Custom Ink is the largest online custom-print shop in the US and a default destination for youth soccer clubs ordering bulk team jerseys. Bear Grips Pro Shops is the on-demand alternative: no minimum order, no bulk pre-purchase, no boxes of leftover smalls in the storage closet. Here is how the two compare on the decisions a youth soccer director makes every season.
Custom Ink usually applies a minimum order of 12 to 24 shirts to unlock the standard per-shirt pricing. Smaller orders are accepted but at much higher per-shirt cost. For a youth soccer club running multiple age groups, the minimum forces the club to either bulk-order from one age group at a time (slow, expensive) or to coordinate one mass order per season (sizing risk, leftover inventory).
Bear Grips Pro Shops has no minimum. A single family can buy a single jersey from the club store. A U10 team of 12 can buy 12 jerseys in 12 different sizes. The club director never coordinates a bulk order.
Custom Ink ships the full order to a single address. The club director (or a volunteer) opens the box, sorts by size, distributes at practice, deals with the two players who got the wrong size, and tracks down the two players who never showed up to claim their jersey.
Pro Shops ships each jersey directly to the family who ordered it. No sort-and-distribute step. No wrong-size returns at the practice field. No unclaimed jerseys in a closet. Total time saved per season for the club director: 4 to 8 hours.
Custom Ink standard production runs 10 to 14 business days, with rush options available at premium pricing. Bear Grips Pro Shops standard production runs about 1 week (3 to 5 business days print, plus shipping). For mid-season add-ons (a new player joining at week 3 of the season), the lead time difference is what determines whether the new player gets a jersey in time or sits out the next two games.
Bear Grips Pro Shops: Custom Apparel for Your Team. No Minimums. Free Shipping.At the 24-shirt minimum on Custom Ink, the per-shirt cost for a similar premium-cotton or performance-poly jersey runs $18 to $28 depending on the print complexity. Below the minimum, the cost climbs to $30 to $45 per shirt. Bear Grips Pro Shops base costs run $19.88 to $25.88 on the VIP tier for the same category of jersey, with no minimum and no setup fee per order.
For most youth soccer clubs, the per-jersey cost ends up similar to Custom Ink at the 24-shirt level. The bigger savings come from no leftover inventory, no per-jersey shipping coordination, and no sizing-mistake remakes.
With Custom Ink, the bulk order is a transactional purchase: the club (or the families pooling money) pays the print shop, gets the jerseys, and that is the end of the financial relationship for that order. The club earns nothing on the jersey itself.
With Bear Grips Pro Shops, the club sets the retail price and earns the margin between base cost and retail on every jersey, every hoodie, every warmup the family buys all season. For a 100-player club running a season-long store, that adds up to $3,500 to $5,000 in margin captured that previously went to a print shop. See: youth soccer club apparel revenue math.
For everything else, an on-demand club store on Pro Shops is the better fit for a youth soccer club.
Open a free Pro Shops club store with the existing club crest. Families buy directly, the club earns margin on every order, no bulk pre-purchase, no sizing mistakes.
Start FreeAt the 24-shirt bulk minimum on Custom Ink, per-shirt costs are similar. Below the minimum, Pro Shops is significantly cheaper. The big difference is margin capture: Pro Shops lets the club earn season-long revenue on every jersey, hoodie, and warmup family purchase.
Technically yes, but the families get confused with two stores. Most clubs that migrate from Custom Ink move the whole apparel program to Pro Shops at the start of a new season.
A free-tier Pro Shops launch with the existing club crest takes under an hour. Self-Service VIP launch with the full catalog takes a few hours. Done-For-You VIP launch from logo handoff takes about a week.
Pro Shops handles tournament shirts equally well with the same no-minimum model. A single tournament team of 14 players can buy 14 tournament tees individually. See: youth soccer club tournament travel kit.
Bear Grips Pro Shops