Affordable football kits (without losing quality)

Real tricks to lower the cost per player while keeping a kit that lasts the season.

“Cheap” doesn't have to mean “bad”. What really is expensive is a kit that peels off in January and has to be replaced mid-season. These are the real ways to get cheap football kits for your club without giving up the quality of sublimation.

1. Combine sublimated and basic

Sublimated shirt + basic shorts brings down the cost per player while keeping a great look. The shirt is what people look at, what appears in the photo and what carries the crest: don't cut corners there. Plain shorts with crest and number do the job perfectly and go with almost any design.

We compare them in detail in sublimated or basic shorts.

2. Split the payment with a Team Store

With a Team Store each family pays its own share online: the club doesn't front any money and nobody chases payments. People get in with the code the club hands out, without creating accounts or remembering passwords, so there's nobody to sign up and no support to provide.

This doesn't lower the unit price, but it changes the problem completely. Often the problem isn't the price: it's cash flow and admin. If nobody has to front €400 to €600, the conversation stops being “we can't afford it”.

3. Local sponsors

Two or three logos from neighbourhood businesses can pay for a large part of the kit. The club spends almost nothing and the business gains visibility every weekend in front of neighbours who are its customers.

It's the most powerful lever of all and the most underused. With €200-300 per sponsor you cover most of a team. We explain how to find them and how to place their logos in this guide.

And there's more room than it seems: logos are spread over four areas (chest, back and both sleeves). You drag them from one to another and there's no limit on logos. And as the sleeve has no closed area (outside the dotted line it's printed too), more sponsors fit without crowding them on the chest.

4. No minimum order

Because we make to order, you order exactly what you need: no leftover stock, no dead sizes in the club's storeroom and no minimums inflating the bill.

Minimum orders are one of the quietest ways of making a kit more expensive: if you need 14 shirts and the minimum is 20, you're paying for 6 shirts nobody will wear.

5. Watch out for prices that hide extras

A low price per shirt stops being low if you're charged for every printed logo. With three sponsors and twenty players, that's sixty prints someone has to pay for.

At EZ the crest is always included and, on sublimated kits, so are the sponsors, at no cost per logo (on basic cotton garments, printed in DTF, logos start from €4). Always ask for the price with all the logos on, not the price of the plain shirt: it's the only way to really compare two quotes.

6. Save on shipping

Shipping to mainland Spain is €7.95, but it's free from €99.95, and five shirts already get you there; to the rest of the European Union it's €9.95, free from €199.95. So grouping the order instead of placing it bit by bit saves real money. And there are two more savings. Pickup at our workshop, in Cuarte de Huerva (Zaragoza), is free. And a re-order that goes in the same parcel as an order that hasn't shipped yet doesn't pay standard shipping; however, the original order waits until it's ready. We explain it in workshop pickup and re-orders.

7. Order with time to spare

Lead times are 10 to 15 working days with Standard and 5 to 10 with Express. Express costs more and is never free, and if you order a month ahead you don't need it. Bear in mind too that August and September are when almost every club places its orders, so lead times can stretch in those weeks. Planning is, literally, free.

8. The design doesn't have to cost you anything

Many clubs pay someone for the design before they've even ordered the kit. There's no need. In “Design your shirt” you have over 200 designs to paint in your colours. And the Pro Clubs: over 120 of our own designs, each as a home, away and third kit. All free and instant. And in “Design with AI” you get 5 free generations when you create your account, which go back to 5 after every order. If you want more, they top up one at a time at €0.50. And changing colours, sleeves or collar, or moving the numbers, costs nothing: before spending another generation, try changing the colours. Often that's all it needs.

What we don't recommend cutting

There are two places where saving ends up costing you:

• The technique. A large vinyl print on the match shirt cracks and peels with washing. Sublimation fuses the ink into the fibre and lasts the whole season.
• The fabric. A shirt that doesn't breathe ends up at the bottom of the kit bag. We use stretchy, breathable fabric with quick-drying DryTech technology, antibacterial treatment, UV protection and an anti-odour finish.

And something worth asking any supplier about: the guarantee. In Spain, the legal guarantee of conformity is 3 years from delivery.

Do the maths yourself

The result: a custom, hard-wearing kit at a cost per player that fits the club's budget. We give you the exact figures, with examples for teams of 15 and 18 players, in how much it costs to kit out a team. Or work it out directly in the customiser: it adds up the total as you choose, without asking for a quote or leaving your phone number.

If you're going to enter the whole squad, paste the WhatsApp list with “Paste a list”. Or use the spreadsheet: in Design your shirt, “Load the list from a spreadsheet”; in the catalogue, “Load squad list”. You download an .xlsx already generated with that product's sizes, add one row per player (name, number and size) and upload it. Before anything is applied, you see a preview.