This page explains how to cost an activewear order, for anyone who builds or checks a costing for a performance garment: a merchandiser, a factory owner, or a buyer. A merchandiser who quotes an activewear order at work has to price a performance fabric, decide whether a wicking finish is a separate cost line, and decide whether a flatlock seam changes the making charge, before any price reaches the buyer. Without knowing which lines an activewear order needs beyond a basic T-shirt's costing, a merchandiser can quote a price that misses a real cost, or over-charges a buyer for a line the fabric price already includes. Lesson T01-C07-L02 already fixed the core costing method for this academy: every cost component gets its own dollar value, and every total and share of price is calculated by formula, never typed by hand. This lesson mainly teaches the money flow of an activewear order: which lines exist, and how each is calculated by the same formula method, using figures that are explicitly illustrative because no activewear order is fixed in this academy's master cast.
You need: the costing method from T01-C07-L02 (every component its own value, every total a formula, never typed). Lessons 5.1 and 5.2 help you recognise the fabric and finish this lesson costs, but neither is required for this lesson's method.
By the end of this lesson you can:
Not covered here: identifying activewear's fibre, stretch, finish and seam features (lesson 5.1); checking an order against a quality fault list (lesson 5.2); assembling the complete order file (lesson 5.4).
| Term | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Costing sheet | The document that lists a garment's cost components and adds them to the price the factory quotes. |
| Cost component | One part of a garment's total price: fabric, trims, making, overhead, or profit. |
| Making charge | The labour cost of cutting, sewing and finishing one garment. |
| Overhead | A factory's running costs that are not fabric, trims or direct labour: rent, electricity, management salaries and similar costs, shared across all the pieces it makes. |
| FOB (free on board) | The factory delivers the goods on board the ship at its own port. Freight from there is the buyer's cost. |
| Flatlock seam | A low-bulk seam that lies flat against the skin instead of standing up, used at activewear chafe points such as the underarm and inseam. |
| Moisture-wicking | A fabric or finish designed to move sweat away from the skin to the fabric's outer surface. |
Costing an activewear order follows the same core method already fixed for this academy at T01-C07-L02: every cost component gets its own dollar value, and every total and share of price is calculated by formula, never typed in by hand. What changes for activewear, as standard industry knowledge rather than a new academy fact, is which cost lines exist. A synthetic-blend performance fabric typically carries a different, often higher, per-unit price than Order A's basic cotton jersey. A functional finish such as moisture-wicking may be a separate finishing charge rather than bundled into the base fabric price. Flatlock construction can carry a different per-piece making charge than a standard overlock seam. Since no activewear order is fixed in this academy's master cast, every figure below is explicitly illustrative, used only to show the method.
| What can differ | The shapes you meet | Why it matters to you |
|---|---|---|
| Order A's costing | Every component (fabric, trims, making, overhead, profit) is individually fixed and sums exactly to a real, fixed FOB price of USD 3.20; nothing is illustrative. | This is the reference method every other costing in this academy reuses, including this illustrative activewear example. |
| Order B's costing (the jeans order) | Only fabric cost and target FOB are fixed for the jeans order; the rest is one honest residual worked out at T06-C01-L04, so the costing is partially real and partially unknown-but-labelled. | Shows that a costing method can still follow the formula rule even when not every line is separately fixed. |
| This course's illustrative activewear order | No input is fixed at all; every figure used is explicitly flagged as illustrative, teaching the method (which lines exist, how each is calculated) rather than reusing or approximating a real number. | You learn which lines an activewear order needs without mistaking any one illustrative number for a real academy fact you could quote elsewhere. |
| Finish-inclusive versus finish-exclusive fabric pricing | Some performance-fabric suppliers quote a wicking finish as included in the fabric price; others quote it as a separate finishing line. | A real industry variation you must ask about before costing any actual activewear order, since the same fabric can arrive with two different cost structures. |
A merchandiser at Delta Garments, the same factory that makes Order A and Order B (the jeans order), costs an illustrative activewear training top for a hypothetical buyer. The training top, first introduced in lesson 5.1, is a synthetic-blend, four-way-stretch knit with a moisture-wicking finish and flatlock seams at the underarm and inseam. Because no activewear order is fixed in this academy's master cast, this case works through which cost lines the order needs beyond Order A's basic fabric, trims, making, overhead and profit structure: a fabric line, a possible separate finishing line, a making line that may carry a flatlock premium, then overhead and profit, all built by the same formula method already fixed for Order A. Every dollar figure below is illustrative.
| Cost line | Illustrative value (USD per piece) | Note |
|---|---|---|
| Fabric | 1.17 | Illustrative synthetic-blend fabric, 0.180 kg at USD 6.50 per kg |
| Finishing (separate line) | 0.12 | Illustrative wicking finish, billed separately by this illustrative supplier |
| Making (with flatlock premium) | 1.35 | Illustrative making cost including an illustrative flatlock premium |
| Overhead | 0.55 | Illustrative overhead, by formula as a share of the running total |
| Profit | 0.31 | Illustrative profit, by formula as a share of the running total |
| Total (illustrative FOB) | 3.50 | Formula sum of the five lines above; illustrative only |
No cast figure is reused as a real fixed fact here, because none exists for an activewear order. This lesson instead demonstrates the calculation method with clearly labelled illustrative placeholder figures, matching the precedent already set at T04-C04-L01 for an illustrative print order.
A common mistake is presenting an illustrative activewear FOB figure as if it were a real, fixed academy fact, the way Order A's USD 3.20 or Order B's USD 9.80 (the jeans order) are. Because this course has no fixed activewear order, any specific number used in a worked example must be explicitly flagged as illustrative. Reusing an illustrative number without that flag would misrepresent it as a genuine cast fact, the same trap T04-C04-L01 already avoids for its own illustrative print order. The cost of this mistake is a merchandiser or student later quoting "USD 3.50" to a real buyer as if it were a fixed, checked academy price, when it was only ever a teaching figure for this one illustrative training top.
Costing an activewear order works the same way as costing any other garment: every cost part gets its own dollar value, and the total is added up by formula, never typed. What can be different for activewear is which parts exist. The fabric often costs more than a basic cotton fabric. A finish that helps sweat move away from the skin can be its own cost part, separate from the fabric, or it can already be included in the fabric price. A seam that lies flat against the skin, instead of a normal seam, can cost a bit more to sew. Because no activewear order is fixed for this whole training academy, every dollar figure in this lesson is a teaching example only, clearly marked as such, not a real number to quote at work.
A trainee merchandiser has just finished studying Order A's and Order B's fully worked costing sheets (the jeans order), where every FOB price is a real, fixed academy fact. The facts in front of the trainee:
The trainee's question to a colleague, exactly as asked:
Does a fixed, real FOB price exist for this course's activewear order? Decide before opening the answer.
No. Two facts decide this together.
First, this course (Activewear and Performance Products) has no fixed order in the master cast. Unlike Order A and Order B (the jeans order), docs/02 flags the activewear course as needing a future addition before any real, fixed activewear order exists (Human Action Required). No number for this course has been checked and locked the way Order A's and Order B's (the jeans order's) own figures have.
Second, the USD 3.50 figure the trainee just read is explicitly illustrative. It was built only to show how the fabric, finishing and making lines are calculated by formula; it is not a checked, real price any buyer has agreed to.
Neither fact alone answers the trainee fully. Knowing only that no fixed order exists would not explain why USD 3.50 appeared on the page at all. Knowing only that USD 3.50 appeared on the page, without knowing it was flagged illustrative, would let the trainee wrongly write it down as a fact. The trainee should use the illustrative training-top example to learn the method, and treat any specific number in it as illustrative, not as a real academy fact to quote elsewhere.
If a merchandiser treats this lesson's illustrative figures as fixed facts and quotes them, unchecked, to a real buyer, the price has no connection to that buyer's real fabric or finish supplier. The illustrative fabric line of USD 1.17 came from an illustrative consumption and unit price; a real supplier's price could easily differ, shifting the total FOB by USD 0.20 to USD 0.30 per piece or more. On an order of even 5,000 pieces, a USD 0.25 per piece error is USD 1,250 of margin lost or a buyer overcharged, avoidable by treating this lesson's numbers as the teaching method they are, not a quote.
The tool for T06-C05 is the Activewear order quality checklist, a qualitative checklist with no costing sheet of its own; it checks quality facts (fibre content and stretch, stretch recovery, moisture-wicking finish, seam type, colour fastness, pilling, dimensional stability) rather than calculating a price. This lesson's fabric-line and finishing method feeds the checklist's "Fibre content and stretch percentage" and "Moisture-wicking finish" rows: before marking either row Pass, Fail, or Borderline, confirm the fabric's real unit price and consumption, and whether the finish is included in that price or billed separately. Lesson 5.4 builds the complete order file, including this checklist.
[Download the Activewear order quality checklist](../../templates/T06-C05-activewear-order-quality-checklist.xlsx)
1. What two cost lines can an activewear order carry that Order A's basic T-shirt costing does not need to separate out?
2. Why does this lesson use illustrative placeholder figures instead of a real fixed FOB target like Order A or Order B (the jeans order) have?
3. An illustrative activewear order's fabric consumption is 0.200 kg per piece at an illustrative unit price of USD 7.00 per kg. What is the illustrative fabric line cost per piece?
| EN | AR | FR | TR | Meaning |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Costing sheet | كشف التكلفة | Fiche de coûts | Maliyet tablosu | The document that lists a garment's cost components and adds them to the price the factory quotes. |
| Cost component | عنصر التكلفة | Élément de coût | Maliyet bileşeni | One part of a garment's total price: fabric, trims, making, overhead, or profit. |
| Making charge | تكلفة التصنيع | Coût de façon | İşçilik (fason) maliyeti | The labour cost of cutting, sewing and finishing one garment. |
| Overhead | التكاليف العامة | Frais généraux | Genel giderler | A factory's running costs that are not fabric, trims or direct labour: rent, electricity, management salaries and similar costs, shared across all the pieces it makes. |
| FOB (free on board) | تسليم على ظهر السفينة في ميناء المصنع | FOB (franco à bord) | FOB (gemide teslim) | The factory delivers the goods on board the ship at its own port. Freight from there is the buyer's cost. |
| Flatlock seam | غرزة مسطحة (فلات لوك) | Couture flatlock | Flatlock dikiş | A low-bulk seam that lies flat against the skin instead of standing up, used at activewear chafe points such as the underarm and inseam. |
| Moisture-wicking | امتصاص العرق (نقل الرطوبة) | Évacuation de l'humidité | Nem emme (ter emme) | A fabric or finish designed to move sweat away from the skin to the fabric's outer surface. |
You can now cost an activewear order line by line, by formula, with every illustrative figure clearly flagged. The next lesson builds the complete order file, including the activewear order quality checklist, for a full activewear order. Back to the course map