Why the minimum order is 25 patches, not 100

Most patch makers want 100 pieces before they will talk to you. Here is what the minimum is actually protecting, and why ours is lower.

The minimum here is 25 pieces per design

Per design, not per order. Two different designs are two runs of 25.

What a minimum is actually for

The cost of a patch run splits into two parts.

Setup happens once regardless of quantity: digitising the artwork, matching thread colours, producing a proof, threading the machine, cutting a mould if it is PVC. This is real work and it does not get cheaper for a small run.

Per-piece is the stitching or moulding itself, and it scales with quantity.

A minimum exists to make sure setup is spread across enough pieces to be worth doing. Set it at 100 and setup disappears into the per-patch price. Set it at 25 and it is far more visible.

That is the whole trick, and most shops resolve it by refusing small runs.

Why ours is 25

Because the orders that need patches most are small ones.

A section. A course cohort. A milsim team. An exercise that ran once. A club with eleven members. Those groups do not need 100 patches and never will, and a 100-piece minimum tells them to order four times what they want or go without.

Setting the minimum at 25 means the price at 25 has to be honest rather than punitive. It is higher per patch than at volume — that is arithmetic, not a penalty — but it is a real price you can order at, not a number designed to push you upward.

What 25 pieces costs

The per-patch figures for every quantity and construction are on the pricing page, and each landing page shows the table for its own construction.

What matters more than the number is what is inside it:

• No setup fee.
• No digitising fee. Redrawing your artwork for thread is part of making the patch.
• No artwork charge, however rough what you send is.
• Velcro backing included.
• Free tracked shipping.
• Taxes and card fees already in the figure.

So a run of 25 costs what the table says and nothing more. There is no second number at checkout, which is the thing that usually makes a cheap-looking quote expensive.

Should you order more than you need?

Sometimes, and it is worth doing the arithmetic rather than assuming.

The per-patch price drops at 50, 75, 100, 250 and 500. Because the brackets step, ordering slightly more can occasionally cost slightly less in total — and even where it does not, the marginal patches are cheap.

Spares are genuinely useful. People lose them, new members arrive, and someone always wants a second for a bag. A handful of extras on the first run costs far less than a second run later.

And if you do need more later

Your digitised design is kept on file against your order ID. A follow-on run is placed from the resupply page with that code — no redrawing, no re-approval of artwork that has not changed, and the second batch matches the first rather than being rebuilt from scratch.

That is the real answer to “should I over-order”: you do not have to guess, because reordering is cheap and fast.