Last Updated on April 23, 2026 by Ewen Finser
When no one volunteered to coach my son’s Little League team last season, I ended up getting unexpectedly roped into organizing busy bus schedules, and ordering bulk custom hats for the team.
I actually found myself feeling quite proud of the design I had come up with, but when it came time to start placing orders and making sure they arrived in time, I found myself suddenly dealing with minimum order requirements, pricing, delivery turnarounds, and quality. I was in over my head!
If you’re a team manager, coach, or organizer, evaluating custom hats for a group means juggling a lot of logistical choices, including minimum order quantities, embroidery quality, the turnaround for season deadlines, and of course, pricing at team quantities
After many hours spent researching embroidery, delivery dates, and volume capabilities, I finally landed on four custom apparel companies: BlueCotton, Custom Ink, Broken Arrow Wear, Make My Cap, and Cap Beast as the most competitive options. Read on to find the Best place to get custom hats for a team
Best Place for Reliable Volume: BlueCotton
BlueCotton stands out as the best option for high stakes team orders because they handle their embroidery in-house and they have transparent turnaround times. If you are a coach, sport organizer, or manager and you can’t risk a shipping delay, this model provides several advantages.
The first is the in-house quality control. Everything from start to finish takes place in-house. This means that when you call customer service with an issue, whoever you speak with can physically walk to the other end of the building to check on your order and resolve your issue.
The second is their reliable deadline. BlueCotton offers a standard 10 business day turnaround time so when you have your season start date you can do the math backward and place your order in time. But if you absolutely need something sooner, they can work with you for an additional fee to get things to your office sooner.
Finally, the third is their team-scaling prices. Once you place an order of at least 12 units you start seeing discounts, ideal for those smaller school teams or coach-only orders but those discounts scale for 50 order minimums meaning bigger community organizations get bigger deals.
Minimums
Minimums are based on style. Performance or name brand hats like New Era or Nike require a minimum of six orders but you can find styles that don’t.
Turnaround Times
BlueCotton has a turnaround time of 10 business days. They’re not the fastest on the market but they are much faster than almost all other competitors. They do have rush options of five days, three days, and in some places one day options for additional fees. The up charge for three days is 25% and 40% of your order total for one day.
Mockups
BlueCotton doesn’t provide free samples but if your order is large enough they do send you a mock-up the cost of which gets taken out of your total invoice once you approve the design. Not loving that. Still, humans review everything to catch any issues before print.
Discount Threshold
BlueCotton provides the most cost-effective discounts for larger teams. The discount threshold is around 50 units which means that if you have a team of 50 or more or you are at least buying 50 or more, you not only get free shipping but the price drops to around $13.50 at a base price per unit.
Cost Example: For 24 mid-range performance hats that are adjustable with moisture wicking capabilities and standard font embroidery, you can expect to pay around $23 per hat from BlueCotton, equaling 552 with free shipping.
Best Place for Art Services and Speed: Broken Arrow Wear
Broken Arrow Wear specializes in speed; basically they are the clutch hitter of the group. So if you realize that your first game is two weeks away, this can be a lifesaver for your team. Even though several other print companies on this list will produce faster turnaround times for an additional fee, this is one of the fastest high volume printers with no additional fees which I think is great if you maybe have a last minute addition to your coaching staff and you need to get a hat out in less than a week so that they match everyone else for team photos.
Minimums
They require a minimum of six pieces for embroidered hats.
Turnaround Times
Broken Arrow Wear is the fastest turnaround time with a six business day guarantee so you get your order about one week after the artwork is approved. If you need it, they do have two-day Rush delivery available for an additional fee.
Mockups
You only get a free digital proof with your order, basically a virtual sample that *sort of* shows you what your custom hats will look like. This is very similar to Custom Ink: it’s just an image or a PDF file of the same thing you were looking at on your phone or computer when you designed it, theoretically to help you change the colors, font, or placement of the logo before it’s embroidered or printed.
You can’t get free physical samples but you can request unlimited changes to the digital copy until it’s exactly right. If you want a physical sample you can buy a blank hat at a discounted price but you still have to pay $5 per shipping otherwise you have to place a six order minimum to look at what your logo would be.
Discount Threshold
Broken Arrow Wear gives you price breaks for every dozen hats you order including free digitizing and free shipping but it’s slightly more expensive than BlueCotton at around $15 minimum base price with a 6-piece minimum.
Cost Example: For 24 mid-range performance hats that are adjustable with moisture wicking capabilities and standard font embroidery, you can expect to pay around $22 per hat with an estimated total of $528 with no artwork or setup fees.
Extra Fees: Look out for extra logo setup fees. If your order is large enough they might waive it, but it’s still something to be prepared for.
Best Place for No-Minimums: Make My Cap
Because they have no minimums, Make My Cap is a good option for coaches and managers who need mid-season replacements. That’s their main selling point. Maybe a player loses their hat on a road trip or someone new joins the team three weeks into the season. No problem.
Minimums
There are no minimum requirements here so you can order a single hat or you can order more. Bear in mind that if you order fewer than 24 hats you’ll have to pay a $30 art setup fee.
Turnaround Times
The turn around time is typically 10 business days but you get a digital art proof within one to two business days after you’ve placed your order and the opportunity to approve or revise that design before they start production so add a few extra days to account for this. Any order under $99 will incur a $15 delivery fee otherwise delivery is free.
Mockups
The design tool shows you a free digital mock-up, basically you get to see on your computer screen what it is you’ve designed but they don’t offer any type of free physical sample for you to check. You can request that they send you a free art proof but that’s basically just an emailed picture the same as what you were looking at in the design platform. It also takes up to two business days after you place an order for that to come, and that means you already have to pay for your order and commit to it before they send the sample; theoretically they won’t start the final embroidery until you have approved that artproof but you still already paid.
Discount Threshold
There is no minimum here if you’re ordering embroidery which is nice but there are still minimum thresholds to get discounts. The setup here’s a little different: if you order 12 or more hats you get 5% off, if you order 144 hats or more you get 25% off, and if you spend $399 or more on your order you get the $30 digitizing fee waived. This means that around its highest discount point for the largest order you might be paying around $15 for your base price.
Cost Example: For 24 mid-range performance hats that are adjustable with moisture wicking capabilities and standard font embroidery, your costs are around $19.75 per unit at the 10% volume discount so the total cost will be $474.
Extra Fees: Make My Cap has the highest chance of extra digitizing fees because they don’t waive the cost until you’ve spent around $400.
Best Place for Brand Selection: Custom Ink
If you have the booster club funding for a brand like Nike, then this is a good place to turn. Somewhat like BlueCotton, they have someone who reviews your artwork, but that’s not entirely designed to help ensure your product looks great, it’s also there to make sure they aren’t printing something they don’t think is appropriate or something that might be considered infringement.
In addition to the brand selection they also have a fun group order feature. This feature lets each team member or coach choose their own hat color and style while keeping the logo design consistent. This means you can buy a hat for your coach, assistant coach, and booster club members as well as your team with different colors or styles but the same logo across the board without having to pay for individual orders.
Note: Personally, I’ve always been a little annoyed by their pricing structure, because even though the final checkout price includes everything (no hidden fees) the price you are quoted when you start your design is always significantly lower than what your final price is. You don’t see that final price revealed until you’ve already completed your logo design and added your item to the cart.
Minimums
Minimums are based on style. Performance or name brand hats like New Era or Nike require a minimum of six orders but you can find styles that don’t.
Turnaround Times
Custom Ink has guaranteed two week delivery but you can get a one week delivery for a 15% rush fee or a three-day super delivery for a 30% rush fee only on some styles.
Mockups
They have what’s considered one of the best design tools online for custom orders, but I’ll admit I found it very frustrating and limiting despite being better than the competition. That might be the result of my job and working with graphic design, but there are still limitations in terms of where you can print on the material, what adjustments you can make to that print area, and how many colors are allowed before the cost goes up even more.
They also don’t send you a free sample beforehand so you still have to pay full price for a single embroidered or printed sample if you want to see what it’s actually like with a physical hat, and that’s going to cost you because you won’t qualify for any bulk discounts.
Discount Threshold
There are automated volume discounts that can be applied in the cart and it’s based on the type of product you are ordering, which type of hat, and how many units. The discount applies to your setup fees and your shipping as well but the minimum for embroidery is still between 6 and 12 pieces depending on which type of cap you are buying. The price point for larger team orders isn’t as appealing, the second most expensive out of all these options with a minimum base price range at $19.
Cost Example: For 24 mid-range performance hats that are adjustable with moisture wicking capabilities and standard font embroidery, the cost would average $28 per hat at a total of $672 with all inclusive pricing.
Extra Fees: Same as Broken Arrow Wear, Custom Ink has digitizing fees and they might waive them if you meet a certain threshold. Plus, going for name brands like Under Armour or Nike is going to cost an average of $7 more per hat compared to other vendors.
Best Place for High-End Streetwear and One-Off Designs: Cap Beast
Cap Beast is a good choice for the streetwear aesthetic. I wouldn’t recommend them for bulk orders especially for regular season hats but they are good for special edition orders, with a lot of high-end brands that can be used for things like tournament champions or MVP hats given out at the end of the season.
Minimums
There is no minimum order quantity here so you can purchase a single hat, two hats, or more but bear in mind it’s more expensive to order a single hat than to order 12 or more.
Turnaround Times
The turnaround time is between 2 and 14 business days. Since they focus on small batch production, it just takes longer, so they don’t have a lot of faster or rush service availability.
Mockups
Cap Beast specializes in clean interfaces specifically for hats so your preview within their design platform lets you look at logo placement on the front, back, left, and right. Aside from that you have to pay full price without any bulk discounts if you want a physical sample. They don’t send you mock-ups or human reviewed suggestions like the other companies and if you want more than one logo placed on your cap, maybe a sponsor and the team name, that’s going to cost you an extra $15 per additional logo placement.
Bummer.
Discount Threshold
You’re not going to find a lot of discounts for bulk items here. In fact, they focus more on small batches which means that volume discounts are much less aggressive. Even though there is no minimum for embroidery, you’re still going to see a base cap price at around $25 each.
Cost Example: For 24 mid-range performance hats that are adjustable with moisture wicking capabilities and standard font embroidery, you can expect some of the highest costs at around $35 per hat or $840 total.
Summing Up
If you’ve ended up as the default Little League coach this season, ordering custom hats can feel like a constant trade-off between staying within budget and making sure everything shows up on time.
That’s where some of the differences between providers become more noticeable. BlueCotton, for example, tends to make more sense for larger orders where pricing starts to level out, and the timelines are a bit more predictable. Since their production is handled in-house, there’s also a bit more consistency in how orders are processed and corrected if something comes up, compared to platforms that rely on multiple vendors.
Ultimately, it really just comes down to how much certainty you need around timing, how large your order is, and how much flexibility you’re willing to trade for cost.