How much it costs to design a kit with AI (and why the first five are free)

Generating uses 1 credit; changing colours, moving numbers and viewing the 3D cost nothing. 5 free generations when you create your account and 5 more after every order.

There's a reasonable suspicion as soon as anyone reads “design your kit with AI”: that the design is charged separately, or that you'll be nickel-and-dimed one generation at a time. So here's the price of designing a football kit with AI, straight up: the first five generations are free when you create your account, you get five again after every order, and if you need more you top them up one at a time for €0.50. That's the entire cost of the design.

What uses a credit and what costs nothing

First things first, because this is where the misunderstanding lies: only generating uses credits. Every time you ask the AI to create a design, one credit goes. Nothing else is used up, before or after.

This matters because the real work comes after generating. The design comes out in a few seconds; what takes time is fine-tuning the colours, deciding whether the sleeves are plain, placing the number and looking at it all in 3D. All of that part, which is most of it, costs nothing.

None of this costs anything:

• Changing any colour: the background, the ones in the design, all of them.
• Making the sleeves the background colour or leaving the back plain.
• Changing the collar.
• Moving and resizing the names and numbers.
• Viewing the kit in 3D, as many times as you need.
• Zooming into the design up to 16× to see the real pixels and the dpi of each piece.

And the other ways of starting in “Design your shirt” don't touch your credits either: Pro Clubs, “In my team's colours” and “See the designs”, with more than 200 designs that you paint in your colours. They're free and instant. You can get your whole kit done without using a single generation.

It's worth pausing on something you used to be able to do and no longer can, because that's where a lot of the fear comes from: you used to ask the AI for changes in writing, things like “make the band wider”. That was removed. And it was removed because it was expensive and worked badly: every request was another generation, another credit, and the machine returned a different design instead of touching up yours. Now whatever can be changed is changed by hand and without using anything.

The exact numbers

• 5 free generations when you create your account.
• They go back up to 5 after every order. It's not a welcome offer: it's every order.
• Top-ups one at a time, €0.50 each. No bundles and no subscription.
• Generating requires an account. No account, no credits.

Five doesn't sound like much until you understand the previous point: five means five different designs, not five touch-ups. From each one you get all the colour variations you want without spending anything. If you arrive with a clear idea, two or three may be enough.

In numbers: a club that comes in, generates two proposals and tries four colour combinations of each has used two credits and has three left. And when it places the order, it has five again.

That carries over from season to season: if you order once a year, the design is free every year.

If a generation comes out faulty, you don't pay for it

It happens: the odd generation comes out broken. When the system detects it, it repeats it automatically once, at no charge, and leaves you both saved so you can choose. You don't have to complain or write to us: by the time you see it, it's already done. And sometimes the first one, the one marked as faulty, turns out to be the favourite.

The tip that saves credits

This is the one that saves the most money and the one fewest people apply: before using up another generation, try changing the colours.

Most of the time the design that came out is fine and what jars is the palette. The gradient works, but that blue isn't the club's blue. Changing the blue costs nothing; generating again costs a credit and gives you a different design, and you start from scratch. Try the background colour first, then the ones in the design, the sleeves in the background colour, the plain back. Often that was all it needed.

The second tip is about order: don't generate until you're clear about what you're asking for. If you're starting from photos, you can upload up to four, and remove and add them before generating without spending anything. The preparation is free; pulling the trigger is what costs. In how to ask the AI so it prints well you'll find how to describe it so it comes out right first time.

Designing a football kit with AI: the price within the club's budget

Let's take the worst case, a very demanding club: it uses the five free ones, isn't convinced by any of them and buys ten more top-ups. That's €5. That's the realistic ceiling on design cost for a whole kit, and only if you really push it.

What costs money is the clothing, and the design doesn't appear anywhere there: the crest is included, the sponsors are included and so are the names and numbers. There's no “design” line in the budget you hand to the committee. For the per-player breakdown with examples of real squads, see how much it costs to kit out a team, and if money's tight, how to lower the cost per player without losing quality.

It's worth saying it just like this at the meeting, because the doubt the word “AI” brings is always the same: whether there's a hidden monthly fee. There isn't. There's no subscription, no minimum bundle and no cost per saved design. You pay for the clothing.

The only thing added on top is shipping, which you choose at checkout. To mainland Spain it's €7.95, free from €99.95 (five shirts already get you there); the Balearic Islands, the Canary Islands, Ceuta, Melilla and the European Union have their own rate. And if you collect it from the factory, in Cuarte de Huerva (Zaragoza), it's free.

Why the first five are free

Because generating costs real money and we'd still rather you tried it before deciding. A club that hasn't seen its kit doesn't buy, and rightly so. Five generations are more than enough to know whether this works for you, and if you end up ordering, you have five again for next time.

And also because of what we said above: often you don't need all five. Someone who arrives with the shirt in their head can get it in two. And someone who just comes to look sees that this can be done without paying anything up front. Charging for the first would only stop the second from coming in.

Put another way: the design isn't the product. The product is the kit, made in Spain, which you approve in 3D before paying. Credits exist so the machine isn't fired off for nothing, not to charge you for thinking.

With the numbers on the table, you can design your shirt and check them yourself: the first five won't ask for your card.