Workwear Embroidery and Printing for Scottish Businesses: What Colbrook Offers
If your business is in Scotland and you need your logo on workwear, you probably have questions. How much does embroidery actually cost? How long does it take? Do you need to order five hundred pieces to make it worthwhile? The honest answers might surprise you.
We're Colbrook, a workwear and PPE supplier based in Airdrie, and we run an in-house embroidery and printing service. No third parties, no sending your logo off and hoping for the best. This is what we offer, what it costs, and how to get it sorted.
Everything is done in-house
There are three main ways to put a logo on a garment, and we do all three on site. Which one you need depends on the garment and the design.
Embroidery is the classic choice for polos, fleeces, jackets and caps. The logo is stitched into the fabric with thread, so it looks premium and survives washing for as long as the garment does. It's the default for most company logos.
DTF printing, short for direct to film, is what we use for full-colour designs. If your logo has gradients, fine detail, or a dozen colours, embroidery would struggle but DTF handles it. It's also the right option for small runs where screen printing would never make sense.
Heat-seal transfers are for the garments you can't embroider. Hi-vis jackets and waterproofs often have reflective tape across the chest, and stitching through it ruins the tape and can invalidate the garment's certification. A heat-seal transfer sits on top of the fabric, stays flexible, and holds up in the wash.
What it costs
Money first, because that's usually the first question. Embroidery starts at £1.75 per garment for a standard logo up to 7,000 stitches. That covers around 90% of the logos we see: a company name, a crest, a phone number, or some combination of the three.
Bigger designs cost more, in steps. A logo up to 12,000 stitches is £2.95 per garment. A larger filled design up to 18,000 stitches is £3.95. Full back embroidery, up to 30,000 stitches, runs at £5.50.
There's a one-off setup fee of £13.95 to turn your logo into a digital stitch file. It's free on orders of 24 pieces or more, and once the file exists it's yours. Repeat orders skip the setup entirely and just pay per garment.
Volume is where the price really drops:
- 1 to 3 garments: £5.50 each
- 4 to 7 garments: £4.50 each
- 8 to 35 garments: £3.50 each
- 36 to 100 garments: £2.50 each
- 100 or more: £1.75 each
Heat-seal transfers usually run £1 to £2 per garment depending on size and colours. DTF prints are quoted per design; the price depends on the artwork and where it's going.
Why local matters
Plenty of companies will post your garments to a warehouse in England and post them back. We think local is better, and not just because we're sentimental about it.
You get a free digital proof before we stitch a single thread. The visual shows your logo on the actual garment, and you approve it before production starts. If you're near Airdrie, you can also drop in and see physical samples. We're at Unit 7, Block 7, Roseberry Lane, Chapelhall Industrial Estate, ML6 8QH, about twenty minutes from Glasgow.
Turnaround is faster when nothing crosses a border. Standard orders move quickly, and we prioritise repeats for existing customers so top-ups arrive before anyone notices.
And when something needs fixing, you're not emailing a faceless fulfilment centre. You call a number in Scotland, a human answers, and it gets sorted.
A worked example
Here's a real scenario. Say you run a plumbing firm in Motherwell with six engineers. You want navy polos with your company name and phone number on the chest.
A solid work polo like the AWDis Cool Polo costs £11.85. Embroidery on six garments falls in the 4 to 7 bracket at £4.50 each. That's £16.35 per polo, £98.10 for the set, plus £13.95 setup because you're under 24 pieces. £112.05 total, and your team looks like they're wearing a uniform that cost three times as much.
Now scale it up. A 30-strong crew gets the same chest logo at £3.50 per garment, with no setup fee at all. The more you order, the cheaper each piece gets, and every order after the first is cheaper still because the digitising is already done.
Repeat orders that stay consistent
Here's the bit people don't expect from a print shop. Once your logo is set up, your embroidered garments become products on your own account. Staff can order their own sizes from an approved range, with budgets and approvals if you want them, and every order comes back identical. For a business with staff turnover, that's the difference between a sharp-looking team and a uniform that slowly falls apart.
Getting started
To quote your job we need three things: your logo, the garment, and a quantity. A vector file like AI or EPS is ideal, but a good quality PNG works, and we've digitised logos from photos before. If you're not sure what you've got, send it anyway and we'll tell you if it's usable.
Send your logo through our quote page and you'll get a free visual and a full quote, usually within a day. Or call us on +44(0)1236 755544 and talk it through with a human. Embroidery, DTF printing and heat-seal transfers, all in-house in Airdrie, for businesses across Scotland.
REF: embroidery-and-printing-services-for-scottish-businesses
