How Much Does a Tech Pack Cost in the UK? (2026 Prices)

A tech pack in the UK costs between £94 and £1,500 per style, and most first-time brands pay £180 to £600. The spread is that wide because "tech pack" covers everything from a two-page spec for a plain t-shirt to a fifteen-page technical document for a waterproof jacket.

Below are the actual figures UK studios publish, what drives the number up or down, and where AI tools sit — including what they don't do.

What you'll actually pay in 2026

Who makes it	Typical UK price per style	Best for
Hourly freelancer, you supply references	from £94 inc VAT	Simple garments, when you already have mockups
Freelance technical designer, simple garment	£180–£300	T-shirts, basic hoodies, tote bags
Freelance technical designer, mid-complexity	£300–£600	Structured jackets, trousers, lined garments
Specialist studio, technical garment	£400–£1,500+	Outerwear, activewear, anything with performance claims
AI tech pack tools	£8–£30	First drafts, iterating on ideas, high style counts
In-house technical designer	£30,000–£45,000/year	Brands running 50+ styles a year

Two UK sources sit behind most of those numbers. The London Pattern Cutter quotes £180–£1,500 depending on complexity, breaking down to roughly £240 for a two-page pack on a simple garment and £300 for a four-page pack of moderate complexity. Hook and Eye quotes £94 including VAT per tech pack on an hourly basis — with the important caveat that their minimum booking is two hours, so the real entry point is closer to £188 — and puts the industry average at around £250.

For comparison, US-focused guides such as Adstronaut's cost breakdown quote $100–$2,000 per style for freelancers. Converted roughly, that is a similar picture with a longer tail at the top end.

All figures as of September 2026.

Why the range is so wide

Five things move the price, and only one of them is really about the designer.

Garment complexity. A t-shirt has four or five measurement points that matter. A tailored jacket has thirty, plus interlining, canvas, shoulder construction and a lining pattern. The work is genuinely several times larger.

Page count. Most freelancers price by the page or by the hour, which amounts to the same thing. A two-page pack and a ten-page pack are not the same product, and a cheap quote often means a shorter pack.

What you bring to the first meeting. This is the biggest lever you personally control. Hook and Eye's £94 figure applies specifically when you arrive with clear mockups or reference imagery and any graphics already in vector format. Turn up with a Pinterest board and a verbal description and you are paying someone to do your thinking at £50–£80 an hour. You do not need to be able to draw to avoid that — being precise without sketching is its own skill, and a cheaper one to learn.

Revisions. Almost every unexpected tech pack bill comes from here. Ask how many rounds are included before you commission. One or two is standard; unlimited is not a thing.

The designer's experience. A technical designer who has worked with the kind of factory you are approaching will spot problems before the factory does. That is worth paying for, and it is the one place where the cheapest quote is often the most expensive outcome.

What you're actually buying

A tech pack that a factory can work from usually contains:

• Flat technical drawings, front and back, with callouts
• A measurement chart — the points of measure and the tolerance allowed on each
• A bill of materials listing every fabric, trim, thread, label and component
• Construction and stitch details, including stitch type and seam allowance
• Colourways, with colour references a supplier can match
• Labelling, packaging and care instructions

If a quote seems low, the honest question to ask is which of these is missing. A "tech pack" that is really just a labelled drawing will get you a sample that looks broadly right and fits wrong.

Three costs people forget to budget for

The tech pack is rarely the only line on the invoice, and new brands are routinely caught out by the three jobs that sit either side of it.

Pattern cutting is a separate discipline and a separate fee. The tech pack says what the garment should be; the pattern is the set of shapes that make it. Expect to commission this separately, usually per style.

Grading turns your one sample size into a full size run. Some technical designers include a basic grade in the pack, many quote it as an extra, and the difference is worth confirming in writing before you agree a price.

Sampling is where the real money goes. First samples typically cost several times a production unit, and you should assume two rounds rather than one. A better tech pack reduces this number, which is the strongest financial argument for not buying the cheapest one. Getting the enquiry right first time is the cheapest way to hold that number down.

Where AI tools sit

AI tech pack tools have arrived quickly and they are genuinely much cheaper — typically £8 to £30 per pack rather than hundreds. That difference is real, but it is worth being precise about what you are and are not getting.

What they do well. Producing a complete, consistently formatted first draft in minutes. Handling the tedious parts — laying out measurement charts, generating the bill of materials structure, keeping callouts consistent across views. Letting you try six versions of an idea for the price of one freelancer hour.

What they don't do. They do not know your factory. They do not know that the mill you are using runs 2cm narrow, or that your manufacturer measures chest differently from the last one. They produce a draft that is internally consistent, not a document that has been checked against a specific production reality.

Most AI tool marketing describes the output as "factory-ready". We do not use that phrase about our own output, because a pack becomes factory-ready when a human who understands your supply chain has read it. The realistic framing is that an AI tool gets you most of the way and removes the drudgery, and that a review — by you, your factory's technical contact, or a freelancer paid for an hour rather than a full pack — is still part of the process.

That hybrid is also the cheapest sensible route for a new brand: generate the draft, then pay a freelancer £60–£100 for an hour of review rather than £400 to start from a blank page.

Is a cheap tech pack a false economy?

Sometimes, and it depends entirely on what happens next.

If you are testing an idea, making ten units, or still deciding whether the garment is right, a cheap or AI-generated pack is a sensible use of money. The cost of being slightly wrong is a sample you don't love.

If you are about to place a 500-unit order, the maths changes completely. A measurement error that reaches production costs more than every tech pack you will ever buy. At that point the £400 pack from someone who has worked with your factory is not the expensive option.

The mistake to avoid is the middle: spending £300 on a pack that is cheap because it is thin, then discovering at sampling stage that half the information the factory needed was never in it.

What Seamix costs

For transparency, since this article is on our site: Seamix drafts tech packs from a plain-English description of the garment, and works out at roughly £8 to £12 per pack depending on plan. The Studio plan is £29 a month for three packs; there is a free trial that produces one complete pack so you can judge the output before paying. Full details are on the Seamix pricing page.

What that price does not include is someone who knows your factory. It gets you a complete, consistent draft in minutes instead of a fortnight, and it removes the blank-page problem. The review step is still yours.

The short version

Budget £180–£600 for a freelance tech pack on a straightforward garment in the UK, more if the garment is technical, and expect revisions to be the thing that moves the number. If you are early, iterating, or working through several styles, an AI draft plus an hour of expert review will cost you a fraction of that and get you to the same place — provided you treat the draft as a draft.

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Sources

• The London Pattern Cutter — How Much Is a Fashion Tech Pack?
• Hook and Eye — How Much Does a Tech Pack Cost?
• Adstronaut — How Much Does a Tech Pack Cost?