Last Updated on November 27, 2025 by Ewen Finser
The last time we left for a trade show, we needed a lot of SWAG. The thing was, we didn’t want the same old boring, traditional SWAG that just had our company logo on it. This time, we wanted unique offerings where we could design fun, thematic promotional products that people would be more likely to wear or use regularly.
So I started looking into the best promotional product companies, and here’s what I found:
Best Promotional Product Companies
- BlueCotton: Best for quality, shipping, and the values they uphold as a company, as well as the design options
- 4Imprint: Best for large (think, thousands) of trade show-type promo merch
- PromoDirect: Best if you want a sales rep to walk you through the process instead of trying to navigate a website yourself
- Vistaprint: Best for smaller orders, with general print materials and promo products for your business
So how do they compare, and when should you choose one over the other?
4Imprint: Best for Trade Shows
- Cost: Competitive prices for bulk orders (thousands+)
- Bulk Discounts: Bigger orders = Bigger discounts
- Timearound Time: Does not list a specific TAT
- Shipping Options: Can order 24-hour delivery, but shipping options vary by product and quantity
- Samples: 4Imprint does free samples for most of their stuff; click on “request a free sample” on the product page. You can also get a “blue box” sample with random items, but they won’t let you test a sample product with your design/logo on it.
4Imprint has tens of thousands of products meant primarily for businesses and trade shows/HR giveaways.
4Imprint has an extensive range of name brand products including:
- T-shirts
- Hoodies
- Jackets
- Hats
- Uniforms
- Performance wear
- Awards
- Desk accessories
- Magnets
- Drinkware
- Bags
- Tech items
- Speciality items like, food, drink, or trade show displays
As far as I’m concerned, there are two very important facets to finding the best promotional product companies:
- Their promo product availability
- Their design tools
Beyond this, it’s important to look at pricing, company ethics, and how they treat their employees, user interface, and shipping options. But everything starts with what promo products you can purchase and what type of design you can put on those products.
4Imprint and Promodirect are both pretty limited when it comes to design tools, but they have the widest availability of promotional products available. 4Imprint literally has tens of thousands of different products, so basically anything you could think of is available, including trade show banners and printed materials, booth decorations, and other accessories.
That’s important, because both companies tend to focus on businesses and business promotional products, particularly for in-house distribution and trade shows.
Promodirect: Best for Live Sales Rep
- Cost: Competitive pricing, but you need to go through a quote process to get numbers
- Bulk Discounts: Lots of discounts on high volume orders
- Timearound Time: Varies; you have to call their sales rep to manage an order, and this can take a long time
- Shipping Options: Standard and rush options available
- Samples: Promodirect doesn’t have information on their site about samples
Promodirect has a representative-guided sales process for more complex orders or niche items. Promodirect offers the most extensive, general selection of promo products, but the design area is… well, it’s just not there.
Promodirect offers similar promo products to 4Imprint, including:
- Shirts
- Sweatshirts
- Performance clothing
- Office and writing instruments
- Drinkware
- Power banks
- Flash drives
- Speakers
- Bags
- Awards (sourced through a representative)
Promodirect, as previously mentioned, is very limited in terms of design tools. You can’t really create something unique; you are limited to basic brand logos and other related texts. Beyond that, you’re not going to find an opportunity to customize something for a bachelorette party, a wedding, a regional sports competition, a church event, a community Halloween party, or anything in between.
This is best for people who want a personalized service model and don’t necessarily have a need for images or graphics, but just want to upload a business logo or name to the promotional products.
Vistaprint: Best for Print + Promo Materials
- Cost: Good for smaller budgets with smaller quantities
- Bulk Discounts: Bulk discounts aren’t offered, but regular discounts are
- Timearound Time: Between 4-8 business days for standard orders
- Shipping Options: Multiple options, like standard shipping for a fee, or rush shipping for a larger fee
- Samples: Vistaprint will give free samples kits specifically for things like promos, which includes a variety of pre-printed items–if you need something not included in the kit, you can get free samples if you call a sales rep
Vistaprint does a lot of print/promo combos without minimum order quantities. They specialize in print materials, but you can get some common promo products with access to better design tools than 4Imprint or Promodirect.
Vistaprint has a good selection of:
- Hats
- Aprons
- Shirts
- Drinkware
- Bags
- Tech items
However, their speciality is in printed office materials like:
- Trade show displays
- Business cards
- Flyers
- Brochures
- Signs
- Banners
- Postcards
- Menus
- Notebooks
- Labels
Vistaprint is one of the only promo product companies that won’t let you get a promo sample with your design on it. Instead, they have free sample kits, like the wedding kit or the business card kit, and in this case, the promotional product kit. The kit has a variety of paper items and promo products that are pre-printed with a generic design so you can get an idea of the options.
Vistaprint has a user-friendly, self-service platform. Here, you can use templates or a drag and drop editor to create a unique design. It is significantly better than what you get with the other two options above, and you have much more control over adding images and other text content. They offer a large library of graphics, fonts, and templates. If you don’t currently have a logo, you can create one through this design platform.
This is best for small businesses or individuals who need to make quick and easy designs for basic promo items and print materials.
BlueCotton: Best for Everything Else. Literally.
- Cost: Mid-range pricing, with high quality over cheaper production/cost
- Bulk Discounts: More discounts on bulk items
- Timearound Time: Average 10 business days from start to delivery
- Shipping Options: Free 10-day TAT shipping, with options for rush and same-day shipping for a fee
- Samples: BlueCotton has free printed samples if you order more than 250 pieces; if under 250, they send you a sample for a $100 fee, which gets credited back to your bulk order–you can also order blank promo products for a fee to see if they work
BlueCotton offers in-house promo design, with a 9-step Quality Check process. Everything is done quickly and efficiently, without sacrificing quality. BlueCotton excels in promo apparel, but has a lot of other office/sport/promo offerings fit for universities, schools, businesses, influencers, and volunteers.
BlueCotton specializes in high quality clothing items like:
- Custom t-shirts
- Hoodies
- Athletic wear
- High-quality fabrics
However, they also offer products like:
- Lanyards
- Folders
- Awards
- Drinkware
- Bags
- Phone accessories
- Headphones
- Food & candy
- Health & personal care items
- Sports & outdoor items
- Games & novelties
BlueCotton has a self-service design platform, too. This platform is unique, because it has an AI assistance option where you can create AI images. This might be particularly useful if, for example, you are creating a community fundraiser and you want to generate a new, copyright-free image for that fundraiser that contains elements relating to your community; local landscape elements like rivers or bridges, specific text for the place, date, and sponsors, or anything else the community is famous for.
This is best for people who already have existing branding and just want to work with an expert to proof their logo – basically, look over where it is placed on the promotional product and whether it should be moved slightly up, down, left, or right.
Even though you don’t have to go through a sales rep to get your promo products, it’s always important to have good customer service. This is one area where, as I said, BlueCotton is best for everything else:
Customer service reps sit in the same building as production, so fixes are fast. The company also invests heavily in its people, which translates directly into better service and quality. They have built a culture around growth and empowerment, with personal development classes, financial coaching, and Bitcoin rewards programs.
In my experience, when a company takes care of its employees, those employees go out of their way to take care of customers. As the customer, that’s what I’m looking for.
Summing Up
There are a lot of good options for promotional product companies, and arguably, each can fit a specific need.
Hands down, the best option overall is BlueCotton. They offer free shipping, free samples, refunds on samples if you don’t like the quality, and quicker shipping options for a fee if your team forgot to order something ahead of time (totally not speaking from experience here).
Their design tools are the most comprehensive of the group, and you have so much more flexibility to curate something truly unique; something that isn’t limited to a quick business brand or logo, but could include things like holiday shirts, or matching bags for a bridal shower, fundraiser, or church event.
4Imprint is the best for large companies that need to create bulk orders of trade show-type promo merch. However, they don’t have design tools to help you make unique items, and their products aren’t managed in-house. That can leave a lot of groups (volunteers, churches, schools, sports teams, community orgs) without the right products.
PromoDirect is comparatively most similar to 4Imprint, with the key difference being their website is not great, probably because the goal is to have you call a sales rep to walk you through the process instead of trying to navigate the website yourself. If you have very complicated ordering needs (but still only want promo products that have your company logo or school name), this might work.
Vistaprint is best for smaller orders, though their bread and butter is general print materials. So, if you need some brochures for your school or church and promo products with basic image/text design tools, this can be a nice option.