A judo dojo of 40 active members typically earns $1,000 to $1,400 a year selling branded apparel through a print on demand shop, with no inventory and no upfront cost. A 150 member club clears $3,500 to $4,800. The math is simple, and the variables that move it most are the product mix and how often the dojo reminds students the shop exists. Here is the breakdown with realistic numbers.
Three numbers decide what a judo dojo earns from apparel. Get all three honest and the rest is arithmetic.
1. Active members. Total students who train at least once a week. Count adults and junior students. Parents of junior students count as buyers, not members, in this math.
2. Purchase rate per month. The percent of active members who buy at least one item in a given month. Most judo clubs land at 8 to 15 percent monthly with normal effort, higher around promotion ceremonies and tournament season.
3. Profit per item. The dollar margin the dojo sets between the base price and the retail price. Most clubs default to $12 per item across the catalog.
The formula: members times monthly rate times 12 times average margin equals annual revenue. Easy to model, easy to adjust.
The table below uses a 12 percent monthly purchase rate and a $12 average margin per item, which are conservative numbers based on what real judo clubs see in the first year of a shop.
| Club size | Monthly orders | Annual units | Annual revenue |
|---|---|---|---|
| 20 members | 2.4 | 29 | $346 |
| 40 members | 4.8 | 58 | $691 |
| 75 members | 9 | 108 | $1,296 |
| 150 members | 18 | 216 | $2,592 |
| 250 members | 30 | 360 | $4,320 |
These are conservative. Clubs that promote the shop at every promotion ceremony, tournament team meeting, and parents night routinely double these numbers in year two. Clubs that launch and never mention it again sit at the low end.
Bear Grips Pro Shops: Custom Apparel for Your Team. No Minimums. Free Shipping.Three moves consistently double revenue without adding a single new student.
1. Add a hoodie and a hat to the lineup. Average margin jumps from $12 to closer to $14 because hoodies and hats both carry higher margins than tees. Buyers who would have bought one tee often buy a tee plus a hat in the same order.
2. Drop a limited edition shirt twice a year. Promotion ceremony shirt in spring, tournament team shirt in fall. Limited drops convert browsing parents into buyers and pull repeat orders from students who already own the staple tee.
3. Print a QR code and put it on the dojo wall. A laminated 8 by 10 inch QR code by the front desk and one in the changing area pulls walk in orders from students who would never think to type the URL.
See the breakdown on how to start a judo club merch shop for the launch steps.
Traditional dojo merch math is brutal. Order 36 shirts at $15 a piece is $540 upfront. Sell 28 of them at $30 each is $840 gross, $300 profit, plus the 8 shirts sitting in the back closet for a year. Annualized return on the $540 is around 56 percent before counting the closet shirts as a loss.
Print on demand math is different. Sell 28 shirts at $12 profit each is $336. Sell 50 is $600. Sell 200 is $2,400. The investment is zero. The return on investment is undefined because there is no denominator. Every unit sold is incremental profit.
The trade off is per unit margin. A traditional bulk order at scale carries higher per shirt margin than print on demand. The math wins for clubs under 300 members because the inventory risk and upfront cash outweigh the margin gap. For clubs over 1,000 members, traditional bulk plus an on demand shop for niche items is the better mix.
Most judo clubs that we have seen do one of three things with apparel revenue.
The path that earns the highest reorder rate is the tournament travel subsidy. Students and parents buy more shirts when they know the money is going to the team they are part of.
Open a free Bear Grips Pro Shop and start the math working for your club. Set your margins, share the link, watch the orders.
Start FreeA 20 member dojo at a 12 percent monthly purchase rate and $12 average margin clears around $350 per year. A 40 member club clears around $700. These are conservative estimates assuming no major promotion effort.
Most clubs land at 8 to 15 percent of active members ordering at least one item per month. Promotion ceremony months and tournament season push this higher. New shops with no internal marketing land closer to 5 percent.
No. Print on demand has zero upfront cost. Items are printed only after a student orders, so the dojo never fronts cash for inventory and never sits on unsold shirts.
A heavyweight pullover hoodie. It carries a $13 average margin, gets worn more days per year than any tee, and pulls repeat orders from students who already own the dojo tee.
Bear Grips Pro Shops