Custom packaging for clothing brands: what to order and what it costs

Most clothing brands should start with a printed mailer box in the 9 x 6 x 3 inch range, at 100 to 250 units, in one colour. That runs about $2.87 a box at 100 and $1.82 at 250, and it covers a folded tee, a cap, or a two-piece set. Custom packaging for clothing brands has one wrinkle nothing else on this site has to plan for: apparel is returned more than most categories, so your box often makes a second trip. That one fact should change what you buy.

Why a mailer, and not a shipping carton

A printed mailer box is the parcel and the presentation in one piece. It ships on its own, it survives a courier, and the person who paid for the clothes is the one who opens it.

A shipping carton is a different job. It is built to be packed with other things and opened by staff in a warehouse. The print on it is print almost nobody sees. If your garments go to a fulfilment centre to be repacked, buy the plain carton and put the money into a printed tissue or a sticker instead.

The third option is a poly bag, and it deserves an honest answer rather than a sales one. Poly is cheaper, lighter, and posts for less. For a single folded tee going out at volume, poly wins on cost every time. What it can’t do is survive a stack, protect a structured piece like a jacket or a cap, or open like something worth photographing. Plenty of clothing brands run both: poly for basics, a printed box for the pieces they want talked about.

Sizing a box to a folded garment

Measure the garment folded the way you’ll actually fold it, then add about a quarter inch each way. Don’t size to the flat garment, and don’t size to a standard carton you found online.

Those are full colour prices at 250. The full size chart with prices at every quantity goes into the sizing in more detail, including what happens to the numbers at 500 and 1,000.

The mistake worth avoiding is buying one box big enough for everything. A hoodie box holding a single tee has to be padded, and padding costs money going out, costs postage on the extra size, and reads as filler rather than as care. Two sizes beat one oversized box almost every time.

What custom packaging for clothing brands actually costs

Here is the same medium box at every quantity, so you can see where the price stops falling.

Two things in that table are worth sitting with.

The drop from 100 to 250 is the biggest one you’ll ever get. Setup is a fixed cost, and it spreads across the run, so going from 100 to 250 takes roughly a third off the unit price. Past 500, the curve flattens, because board and ink and freight don’t shrink no matter how many you order.

One colour against full colour is about 63 cents a box at 250. On a 250 run, that is 99 dollars. If your brand is a wordmark on a plain ground, one colour is the better buy, and it often looks more expensive, not less. There is more on that in our guide to boxes with a logo on a small budget.

White board or kraft?

Kraft is unbleached, so it costs a little less, and it arrives looking like what it is. On the medium box above, it's about 11 cents a box under white at 250. It suits a brand whose whole look is plain, and it's honest about being cardboard.

White is coated, which means print sits brighter on it and photographs cleaner. A colour logo on kraft goes muddy, because you're printing onto brown. If your mark is one dark ink, kraft is the better value. If it's a photograph, a gradient, or anything pale, buy white and don't fight the board.

The one thing not worth doing is laminating kraft to make it shinier. A laminate hides the uncoated texture you paid for, and at that point white board would have been cheaper and looked better.

The returns problem nobody packs for

This is the part that makes clothing different. The National Retail Federation put returns at 19.3% of online sales in 2025 (opens in a new tab), and apparel sits well above that average, because fit cannot be judged on a screen. Roughly one parcel in four or five is coming back.

It's easy to overlook. It shouldn’t, because it changes three decisions.

• Buy a box that closes twice. A tuck front mailer can be opened and reclosed without tape. A box that has to be cut open is a box the customer can’t send back in, so you pay for a second one.
• Don’t print a date, a season, or a one-off campaign on the outside. A returned box goes back into stock. Anything time-stamped is now waste.
• Put the return instructions inside, not on the outside. A return label printed on the box tells every handler in the chain that this parcel is expected to fail. Print it on a card.

A box that survives the round trip isn’t a nice extra here. On a category where a fifth or more of orders come back, it is a real line in your packaging budget.

What to skip on your first run

• Soft touch laminate. It’s about 77 cents a box more at 250 on a medium mailer; it marks with a fingernail, and on a parcel that gets handled, it arrives looking worse than plain board.
• Printing the inside on run one. Printed inside adds about 40 cents per box at 250. It photographs beautifully, and it’s the right spend later, once you know the box size is correct.
• Order 1,000 to get the unit price down. The price at 1,000 is genuinely better. It’s a bad deal if you change the size after the first 200 go out, which is common on a first run.
• Custom tissue, stickers, cards, and a box, all at once. Pick the box first. It’s the part that has to be right.

Our pick

For a clothing brand ordering its first run: a medium mailer at 9 x 6 x 3, one colour on white or kraft, 250 units. That’s about $454 in one colour at 250; it fits most of what an apparel brand ships, and it leaves the budget for a second size later once you know what actually moves.

If you sell one thing and you already know its folded size, order 500 and take the lower price. If you sell across tees, caps and outerwear, buy two sizes at 100 each and accept the higher unit cost for one run, because buying the wrong size at 500 is the expensive mistake, not paying a bit more at 100.

If you’re not sure which board or size to commit to, ask for a free sample pack and put your own garment in a real board before you order a run.

Key takeaways

• A printed mailer around 9 x 6 x 3 suits most folded apparel.
• Expect about $2.87 a box at 100 and $1.82 at 250 in one colour.
• The biggest price drop is from 100 to 250. Past 500, the curve flattens.
• Apparel is returned more than most categories, so buy a box that recloses.
• Two sizes usually beat one oversized box with padding in it.
• One colour on a good board often reads as more expensive than full colour.

Common questions