Embroidery on Your Own Garments: How Supplied Apparel Works

Yes, send your own garments. Pricing does not change.

If you want a logo embroidered on shirts you already own, we handle it. We take garments you supply, from a single jacket to a pallet of blank polos. You pay the decoration price, and you already own the garment, so there is nothing else to quote on that side.

That works because our price list never included the garment in the first place. Every number on it is for the stitching. Look up the same per piece embroidery pricing you would see on any order: standard embroidery up to 6,000 stitches runs $10.75 a shirt at 1 to 8 pieces and steps down with quantity to $5.25 at 72 and up. Hats and bags have their own column. A new logo carries a $35 setup, one time. Bring the same logo back next quarter and it is already on file.

Your quote lays all of it out before we start: the stitch count, the placement, the tier you land in and anything extra, like metallic thread or 3D puff. No surprises after the garments arrive.

Read the liability line before you ship anything

Our price list says it plainly: "We assume no liability for loss or damage to garments provided by the client." We would rather you hear it from us up front than find it in fine print later.

Here is what it means in practice. When we source the garment, the blank comes from our side of the order. When you supply it, the garment is yours the whole way through, and so is the risk. Embroidery puts a needle through fabric thousands of times. Most garments take that without a complaint. Some do not, and a supplied garment cannot be swapped from our stock.

So plan the order the way a careful buyer would:

• Count and inspect before you ship. Write down how many of each size and style are in the box. Note any garment that already has a flaw.
• Send a spare or two of anything hard to replace. A discontinued color, a jacket from last season, a size you cannot find again. One extra piece is cheap insurance.
• Keep the one of a kind piece at home. If losing that vintage jacket would break your heart, it is not a good candidate. Pick something you could buy again.

What embroiders well and what fights the needle

Stable fabrics embroider beautifully. Polos, woven button downs, work jackets with a firm shell, fleece, sweatshirts and structured caps all hold a logo clean and flat. If your pile is mostly these, you are in good shape.

A few garments need a conversation before they are hooped:

• Very thin, stretchy performance fabric, which can pucker around a dense logo.
• Sweater knits, where stitches can sink into an open weave.
• Heavily padded or seam sealed outerwear, where the needle can compromise the very thing the jacket is built to do.
• Any piece with a pocket, zipper or seam sitting right where the logo wants to go.

None of these is an automatic no. They are a reason to send a photo and talk placement first. Before you put a logo on a garment, check it the way you would check anything you plan to wear for years. We use the same habit with the quality markers we check in our own PILLAR line: fabric weight, seams, how it recovers after a stretch.

Odd items are welcome too. Golf bags and suitcases are $55 minimum per item and may need extra digitizing or special hooping, all quoted up front. And if you want a bigger mark on the back of a supplied jacket, read how stitch count prices a bigger logo before you settle on a size. Full chest and jacket backs are $55 up to 22,500 stitches, then $1 per 1,000.

Your garments, ours, or built from scratch

Supplying your own is the right call when the garments already exist and match. When they do not, letting us source the blank usually gives you a cleaner program, because a mixed pile is hard to make look like one program. Here is how the three routes compare.

Filled square: strong fit. Empty square: weak fit. Your logo files and thread colors stay on record either way, so the logo itself matches on every reorder.

Speed is close for the first two routes. Logo embroidery on stock garments runs 7 to 10 business days from proof approval, and supplied garments run on that same decoration clock once they are here. Fully custom is a different product with a different clock, about 45 days door to door.

How to send supplied garments so the order runs clean

A clean order starts with a clean list. The best supplied garment orders we see arrive with paperwork that matches the box exactly.

• A counted list by size and name. If the jackets are going to specific people, put the names next to the sizes.
• One garment style per line. Polos on one line, quarter zips on another. Mixed lines are where counts go wrong.
• The logo file. Vector is best. See what a clean logo file looks like before you send.
• Placement notes. Left chest, right sleeve, back yoke. A photo with a circle on it works.
• The date you need them. Tell us early so the quote can say whether it fits.

Not sure which version of your logo to send? Our guide to which logo file to send, over at PILLAR walks through it.

Your quote confirms how the garments get to us. From there, we proof placement, size and thread colors before production, and nothing gets stitched until you approve that proof. When the order is done, it is packed by size and name, ready to hand out.

When staff buy their own scrubs, chef coats or jackets

This is the hardest version of supplied garments, and the most common. Every nurse picks a different scrub brand. Every cook has a favorite chef coat. The garments will never fully match, so the logo has to do the matching.

Standardize two things and a mixed pile still reads as one program. First, one logo file in one size, digitized once and used on every piece. Second, one placement, measured the same way on every garment, whatever the cut. That is exactly how we keep staff scrubs consistent across brands and colors.

Then keep it going. We keep reorder files and colors on record, so when a new hire shows up with their own scrubs next spring, their logo matches the rest of the floor. There is no minimum, so one new hire is one order.