300 Pieces · First Production Run

Low MOQ Clothing Manufacturing for Canadian Startups

300 pieces per style is our minimum — low enough for a first collection, high enough to actually get factory attention and a fair per-unit price. This page covers how a 300-piece run is structured and what it actually costs landed in Canada. For current duty status and CBSA specifics, see our main page for Canadian brands.

Built for a Toronto DTC brand's second run, a Vancouver boutique's first collection, or any Canadian startup that's outgrown a local print shop but isn't ready for a 1,000-piece China order.

Why 300 Pieces

Most overseas factories won't quote a new style below 500–1,000 pieces — below that, the setup cost per style doesn't pencil out for them. A local Canadian cut-and-sew shop will often take 20–50 pieces, but at a unit price that makes retail margin difficult once you factor in your own markup.

300 pieces per style sits in the gap between those two: high enough that a certified factory will actually prioritise your production slot and quote a real per-unit price, low enough that you're not carrying six-figure inventory risk on an unproven design. It's the number most Canadian DTC and boutique brands land on for a first or second run, before they have sales data to justify going bigger.

This is also, not coincidentally, roughly where a China-based factory's own minimums start becoming workable for a first-time buyer — except many China suppliers still push toward 1,000+ for a new style, and the sourcing agent layer common in that market adds a cost line a factory-direct order in Bangladesh doesn't carry.

What 300 Pieces Actually Costs Landed in Canada

Exact pricing depends on garment, fabric, and finishing — get a real quote rather than trusting a generic number. But the shape of the calculation is worth walking through so you know what to ask for.

Freight is the line first-time importers most often forget to divide across the full run — on 300 pieces it usually adds a modest amount per unit, not per order. Run your own numbers with our price calculator, and see the full duty picture, including what changes after Bangladesh's 2026 LDC graduation, on our Canada page.

Size and Colour Split on a 300-Piece Run

300 pieces doesn't mean 300 of one thing. A typical first-run split looks something like 4 sizes across 2 colourways, weighted toward your best-selling sizes based on whatever data you have — past pop-up sales, a pre-order campaign, or your own read on your customer base.

There's a practical floor, though: splitting 300 pieces across too many sizes and colours at once (8 sizes × 5 colours, for instance) leaves you with a handful of units per combination, which stops making sense from a cutting and grading standpoint. We'll flag it at the quote stage if your split is too thin to produce efficiently, and suggest a workable alternative rather than just quoting it as asked and letting the problem surface later.

Fabric Consistency From Sample to Reorder

A common worry with small first runs: will the reorder match the original? We hold your approved fabric spec, dye recipe, and pattern on file, so a reorder six months later is built against the same reference, not re-approximated from a swatch. Minor dye-lot variation is normal in textile production generally, but the target shade and hand-feel are documented, not guessed at.

If you're planning a reorder before the first run has even sold through, say so at the brief stage — we can sometimes book the extra fabric in the same dye lot as the original, which removes the shade-matching question entirely.

Scaling Past Your First Order

300 pieces is a starting floor, not a ceiling you're locked into. Most brands that stay with us move up gradually — a second style at 300, then a reorder at 500 once a design proves out, then eventually larger seasonal drops once there's real sell-through history to plan against.

The production relationship doesn't change shape as you scale: same factory, same fabric sourcing, same tech pack on file. What changes is your per-unit price, which typically improves as order size grows, and your lead time flexibility, since a returning brand with an approved style can usually move faster than a first-time order starting from a blank brief.

Certifications Still Apply at 300 Pieces

A small first order doesn't mean a lower compliance standard. GOTS organic cotton, OEKO-TEX certified fabric, and BSCI-audited production are available at the 300-piece tier the same way they are on a 5,000-piece run — certification is a property of the factory and fabric source, not something that scales up or down with your order size.

This matters more than it might seem for a startup brand: if you're pitching to a Canadian retailer or applying to a marketplace with ESG requirements later, having certified production from day one means you're not retrofitting your supply chain story after the fact. See the full list with verification links on our certifications page.

Sea vs. Air for a Small Run

At 300 pieces, your shipment is small enough that the sea-versus-air decision is worth actually thinking through rather than defaulting to whichever is cheaper. Sea freight (28–40 days to Vancouver) is the lower-cost default for a planned launch with a comfortable timeline. Air freight (3–6 days) costs more per kilogram but can be worth it if you're racing a launch date, a trade show, or a funding-round deadline — and on a 300-piece order, the total weight is low enough that the air premium is a smaller absolute number than it would be on a 5,000-piece shipment.

Tell us your real deadline at the brief stage and we'll quote both options, rather than assuming sea freight is automatically right just because it's the default for larger orders.

A middle path worth knowing about: splitting one order across both modes — a small air-freighted portion to cover an immediate launch need, with the bulk of the 300 pieces following by sea at the lower rate. It adds a coordination step, but it's a reasonable way to hit a hard date without paying air rates on the entire run.

Sample → Small Batch → Reorder

1. Proto sample: one piece for fit and construction review, ready in about 14 days. Up to 10 free revisions before you sign off.
2. Pre-production sample: final confirmation of fabric, colour, and finishing before bulk cutting begins.
3. First 300-piece run: your actual size and colour split, produced on dedicated lines with AQL 2.5 inspection before shipment.
4. Reorder: once you have real sell-through data, a repeat order on an approved style skips most of the sampling stage — faster turnaround, and you can adjust the size and colour split based on what actually sold.

Who This Is For — and Who It Isn't

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