What a Suit Sample Actually Costs, and What It Buys You

A founder wrote to us in the spring with a question that told us more about where he had been shopping than about what he wanted to make. Before he said anything about cloth or construction, he asked what the sample fee was, and whether we would credit it back if he placed a real order afterward. He had clearly asked two or three other factories the same question first, and the answers had trained him to expect a number with a catch attached.

Our answer disappointed him a little, in the way an honest answer sometimes does. There is no sample fee. A single piece costs what a single piece costs, the same figure whichever of our two starting specifications it is built to, and that is also what the fiftieth piece in a production run costs. He asked the question again a different way, certain he had missed a hidden line. He had not. The price on a sample and the price on a bulk order are the same number, because the number was never set by the order size in the first place.

That exchange is the reason for writing this piece rather than the checklist we already publish on what to check on your first sample. That one tells you how to inspect a sample once it arrives. This one is about the decision before that: what the piece costs, in money and in time, and what that cost does and does not buy you.

What the industry usually charges for a sample

It is worth saying plainly what a sample costs elsewhere, because it is the context a lot of founders are carrying with them when they ask us the same question. Guides aimed at apparel startups put a single prototype sample anywhere from $200 to $1,000 depending on the garment and the factory, and one sourcing guide puts the multiplier at three to five times the bulk unit price, charged as its own line before any production order exists. Fitting revisions get billed separately again, commonly $80 to $250 a round, with most brands going through two or three rounds before a sample is approved for production.

None of that is unreasonable on its own. A sample takes a pattern maker's and a tailor's individual attention the same way a one-off commission does, and that attention costs something regardless of who is paying for it. What it does mean is that a lot of people asking a factory about sample cost are really asking a different question: will this piece be priced like a favour, with a catch, or like a garment.

Here it is priced like a garment. A Classic two-piece starts at €108 ex-works, and a full canvas two-piece starts at €254 ex-works, the same figures whether the order is one piece or a hundred. There is no markup for ordering a single unit and nothing to credit back later, because nothing was added in the first place. Ex-works is the price at our door, not what lands in your hands, so freight, duty and your own time still sit on top, the way they would on any import; our guide to ex-works versus FOB covers what that figure does and does not include.

What the cost actually buys you

Money is the smaller part of what a sample costs. The real expense is the window it takes and the attention you spend checking it, and it is worth being specific about what that spends, line by line.

• The price of the garment itself, set by specification rather than quantity: €108 ex-works for a Classic two-piece, €254 ex-works for a full canvas two-piece.
• 14 to 20 working days from confirmed measurements and cloth to shipment, the same window as any other order, plus the transit time on top.
• Your own measurement work up front, against the 47 fields our system runs to, 31 of them required. A sample cut from a spec sheet with a field skipped or guessed at is not really testing our workshop; it is testing your own form.
• Your own checking time on arrival, which is the part most buyers underbudget. A garment checked properly against a bunch number, a canvas line and a spec sheet takes longer than trying it on in a mirror.
• Rush production, if you need it, priced separately: five days at a 50 percent surcharge or three days at 70 percent. That surcharge exists for a fixed date that cannot move, not as a way to make up for starting a sample later than you meant to.

What that spend buys, if you do the checking properly, is three specific answers. Whether the construction on the garment matches the construction on the quote, checked by opening the front rather than pressing a thumb against the chest; our construction guide sets out what fused, half-canvas and full canvas should each look like opened up. Whether the cloth matches its bunch number and sits in the weight you were quoted, with a fabric scale settling the question in under a minute. And whether the finished piece, measured flat, matches the spec sheet you sent, field by field, rather than relying on how it felt on a body. We cover all three checks in full detail, step by step, once a sample is actually in your hands.

What the cost does not buy you

A single piece, however carefully checked, cannot answer every question riding on it, and it is worth naming the ones it leaves open before you spend money assuming otherwise.

It does not prove batch consistency. A sample may have been cut by the most careful hand in the workshop, precisely because it is the piece meant to win a larger order, and one jacket cannot stand in for fifty. The only way to test that is a second sample, or a first real order placed as a small batch rather than a full run.

It does not prove how the garment will age. Whether a canvas holds its shape after a hundred wears, or a fused front delaminates after repeated pressing, is a question that takes years to answer and no amount of handling on day one shortcuts that clock.

And it does not prove you have a customer. A sample tests whether a factory made what it said it would make. It says nothing about whether anyone will buy the finished product, which is a separate and, for most new labels, harder problem. Our guide to starting a clothing brand walks through that side of the decision, including the other questions worth asking a maker before money changes hands, alongside a section on landed cost that is worth reading before you set a retail price against any ex-works figure.

Deciding whether a second sample is worth it

If the first sample fails the checklist somewhere, the honest next question is whether to pay for a fix and order again, or to treat the problem as settled and move to a production order anyway. We would rather you ordered the second piece.

The reason is arithmetic, not caution for its own sake. A second sample costs the same as the first, because there is no minimum order and no premium for a single unit. Against the cost of a batch order gone wrong across fifty pieces, one more garment at the same price you already paid is a small number. Our own piece on what a no-minimum order actually changes makes the wider version of this point: a low minimum does not remove the risk in starting a label, it moves the risk from cash tied up in stock to the attention each order takes, and checking a second sample properly is exactly where that attention is worth spending.

Order a second piece when the problem was specific and fixable: a construction that did not match the quote, a measurement off by more than the tolerance you agreed on, a cloth that did not match its bunch number. Skip straight to a small production order, rather than a second sample, when the first piece matched the spec cleanly and what you actually want to test next is sell-through rather than construction, because that question needs a customer, not another garment on your own desk.

Before you place the order

A sample is not a discount, a favour, or a trial with strings attached here. It is one garment, priced the same as any other, that buys you a specific, limited set of answers if you check it properly and none of the broader ones about consistency, durability or demand. Know which question you are paying to answer before the courier arrives, and you will get a straight read on whether the piece in your hands is worth building an order around.

If you want to see what a sample against your own specification would cost and how long it would take, send us your spec sheet and we will quote it properly, construction and cloth weight stated on the page, no separate sample line to explain afterward.