I've Learned to Ask “What's NOT Included” Before “What's the Price”

Look, I don't usually weigh in on purchasing debates. But after two vendors in a single quarter taught me the same expensive lesson, I'll make an exception: the lowest quote on custom merchandise is rarely the cheapest order you'll end up paying for.

If we haven't met, I'm the office administrator for a 260-person software company in Austin. Roughly $140,000 of our annual spend crosses my desk, usually in 60–80 purchase orders a year—new hire kits, client gifts, event merchandise, you name it. If it gets a logo printed, embroidered, or stamped on it, it's my problem. I report to both Operations and finance, which is a polite way of saying I have to defend the line items I approve.

After five years of managing these vendor relationships, I'm convinced that transparent pricing is the most reliable signal of a vendor worth your trust. In my opinion, a vendor who lists every fee upfront is better to work with than one who quotes a lower number and hopes you don't ask about the rest.

A 500-pin lesson I still use

For our company's tenth anniversary in late 2023, I ordered 500 custom lapel pins as gifts for employees and close clients. It seemed like a simple project: one logo, established brand colors, and a six-week lead time. A new supplier quoted $1.18 per pin plus $40 shipping. That came to roughly $630. CustomInk's all-in quote came to $760. Guess which one I chose at first.

I chose the lower quote. Then the invoice started moving.

The metal mold for the pin shape? An extra $95 that never appeared on the quote. Pantone color matching? Another $55. Converting our vector file into production-ready art? $40. Shipping came to $60 instead of $40 because the package hit a dimensional-weight charge. The final total was $840. That is $80 more than the quote I had dismissed as expensive.

The CustomInk estimate didn't move, because it already included the mold at that quantity, color matching, a proof, and shipping. The unit price was $1.45 versus $1.18, but the number that mattered was the total. Sometimes the more expensive number is the cheaper number.

The same pattern shows up in Champion hoodies and tote bags

You might assume the lapel pin story is unique because of the mold. It's not. The same pattern shows up in most custom merchandise categories, just with different disguises.

In April 2024, I ordered 120 Champion hoodies with our logo embroidered on the front and employee names on the sleeves. One vendor's low quote was based on a generic blank hoodie that merely resembled the Champion style our team actually wanted. When I insisted on the real Champion hoodie, the price jumped by $6.25 per piece. The quote also omitted the embroidery digitization fee, and it charged extra for sleeve names above a certain stitch count.

CustomInk's Champion hoodie page handled it differently. The garment cost, the embroidery setup fee, the digitization charge, and the shipping estimate all showed up as separate line items before I added the first item to my cart. It took me longer to read the page, honestly, but it took me zero time to wonder what the final invoice would look like.

Tote bags tell the same story in a different dialect. When we ordered 500 custom tote bags for new hire onboarding, the lowest bid was based on a flimsy 4 oz non-woven bag, while the sample we had approved was an 8 oz cotton tote. The mockups looked almost identical. The quote never mentioned the material weight, and the cheap bag felt dramatically cheaper in person. The price made sense after we realized what was actually being quoted.

There is a quiet satisfaction in receiving an invoice that matches the original quote. It shouldn't be rare, but in this industry, it is.

Who is in the nativity set? The clarifying questions matter

That shortage of honesty showed up last year in the most unlikely product category: custom nativity sets.

In November, our office sponsored a holiday fundraiser for a local nonprofit. We planned to buy 75 custom nativity sets as donor gifts. When I asked one vendor for a quote, he replied with a question: “Who is in the nativity set?”

At first, it sounded like a Sunday school trick. But “who is in the nativity set” determines the price more than almost any other variable. A basic set can have three figures—Mary, Joseph, and the infant—while a fuller set includes shepherds, wise men, an angel, and animals, easily fifteen or more pieces.

A one-line quote for a “custom nativity set” doesn't tell you which version you are buying. The vendor who asks which figures you want is showing you the boundaries of the price before they ask you to commit. The vendor who doesn't ask can quote the cheapest interpretation and quietly add charges later when you point out that the three wise men are missing.

The vendor who asked the clarifying questions won that order. The set arrived on time, with all the figures we discussed, at the total we agreed to. That is what transparent pricing looks like in practice.

Regulators have a name for this pattern: drip pricing

This isn't just a pet peeve from a picky office administrator. The Federal Trade Commission's advertising guidance (ftc.gov/business-guidance/advertising-marketing) holds that claims should be truthful and not misleading. When a supplier advertises a unit price and then adds mandatory tooling, setup, color matching, and conversion fees after the buyer chooses them, it raises a reasonable question about whether the advertised price was ever real.

The broader consumer protection conversation around “drip pricing” has pushed hotels, ticket sellers, and other industries to show mandatory fees upfront. Custom merchandise is no different. If the quoted price isn't the total price, every buyer should be told that before they make a decision, not after.

I'm not saying you should ignore price

To be fair, a low price is not automatically a trap. I have accepted low quotes when the vendor sent a one-page breakdown showing exactly how the total was built. A low price plus transparency is the best combination in the market. A low price plus vagueness is a gamble I no longer take.

The problem is not that a quote is lower. The problem is that the quote is incomplete. Since I started asking vendors what is not included before asking them to sharpen their pricing, more than half of the initial quotes I receive have changed once the exclusions were clarified. That tells me the first number was never a real final price—it was a starting position.

Here is the checklist I now run before signing any purchase order for custom merchandise:

• Ask directly: “What is NOT included in the unit price?” Setup, molds, color matching, art conversion, and proofs are the usual suspects.
• Confirm the exact product specification—garment brand, material weight, decoration method—so I'm comparing the same item.
• Check whether shipping is quoted at the actual package volume or just a handling estimate.
• Ask what happens if the artwork needs revisions, because that is where rush fees and extra charges live.
• Request a final total that includes every mandatory fee before I approve the PO.

If a vendor can't answer those questions in writing, I don't proceed. Not because the price is too high, but because the risk is too high.

The bottom line

I'm not trying to be the cheapest buyer in my industry. I'm trying to be the buyer who doesn't get surprised at the end of the month.

The next time you get a quote for custom lapel pins, custom tote bags, branded Champion hoodies, or even a custom nativity set, try asking “What's not included?” before asking “Can you do better?” The answer will tell you more about the vendor than any per-unit price ever will. In my experience, the best vendor isn't the one with the lowest first number—it's the one who tells you the real number upfront.