Every development director eventually gets asked the same question by a board member: is the merch thing actually worth doing? With a traditional bulk print run the answer required real math, because $400-$800 sat upfront before a single shirt sold. With a no-minimum apparel shop the downside risk mostly disappears, which changes the question from "will we lose money" to "is this the best use of our time." Here is how to run that math honestly.
Return on investment usually compares money in against money out. For a bulk print run that math includes real financial risk: pay for 100 shirts, hope 100 people buy them, eat the loss on whatever is left. Print-on-demand apparel removes that risk almost entirely because nothing is purchased until a buyer pays for it. That leaves two real costs to weigh against the revenue: the platform subscription (if any) and the staff or volunteer hours spent on design, setup, and promotion. The ROI question becomes: does the margin per shirt, multiplied by realistic sales volume, clear the time it took to run the drive?
| Cost item | Free plan | Self-Service VIP |
|---|---|---|
| Monthly platform cost | $0 | $59 |
| Live products at once | 3 | 200 |
| Base item price | Higher | Lowest available |
| Upfront inventory cost | $0 | $0 |
| Design and setup time | 1-3 hours | 1-3 hours |
There is a Done-For-You VIP tier at $105/month for organizations that would rather hand the design, mockups, and monthly refresh to a dedicated advisor entirely, which converts almost all of the setup time cost into a flat monthly fee instead.
Bear Grips Pro Shops: Custom Apparel for Your Team. No Minimums. Free Shipping.| Item | VIP base | Typical retail | Net margin |
|---|---|---|---|
| Airlume cotton tee | $19.88 | $30 | $10.12 |
| Premium cotton crew tee | $23.88 | $34 | $10.12 |
| Comfort Soft Hoodie | $36.88 | $50 | $13.12 |
| Champion crewneck | $41.88 | $56 | $14.12 |
| Embroidered snapback | $29.86 | $40 | $10.14 |
Vendors set their own retail price and keep the difference. Nothing here counts sales tax, payment processing, or shipping, since the buyer pays free US shipping directly and the platform handles printing and fulfillment.
On the Free plan there is no subscription cost to clear, so the first shirt sold is already pure return above the time invested. On Self-Service VIP at $59/month, clearing the subscription fee alone takes about 6 tee sales at a $10 margin, which most active drives clear in the first week. Past that point every additional sale is close to pure margin minus the original setup time. Framed as hours: a 2-hour setup plus 1 hour of weekly promotion over a 6-week drive is roughly 8 hours total. At a $10 average margin, 40 shirts sold pays $10 an hour for that time on top of covering the platform cost, and most active nonprofit drives with even modest promotion clear well past 40 units.
| Fundraiser type | Upfront risk | Volunteer hours | Typical net per supporter |
|---|---|---|---|
| Bake sale | Low | High (day-of staffing) | $3-$8 |
| Raffle | Low to medium (prize sourcing) | Medium | Varies widely |
| Direct-ask letter | Printing and postage | Low per supporter | Depends on ask size |
| No-minimum apparel drive | Near zero | Low after setup | $8-$14 per item |
Apparel rarely replaces a direct-ask campaign as the primary revenue engine, but it usually beats other tactic-based fundraisers on hours spent per dollar raised, and it leaves every buyer walking around as a small piece of ongoing brand exposure that a bake sale or raffle does not.
No minimum, no inventory, free US shipping. See what your margin looks like before you commit a single hour.
Start FreeYes, but it clears fast. At a $10 average shirt margin, about 6 sales covers the monthly fee, and most drives sell far more than that in a single campaign window.
There is no single answer, but most nonprofits price a basic tee at $28-$32 and a hoodie at $45-$55, which keeps the item accessible while preserving a $10-plus margin per piece.
The shop can go live the same day the logo is uploaded. The first sale can happen within minutes of sharing the link, though the buyer waits about a week for the shirt to arrive.
Not necessarily. A small nonprofit with an engaged 300-person email list often outperforms a larger org with a cold list, because ROI here tracks engagement more than budget size.
Bear Grips Pro Shops