By Ivan Hadzhiev·
What a startup needs from its swag changes a lot between the week the first hire starts and the week you announce a Series A, so we organized these 20 startup swag ideas by stage. It opens with the first drop for a founding team and the onboarding kit you build once hiring picks up, then moves on to launch day and the funding round. The last section covers the thank-yous you owe the early customers and investors who backed you before there was much to back. Every pick is a real product from our catalog with live pricing on its page, so you can price each stage at your own headcount while you browse.
A startup’s first order of custom merchandise is small, so the minimum matters more than the unit price, and ours is 12 pieces per style, which covers a five-person founding team with spares left over for the first hires. It’s also the first time your brand shows up on something people wear in public, so it deserves the same care you’d give a product release. Keep the artwork simple (a wordmark or a small chest mark), since there’s a fair chance the logo changes before these pieces wear out.
From $11.42
AS Colour’s Staple Tee is a regular-fit shirt in 5.3 oz combed cotton with side seams and double needle hems. It comes in more than 70 colors, so there’s almost always one close to your brand.
For a team of five it’s the sensible first shirt, cheap enough to order in two colors and well made enough that people reach for it on weekends, which is where a startup shirt does most of its work.
Best for: The first shirt for a founding team of five to fifteen.
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From $26.61
The Santa Barbara from Next Level is a 7.4 oz pullover in an 80/20 cotton and poly blend with a 100% cotton face. It has a jersey-lined hood and a natural flat drawcord, plus stitched eyelets and twill tape across the back neck.
Of the hoodies we’d put in a first drop, this is the easiest on the budget, and the cotton face takes a print cleanly. Put a founding date or a version number across the back and the batch starts to feel like a numbered edition.
Best for: A first hoodie that keeps the per-person budget in check.
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From $15.64
Low-profile and made from lightweight cotton, this six-panel cap has a curved peak and tonal lining under it, with an adjustable strap that closes with a metal clasp.
Caps are the easiest second piece for a small team because one adjustable size fits almost everyone, so you skip the size spreadsheet entirely. An embroidered mark on a soft cotton crown also looks like it came from a clothing brand, which matters for a piece people wear around town.
Best for: A second piece for everyone, with no sizes to collect.
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From $5.98
Made from 10 oz canvas that’s 80% recycled cotton (the recycled fiber comes from garment-cutting waste), this tote has self-fabric handles and a body about 16 inches tall and 15 wide.
Because it starts at the same 12-piece minimum as the apparel, you can add it to the shirt order for very little, without ending up with a carton of bags sitting in the office closet.
Best for: Rounding out a small first order on a tight budget.
View productOnce people are joining every month, ordering one box at a time gets slow and expensive, and that’s usually the point where teams start planning ahead. Some keep a stock of onboarding kits on hand, and others run a swag store that reopens for each new round of hires, so everyone picks their own size before anything is made. Either way we can ship every kit to the new hire’s home or send the whole run to one office, which matters once half the team works remotely.
From $44.23
The Coastal Threads backpack has a slim profile and a 300D exterior made with Repreve Our Ocean thread, which is recycled from ocean-bound plastic bottles. Inside there’s a padded compartment for 13 to 17 inch laptops and a tablet sleeve, and the outside adds an elastic bottle pocket and a trolley strap.
Of everything in an onboarding kit, the bag is the piece that leaves the house every day, and with padded straps and reflective details it works as well for an evening commute as for a work trip.
Best for: The anchor of a kit for hybrid and remote hires.
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From $42.44
Owala’s 32 oz FreeSip is an 18/8 stainless bottle with double-wall construction and copper vacuum insulation, finished in a powder coat that adds grip. Its threaded lid has a push-button lock, and the FreeSip spout lets you sip through the built-in straw or tilt it back and drink from the wide mouth.
A lot of new hires already want an Owala on their desk, which makes it a safe pick for a kit going to someone you’ve only met over video. It keeps cold drinks cold for hours, and the 32 oz size means fewer trips to refill between calls.
Best for: The everyday bottle in a kit that ships to someone’s home.
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From $3.02
Inside this hard-cover A6 journal there’s a dry-erase whiteboard on the left and a removable notepad of 70 FSC-certified sheets on the right. A dry-erase pen with a felt eraser tucks into the elastic loop, so it works as a brainstorming kit you can carry into any meeting.
Early teams still do a lot of their thinking on whiteboards, so a pocket-sized one makes a fitting first-week gift, and at this price it’s an easy line to add to every kit you send.
Best for: A desk item that fits how early teams work.
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From $3.63
The Milano is a 12 oz mug in matte glazed stoneware with a modern profile and a comfortable curved handle, BPA free and FDA approved (it’s hand wash only).
Along with the journal, it’s one of the least expensive pieces in the kit and the one most likely to stay at the office, so it’s an easy way to stretch the per-hire budget. Mugs start at a higher minimum than the apparel, though, so order enough in one run to cover several months of hires.
Best for: Stretching the per-hire budget for a team that works from an office.
View productA launch or a first conference booth is usually the first time your swag goes to people outside the company, which shifts the priority toward pieces you can hand out by the hundred. Work backwards from the date, because production runs 10 to 15 business days after artwork approval and shipping comes on top of that, and launch dates rarely move for a late box.
From $11.34
Bella+Canvas cut this 6 oz tee boxy and relaxed with a dropped shoulder, in Airlume combed and ring-spun cotton. That gives it the shape of a streetwear blank at a price you can still order in quantity.
On launch day the same shirt dresses the team and goes home with the first users who show up, and the boxy cut looks current enough that it still gets worn long after the event.
Best for: A launch-day tee for the team and the crowd that shows up.
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From $15.64
AS Colour’s Surf Cap is an unstructured, mid-profile snapback in lightweight, quick-dry recycled nylon, with a plastic snap closure and close to 50 colors to choose from.
The front is a single panel, so there’s no center seam running through your embroidered logo, and since it’s one adjustable size you can hand them out at a booth without asking anyone their size.
Best for: Booth giveaways and outdoor launch events.
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From $14.45
Double-wall insulation keeps drinks in this 16 oz stainless bottle hot for up to 12 hours or cold for up to 24, and the wide spout is quick to drink from and easy to clean.
When you need a few hundred bottles for a launch or a first conference, this is the one to order, since it’s priced to give away widely. It’s also made well enough that plenty of them end up on desks afterward, where your logo gets seen every day.
Best for: Drinkware for a crowd at a giveaway price.
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From $1.20
The Kyra is a retractable pen with a recycled ABS barrel in a stone-painted finish, gunmetal accents, a center-retraction click and a German Dokumental ink refill rated for 600 meters of writing.
Pens are what you hand to every person who stops by, and the stone finish makes this one look a step above the usual booth pen while staying cheap enough to order by the box.
Best for: The low-cost giveaway for every badge that stops at your table.
View productThe list is short at this stage (the people who were there when the round closed), so a premium piece makes more sense than a big kit. Whatever you choose doubles as a record of the moment, and a round name or a date embroidered on a sleeve is usually enough to turn a well-made crew or jersey into a keepsake.
From $146.33
Carhartt’s Duck Detroit Jacket is 12 oz ring-spun cotton duck canvas with a blanket-lined body, quilted nylon sleeve lining, a corduroy-trimmed collar and a two-way brass zipper, cut in a relaxed fit.
It’s the most expensive pick on this list and also the easiest to justify, because the people getting it were there from the start. Duck canvas softens as it breaks in, so the jacket you hand out after the Series A still looks right a few rounds later.
Best for: Early employees after a priced round.
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From $47.93
At 14.7 oz, the Made Crew is the heaviest crew in AS Colour’s range, a 100% cotton French terry with a relaxed fit and dropped shoulders, preshrunk so the fit holds.
A crew this heavy feels commemorative from the moment it’s handed out, and since it takes embroidery on the chest and both sleeves, you can put the logo up front and the round and year on a sleeve.
Best for: A round crew for everyone on the team.
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From $31.22
This rugby shirt from AS Colour has a white drill collar, herringbone tape along the placket, ribbed cuffs and side splits at the hem, and it’s preshrunk to limit shrinkage.
Rugby shirts have come back into style over the last couple of years, and the team-sport look suits a milestone. A small embroidered crest on the chest with the year on a sleeve makes it read like a varsity jersey for the company.
Best for: A milestone piece with a team-sport feel.
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From $48.23
Mercer+Mettle’s Traveler Duffel is a 43.5 L bag made from 900D ballistic polyester, with a zippered main compartment and a padded exterior laptop compartment that fits most 18 inch laptops. It also has a zippered front pocket with an organizer inside and a removable, adjustable shoulder strap.
Teams usually travel more after a round closes (an offsite first, then a run of recruiting and customer trips), and a duffel that carries a laptop properly comes along on every one of them.
Best for: The post-round offsite and the travel that follows.
View productThe investors on your cap table are usually a handful of people, but the early customers who took a chance on you can run to a much longer list, so the picks here go from apparel worth spending real money on down to a journal you can send to everyone on it. We can ship each gift straight to the recipient, which saves an afternoon of packing and labeling boxes at the office.
From $70.66
Mercer+Mettle built the Puffy Vest around a waterproof, breathable 5K/3K polyester shell over 6 oz of blown synthetic insulation. The details include a baseball-style rib knit collar and a molded front zipper, plus zippered hand pockets and elastic binding at the hem.
Vests have been close to standard issue in venture for years, so it’s the rare investor gift that fits straight into what they already wear, and Mercer+Mettle makes a women’s version too.
Best for: Investors and board members.
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From $48.29
Knit from cotton with a little nylon and spandex so it holds its shape through wear, this quarter-zip sweater has a cadet collar, rib trim, fully fashioned raglan sleeves and a dyed-to-match coil zipper.
A knit sweater feels more like a personal gift than a branded sweatshirt does, which makes it a good fit for the design partners and early customers whose feedback shaped the product.
Best for: Design partners and the first customers who stuck with you.
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From $37.44
The SmoothSip Slider is Owala’s 20 oz travel mug, double-wall and vacuum-insulated in 18/8 stainless with a powder coat that’s comfortable to grip. Its threaded lid has a sliding closure over the sip opening, which you can shut between sips on the way in.
Most of your early champions start the day with coffee, so a good travel mug puts your name into their morning routine and rides along on the commute.
Best for: Thank-you gifts for the champions inside your first accounts.
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From $4.44
The Malmö journal is A5, with a case-bound soft cover in PU that’s 58% recycled content and 80 sheets of FSC-certified lined paper inside. It also has a satin ribbon bookmark and an extended spine with a cut-out that works as a pen loop.
For a long thank-you list this is the budget pick, since a good journal gets carried into meetings for months, and a debossed logo keeps the cover tone-on-tone and subtle.
Best for: A modest thank-you that scales to a long customer list.
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