RFQ Brief Builder: Turn Your Custom Sportswear Idea Into a Quote-Ready Enquiry
Most first enquiries we receive are a single sentence: a garment, a rough quantity, and a hope that we can make it. That is a perfectly good place to start, but it is not yet enough to cost a run. This free builder asks the questions our sampling team would ask, scores how complete your answers are, and writes them into one structured brief you can send us. Nothing is uploaded, there is no signup, and you can leave any field open.
What we need before we can quote a small run
At a 10-piece minimum per style and colour, the detail in your brief matters more than the size of your order. A complete specification gets a costed answer on the first reply; a vague one starts a week of emails.
Why a complete brief changes the answer you get
We have been manufacturing custom sportswear since 2010, and the pattern is consistent: two enquiries for the same 60-piece hoodie run can get very different answers, because one buyer has named a 320gsm French terry with two print positions and the other has not. The first can be costed immediately from stock fabric and an existing grading block. The second needs a fabric shortlist, a swatch round, and three clarifying emails before anyone can talk about price.
This is not a sales tactic. A unit price is the sum of a base cloth, a cut-and-sew operation, a decoration setup, a packing spec and a freight leg. If half of those are unknown, any number we give you would be invented. We would rather say “not yet” than give you a figure that moves later, which is why our site says plainly that fabric is confirmed before we quote.
The builder below makes that gap visible. It scores your brief out of 100, shows which items are still open, and explains why each one matters. You can still send an incomplete brief – we will help you fill the gaps – but you will know exactly what to expect from the first reply.
The five things we need before we can cost a run
Our enquiry form has always asked for the same core set. Everything else is useful context, but these five determine whether a costed quote is possible at all.
Why fabric comes before price
A garment is mostly fabric. Swapping a 180gsm cotton jersey for a 280gsm recycled polyester interlock changes the material cost, the cutting behaviour, the print method, the shrinkage allowance and even the carton weight. Asking for a price “for a hoodie” without a base cloth is a bit like asking for a price “for a vehicle”.
If you are not sure what to specify, say so. We keep more than 50 BSCI test certified fabrics in stock, and our design specialists shortlist bases by end use: moisture management for training, four-way stretch for leggings, brushed back for warm-up layers. Choosing from stock also removes a mill lead time from your schedule. The builder treats “please advise” as a valid answer – it simply marks the fabric item as open so you know a price cannot be fixed yet.
Build your brief
Work through the four cards in any order. The score, the warnings and the finished brief update as you type. Your answers are saved as a local draft on this device, so you can close the tab and come back.
Build a quote-ready RFQ brief
Answer what you know, leave the rest open. The builder scores how complete your brief is, tells you exactly what is missing, and writes the whole thing into one clean message you can send us.
1. The garment
2. Fabric and performance
3. Decoration and branding
4. Quantity, sizes, delivery
Brief completeness
What may slow your quote down
Your RFQ brief
Nothing is uploaded. Your answers stay in this browser tab and are saved only to this device as a local draft, which Reset clears.
How the completeness score works
The score is a weighted checklist, not a quality judgement. The five items we genuinely need before quoting carry the most weight: fabric (16), quantity (14), style (10), delivery date (10) and destination (10). Smaller items such as freight preference and your top priority carry two points each. A brief at 90 or above is normally ready to cost; between 65 and 90 we will reply with one or two targeted questions; below that we will help you build the spec.
We deliberately do not auto-fill guesses. If you leave the fabric open, the brief says “not provided” rather than inserting a plausible-sounding cloth you never asked for. Made-up detail is the fastest way to a wrong sample, and at low MOQ there is no bulk run to absorb the mistake.
From brief to approved sample to bulk
A brief is the start of a sequence, not the end of it. Here is what normally happens after you send one, based on how our own factory schedules low-MOQ runs.
Decoration and artwork: what to have ready
Decoration is where small runs most often surprise first-time buyers. Screen printing, embroidery, sublimation and heat transfer each carry a setup, and that setup is spread over your piece count. At 20 pieces per colour, three print positions can matter more to unit cost than the garment itself. If you are planning a tight budget, fewer positions and a single method are the strongest levers you have.
Artwork readiness affects the calendar more than the price. Vector files let us go straight to screen or film; a sketch means a digitising step before the first sample. The builder asks for artwork status because “vector files ready” can remove a whole round of back-and-forth. If you need design help, say so – our ten in-house design specialists work from local market briefs and can develop the artwork with you. Our guide to screen printing methods explains what each method needs from your files.
Who this builder is for
It is built for the people who actually use a 10-piece minimum: a gym launching its first kit, a Shopify or Amazon seller testing a new colourway, a club ordering teamwear, a corporate buyer trying a small branded run, or a designer preparing a capsule. If you are already at four or five figures per style you probably have a tech pack and do not need this – but the structured output still saves retyping.
It is also deliberately useful to people who are not ready to enquire yet. You can fill in what you know, see the gaps, and come back next week. Nothing is submitted until you choose to copy the brief.
Limits, and what we will not claim
This is a writing aid and a checklist. It does not calculate price, check stock, reserve production capacity, validate a tech pack, or confirm a delivery date. It does not know your duty rate, your local tax treatment, or whether a certification applies to your market. It will not tell you a run is feasible when the arithmetic says otherwise – if your pieces per style and colour fall below 10, it says so plainly.
The tool runs entirely in your browser. It makes no network requests, sets no tracking cookies, and stores only a local draft in your own browser storage. If you are on a shared computer, use Reset when you finish. Any figure, date or recommendation that matters to a purchase decision must be confirmed in writing by our team before you commit.
Frequently asked questions
Do I have to fill in every field?
No. Leave anything open and the brief will say “not provided”. We would rather see an honest gap than a guessed specification. The completeness score simply shows you what is still missing.
What is Fexwear minimum order quantity?
10 pieces per style and per colour, not 10 pieces per order. A run with two styles in three colours each is six SKUs and needs 60 pieces in total. The MOQ and Size Run Planner works this out for you.
Why can you not give me a price in the tool?
Because a unit cost is not meaningful until the base cloth, decoration method and packing spec are fixed. We keep more than 50 certified fabrics in stock and cut-and-sew in our own factory, so we can quote accurately once those are agreed. A generic online calculator would be a guess, and we do not want to give you a number that changes later.
What should I do with the generated brief?
Click “Copy and open quote form”, then paste the brief into the Message field on our contact page. You can also download it as a text file or email it to [email protected]. Including style, fabric, quantity, delivery date and destination gets you a costed answer on the first reply.
Is my data uploaded anywhere?
No. All calculations happen in this browser tab. The only storage is a local draft in your own browser so you can return to it; Reset clears it. There are no analytics events, no cookies and no account.
Can I use this if I do not know which fabric I need?
Yes – choose “Not decided yet – please advise” or “Use an in-stock Fexwear fabric”. We will shortlist bases by end use and send swatches if you want to feel them. The tool marks fabric as open so you know the quote comes after that decision.
How long does a small custom run take?
Bulk production is typically 2-4 weeks after sample approval, on top of sampling, fabric confirmation, quality control and freight. Air or sea freight adds different amounts depending on destination. For a date-driven plan, use the Launch Timeline Planner.
Does the tool handle private label packaging?
It captures your branding extras – woven labels, hangtags, printed polybags, care labels and retail barcodes – so they appear in the brief. Our private label programme covers the full retail-ready packing spec.
More free planning tools
Further reading from our team
About the team behind this tool
Fexwear was founded in 2010 and runs a self-owned factory with in-house knitting, cut-and-sew, sublimation, embroidery and QC. We hold 50+ BSCI test certified fabrics in stock, build dedicated youth-adult and mens-womens grading blocks, and ship retail-ready, barcoded cartons to 30 countries by air or sea. Our ten design specialists work from local market needs, and the same team that samples your garment is the team advising on it. That is why this builder asks direct questions and marks gaps honestly instead of filling them in for you.