Champion S600 vs Gildan 18000: Is the C Worth $6.78?

The Champion S600 and the Gildan 18000 are the same kind of garment — a 50/50 blend crewneck built to survive being washed weekly. One of them has an embroidered C on the cuff and costs $6.78 more per unit. That is the entire comparison, and whether it is worth it comes down to whether your buyer is shopping for a Champion.

	Champion S600	Gildan 18000
Cheapest verified	$18.28 (CustomCat)	$11.50 (CustomCat)
Suppliers we price	4	9
Weight	9 oz	8 oz
Fabric	50/50 Powerblend, pill-resistant	50/50 cotton/poly fleece
Visible branding	Embroidered C, left cuff	None

Quick verdict

Take the Gildan 18000 unless the Champion logo is doing sales work for you. It is $6.78 cheaper, one ounce lighter, carried by nine suppliers instead of four, and once your design is printed most buyers cannot tell the two apart.

Take the Champion S600 when the C is part of what you are selling — college and Greek merch, retro athletic designs, gifting where a familiar brand raises perceived value. In those niches the logo lifts what you can charge by more than $6.78.

There is no middle case. If you cannot name why the Champion logo helps your specific listing, the Gildan is the answer.

The gap holds everywhere

The Gildan is cheaper at every supplier that carries both, which makes this a clean decision rather than a supplier puzzle:

Supplier	Champion S600	Gildan 18000	Gildan saves
CustomCat	$18.28	$11.50	$6.78
Gelato	$26.65	$15.99	$10.66
Printify	$28.33	$17.87	$10.46
Gooten	$31.40	$16.40	$15.00

Note how the gap widens as the supplier gets more expensive. At CustomCat the Champion premium is $6.78; at Gooten it is $15.00 for the same two garments. The brand premium is not fixed — it scales with wherever you fulfil.

CustomCat is the only place the Champion makes sense

Like several premium blanks, the S600 has a supplier cliff. CustomCat prices it at $18.28. The next cheapest is Gelato at $26.65, then Printify at $28.33, then Gooten at $31.40.

At $18.28 a Champion crewneck is a viable product: list it at $45 and the maths works. At $31.40 it is not — you would need to clear $60 to make the same margin, and a $60 printed crewneck is a difficult sell outside a captive audience like a university store.

So the practical answer is that the S600 is only worth considering if you fulfil at CustomCat. Everywhere else the premium roughly doubles.

What the extra ounce buys

The S600 is 9 oz to the Gildan’s 8, and Powerblend is engineered specifically to resist pilling and shrinking. That is a genuine durability difference, and it shows after twenty washes rather than on arrival.

For merch that gets worn hard — team kit, workwear, anything a customer wears weekly for a year — it is a real advantage. For a design-led product bought as a gift and worn occasionally, the buyer will never encounter the difference.

The heavier weight also reads as quality in the hand, which matters if you sell at events or take product photos where drape is visible. The Gildan 18000 is not a thin garment, but at 8 oz it hangs slightly softer and less structured.

What the C costs you beyond the price

The embroidered logo is not free even after you have paid for it. On the S600 your design shares the garment with someone else’s brand, and for a seller building their own label that is a real cost — some buyers read a Champion blank as a Champion product you decorated rather than a product of yours.

That reads the opposite way in the right niche. A buyer searching for a Champion crewneck with a college design wants the logo visible. They are buying a Champion, and your graphic is what makes it theirs.

Which is why this decision is about your listing, not the garment. If “Champion” appears in your product title and buyers search for it, pay the $6.78. If it does not, you are paying to advertise a competitor.

Where these sit among all sweatshirts

Of the 20 sweatshirts we price with two or more suppliers, the Gildan 18000 is the outright cheapest and the Champion S600 sits near the middle:

Sweatshirt	Cheapest verified	Suppliers
Gildan 18000	$11.50	9
Gildan 18000B	$11.55	7
Rabbit Skins 3317	$14.79	2
Jerzees 562MR	$16.90	4
Champion S600	$18.28	4

The category median floor is $21.00 and the most expensive is a Champion S149 at $51.78, so the S600 is not an outlier — it is a mid-priced blank in a category where Gildan happens to sit unusually far below everyone.

That reframes the decision. The 18000 is not “the cheap option”; it is an outlier that makes every other sweatshirt look expensive. If Gildan did not exist, the S600 at $18.28 would read as good value.

What you can actually charge

At a $45 listing — realistic for a Champion crewneck, ambitious for a Gildan one — Etsy fees run roughly $4.48.

• Gildan 18000 at $11.50 leaves about $29.02
• Champion S600 at $18.28 leaves about $22.24

The Champion needs to add roughly $7 of perceived value to break even against the Gildan at the same price, and in the right niche it does exactly that: a college store can list a Champion crewneck at $55 where a Gildan would stall at $42.

Outside those niches the logo does no selling and the $6.78 is pure cost. Run your own numbers in our profit calculator.

Bottom line

Same fabric blend, one extra ounce, one visible logo, $6.78 more per unit at the only supplier where the Champion is sensibly priced — and $10 to $15 more anywhere else.

The Gildan 18000 is the default and the better margin on nine suppliers. The Champion S600 earns its keep only when the C is part of the product. Compare current prices for both in our product catalogue.

Prices are the cost of one printed unit at the reference size, pulled from each supplier’s own API. See how we source prices.