How Much Should Custom Caps Cost? (Pricing Guide for Custom Trucker Hats, Dad Hats & More)
- The Purnaa Team
- Oct 20, 2022
- 5 min read
Updated: Apr 7
Are you shopping for custom caps for your brand, business, or team? Whether you're looking for custom trucker hats, dad hats, or custom caps with your logo, pricing can feel confusing fast.
Once you factor in decoration, embroidery, artwork, and shipping, custom caps often cost more than expected. So what’s actually a fair price? We've researched more than 100 hat and cap suppliers to try to shed some light on how much you should be paying for different types of orders.
What is the Average Retail Price for Hats?
For a good quality cap, it is now common to see prices from $25-$40. The price will depend on brand (certain premium brands command a higher price) and style (certain embellishments are more expensive than others.) This is all fairly easy to confirm by shopping at some of your favorite brands, but the tougher job is to figure out how much you should pay for your custom design when buying several dozen or even several thousand caps at a time.
Ways to Order Custom Caps (Manufacturers vs Suppliers)
When ordering custom caps for your brand, there are a few different routes you can take. Each option affects your price, quality, lead time, and level of customisation.
We break it down into three main categories:
Pre-defined Stock Embellishers (Best for Low MOQ Custom Caps)
These are typically local screen-print or embroidery shops that decorate pre-made blank caps sourced from wholesalers. If you're looking for custom caps with logo quickly, this is often the fastest route. You choose from a catalogue of existing styles (like trucker caps or dad hats) and add your branding through embroidery or print. The advantage of having the blank product already in stock nearby is that it is fast to receive them and there is usually a low minimum order quantity. The disadvantage is you need to pick a style and color from a set offering without full customization options.
Dealers and Wholesalers (Balance of Customisation & Scale)
This could be a local small business that facilitates merchandise and apparel purchasing or a large national brand, but these companies work directly with factories (usually overseas) that will make your products. They manage communication with factories and often offer both stock + decoration options and fully custom cap production. They are prepared to fulfill larger quantity orders and offer more unique customization options, but you probably have to wait longer and may have to manage larger minimum order quantities.
Direct Custom Cap Manufacturers (Best for Price & Full Customisation)
These companies either are or own their own factories that actually make your caps. Most good quality caps in the North American market come from factories in China and Vietnam. You can find tons of options online, but sifting through them to find a good quality service provider can be challenging. You get the best price by buying directly from the manufacturer, but communication can be challenging and lead times and minimum order quantities can be long.
So, What Should You Pay for Custom Caps?
Pricing for custom caps, trucker hats, and caps with your logo can vary more than most people expect. To get a clearer picture, we interviewed and secret-shopped over 100 companies, from local decorators to global custom cap manufacturers. We spoke with both suppliers and the brands buying from them to understand what people are actually paying.
Here’s what we found:
How much should Custom Caps Cost?
The cost of custom caps depends on two main things:
Order quantity
Type of cap (e.g. trucker caps, dad hats, snapbacks)
For consistency, we asked suppliers to quote an average, fully decorated cap. Prices exclude shipping, import duties, and taxes. While our original data was collected in 2019, we estimate that prices in 2026 have increased by roughly 20% due to inflation.
Custom Cap Pricing: Key Insights
The average price for different quantities by type of supplier is shown below. Not every supplier replied with pricing at every quantity level, so our data for some quantity levels are limited.
Across all supplier types, pricing was closer than expected, but with some important differences:
Direct manufacturers often offer the lowest base price
→ but don’t include shipping or import costs
Local suppliers can be more cost-effective at smaller quantities
The Pre-defined Stock Embellishers was most expensive at low quantities, possibly because they tend to deal with less experienced customers who don't know what price they should be paying
At higher volumes, pricing becomes more competitive across all supplier types
Why Prices for Custom Caps Vary So Much
While average pricing for custom caps was relatively similar across different order quantities, the range of quotes we received told a very different story. For the same order sizes, typically 24, 48, or 100 custom caps, prices varied significantly between suppliers. Some quotes were surprisingly low, while others were far higher than expected.
What we found:
At every order quantity, there were major price outliers
→ both unusually cheap and unexpectedly expensive options
This highlights the importance of shopping around and comparing quotes
→ but also being cautious of prices that seem too good to be true
Lower prices can sometimes mean compromises in quality, materials, or production standards
No single supplier type (manufacturer, wholesaler, or decorator) was consistently the cheapest
Interestingly, we also found that even custom cap manufacturers, who are often expected to offer the best pricing, sometimes quoted at the higher end of the market. This suggests that pricing isn’t always fixed or standardised. In many cases, suppliers will quote based on what they believe a customer is willing to pay. That’s why having some industry awareness is key, it helps you recognise what a fair price for custom caps actually looks like.
What Is the Minimum Order for Custom Caps?
You'll find the three different supplier categories set quite different minimum order quantities (MOQs). The MOQ in turn has a strong effect on the price. The graph below shows the distribution of MOQs we found through our research. Obviously Pre-defined Stock Embellishers can offer the lowest MOQs because they are working with in-stock blanks and the Manufacturers demand the largest MOQs to make processing your custom order worth their time.
How Long Do Custom Caps Take?
There’s always a trade-off between price, speed, and customisation when ordering custom caps.
From our research:
Fastest:Â Stock embellishers (using ready-made caps)
Mid-range:Â Wholesalers
Manufacturers:Â Fast production, but not always fast delivery
One key thing to watch: many manufacturers quote production time only, not shipping.
Sea freight: adds ~30–45 days
Air shipping:Â faster, but more expensive
Always check if lead times include both production and delivery to avoid delays.
Getting High-Quality Custom Caps at the Right Price
All of this data should be taken in the context of your specific design requirements. More customization control of the base hat will definitely take longer because it needs to be made to your specs. More decorations, especially embroidery size and placements will increase costs.
A More Transparent Way to Manufacture Custom Caps
At Purnaa, we specialize in sublimation printed caps where any of the fabric can be fully customized with any image and color.
Because we work closely with production, we’re able to offer:
Custom caps with logo
Custom trucker hats, snapbacks, dad hats and more
The lowest minimum order quantities
Faster, more reliable lead times
All while prioritising ethical manufacturing and responsible materials.
If you have a unique cap design that you'd like to investigate, please get in touch via our cap inquiry form www.purnaa.com/cap-inquiry.
Read more about cap manufacturing in our other blogs