary so much

Three forces set the floor in any category:

Tooling amortisation. Anything that needs a mould, die or print screen carries a fixed setup cost. Spreading that cost over 50 pieces gives a higher unit price; spreading it over 500 drops it sharply.
Material lot minimums. Fabric, paper, glass and many coatings come in minimum production runs set by the upstream mill, not by the final factory.
Labour economics. Hand-bent neon signs and hand-painted oil paintings don’t have a factory MOQ — the floor is set by the time it takes to make one.

What changes when a batch is sized above MOQ

Unit price typically drops in steps rather than linearly. The first drop comes where the factory moves from a “small batch” workflow to a “production-line” run, and a further step follows at the volume tier. Beyond that, improvements taper off until the next material lot boundary is crossed.

A worked example for custom t-shirts, using the same quantity tiers as our pricing page:

50–100 pieces → $8.50 – $12.90 per unit (setup-heavy small batch)
500 pieces → $7.90 – $11.60 per unit (production-line workflow)
1,000 pieces → $6.90 – $10.20 per unit (volume tier)
2,000+ pieces → usually quoted per project against specific blank sourcing

When the headline MOQ doesn’t fit the brief

If the project quantity sits well below the MOQ for the target category, two options usually exist:

Adjust the customisation. A lighter customisation — a single-colour print instead of full colour, for example — can sometimes halve the headline figure.
Move to WOW Sourcing. For projects that genuinely need a custom material, a niche item or a private-spec product outside the 14 product lines, WOW Sourcing negotiates lower MOQs through the existing factory network.

Ask about a specific category

Or read how WOW Sourcing handles below-MOQ briefs.

MOQ by category — what 50 pieces actually costs.

The reference table

Why MOQs vary so much

What changes when a batch is sized above MOQ

When the headline MOQ doesn’t fit the brief

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