Activewear MOQ Explained
Most buyers hear a single number and assume it applies to the whole order. It does not. Minimums in activewear are set per style, per fabric and usually per colour — and that is the number that decides the shape of your first collection.
Why there is no universal MOQ
A factory minimum is not a policy, it is arithmetic. Cutting a style means laying a marker across a fabric spread; dyeing a colour means loading a dye bath; setting up a print or a bonded seam means running a machine configuration. Each of those has a floor below which the setup cost dominates the unit price.
That is why the same factory can quote a low minimum on one style and refuse it on another. A stock-fabric, stock-colour legging is cheap to start. A custom Pantone on a 240 GSM brushed knit is not.
The four things that move your minimum
Fabric. Stock fabric held in the mill can be cut at a low quantity. Custom-knitted or custom-dyed fabric is ordered by the roll or by the dye lot, and that roll quantity becomes your real floor no matter what the style minimum says.
Colour. Each colour is a separate dye lot. Two colours do not halve the minimum, they double the number of lots. If you want six colours in one style, expect the effective minimum to be six times the per-colour figure, not one times the style figure.
Trims. Custom moulded hooks, engraved zipper pulls, jacquard elastic with your logo — each has its own tooling or run minimum, and those runs are often far larger than the garment order needs.
Size range. A style in XS–XXL is six sizes. Spreading six sizes across a small quantity means few garments per size, which is inefficient to cut and awkward to grade. Reducing to three sizes for a first run is a legitimate way to lower the entry point.
Per colour, not per order — the mistake that costs a season
A buyer is quoted a minimum, orders that quantity across four colours, and discovers at production that each colour has to meet the floor separately. The order either grows fourfold or loses three colours.
Always ask the question in the right form: what is the minimum per colour for this style in this fabric? Then multiply by the number of colours you actually intend to sell. That is your commitment.
Planning a first collection around the minimum
The reliable pattern for a first season is narrow and deep on one or two hero styles in two colours, plus a small test of one secondary style. It keeps every colour lot above the floor, keeps tooling to a minimum, and gives you real sell-through data before you commit to a broader range.
Where a buyer genuinely needs breadth for a launch, the workable alternative is to hold one fabric and one colour story across several styles. Same fabric, same dye lot, different silhouettes — the minimum is met once and the range still looks like a range.
What we will tell you before you commit
For any style, we will state the minimum per colour for the fabric you have chosen, flag any trim that carries its own tooling minimum, and tell you where reducing sizes or colours would lower the entry point. That answer comes before sampling, so you can size the collection honestly rather than discovering the constraint at purchase order stage.
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Send the product type, the destination market and your target price. You get a straight answer on what is workable and what is not, before you pay for anything.
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