The promotional brief is not the retail brief
A retail blanket is sold on hand-feel and finish. A promotional throw is handed out — at a stadium gate, a conference desk, a festival entrance. The recipient never compares it to an alternative. So the spec optimizes for the three things that actually matter: unit cost, lead time, and a logo that reads cleanly from across a stand. Over-speccing the fabric here is just spending money the brief doesn't reward.
The cost-optimized fabric
The workhorse promotional throw is 220–240 GSM polar fleece, usually 130×170 cm. It's warm enough to be kept and used, light enough to ship cheaply, and the cheapest fabric that still feels like a real blanket rather than a sheet. Going below 200 GSM saves pennies and costs goodwill — the throw feels disposable. Going above 280 GSM spends money the giveaway context won't notice.
Stock colour vs custom Pantone — the biggest cost lever
This single decision moves both price and lead time more than anything else:
- Stock fleece colour — the mill already holds the yarn/fabric. Cheapest, fastest, and usually close enough to a brand colour. Always ask for the stock colour card first.
- Custom Pantone dye — an exact brand-colour match, but it adds a dye run, a minimum dye quantity, cost, and lead time. Worth it for a flagship brand activation; overkill for a one-off giveaway.
If your brand colour is close to a stock shade, taking the stock colour can cut both cost and a week of lead time.
Decoration: screen print vs sublimation
For most promotional throws, single- or two-colour screen print is the right call — cheapest at volume for bold, flat logos. Each colour needs its own screen, so cost climbs with colour count; keep the logo to one or two flat colours and it stays cheap. Reach for sublimation only when the design is full-colour or all-over — it's print-on-demand and colour-count-independent, but it needs a polyester face and costs more per piece. (More on the trade-offs in our decoration methods guide.)
Indicative volume pricing (FOB Ningbo)
- 10,000 pcs, 130×170 cm, 240 GSM polar fleece, single-colour screen print: roughly USD 2.50–3.20 / piece.
- Custom Pantone dye instead of stock colour: add ~USD 0.20–0.40 / piece plus a few days.
- Sublimation full-face instead of screen print: add ~USD 0.60–1.20 / piece.
- At 20,000+ pcs with stock colour, expect to drift toward the bottom of the range.
These exclude freight. For event distribution, DDP to a US warehouse typically adds USD 0.40–0.80 / piece depending on volume and destination.
Lead time — and how to compress it
A 20,000-piece stadium throw runs about 22–28 days with a stock colour and single-colour screen print, or 30–35 days if custom Pantone dye is required, plus freight. The levers that protect an event date:
- Take a stock colour — removes the dye run from the critical path.
- Approve the screen proof fast — proofing delay is the most common slip.
- Book freight early, or fly part of it — air-freight a first tranche for the event and sea-freight the rest if the date is tight.
- Lock artwork before sampling — a logo change after the screen is burned restarts decoration.
Running a stadium, festival or conference giveaway? Send us your brief with the quantity and the date — we'll quote a stock-colour and a custom-Pantone option side by side, with the lead time for each.