What Is a Tech Pack? A Complete Guide for Fashion Brands and Manufacturers

If you plan to have a garment made by a factory rather than sewing it yourself, the tech pack is the most important document you will produce. It is the blueprint that tells the manufacturer exactly what to make and how to make it — and the difference between a good one and a vague one is measured directly in money: in the number of sample rounds you pay for, in the accuracy of the price you are quoted, and in whether the bulk order comes back looking like what you designed.

Yet plenty of new brands treat the tech pack as an afterthought, or hand over a sketch and a few notes and hope the factory fills in the gaps. This guide explains what a tech pack actually is, what belongs in one, how it differs from a spec sheet, and — as your range grows past a handful of styles — how to stop drowning in spreadsheet versions.

What is a tech pack?

A tech pack, short for technical package, is a document that communicates every specification a manufacturer needs to produce a garment consistently and correctly. Think of it as the instruction manual for one style: it removes guesswork by stating the measurements, materials, construction, colours and finishing in a form the factory can follow without having to ask you a question for every decision. A good tech pack lets a manufacturer you have never met, possibly in another country, make your garment the way you intended.

It matters because a factory does not read minds. Anything you leave out of the tech pack, the factory will decide for you — the thread, the stitch, the exact placement of a pocket, the label position. When those decisions go the way you did not intend, you discover it in a sample or, worse, in bulk, and every correction costs a round of samples and weeks of calendar time.

What a tech pack contains

Tech packs vary by product, but a complete one for a garment generally includes the following:

**Technical flat sketch.** A clean, proportional line drawing of the garment from the front and back (and any detail views), showing seams, stitching, pockets, closures and trims. Unlike a fashion illustration, a flat is drawn to communicate construction, not mood.

**Points of measure (the spec sheet).** A table of every measurement that matters — chest, length, sleeve, waist, and so on — usually at the sample size, with tolerances. This measurement table is what people often call the 'spec sheet', and it is the part of the tech pack the factory checks each sample against.

**Graded measurements.** How those measurements change across the size range (S–XXL, or numeric), so the factory can produce every size correctly rather than just the sample size.

**Bill of materials (BOM).** Every fabric, trim, component and label used in the garment, with placement and, ideally, consumption. The BOM is what sourcing quotes against and what your cost is built from.

**Construction details.** Stitch types, seam finishes, hem allowances, topstitching, and any special operations — the how-it-is-assembled information that a flat alone cannot carry.

**Colourways and artwork.** Each colour version of the style, plus any prints, embroidery or placement artwork, with the reference files the factory should use.

**Labels, packaging and care.** Brand and care labels, hangtags, folding and polybag instructions, and carton or packing requirements.

Tech pack vs spec sheet: what's the difference?

These two terms get used interchangeably, which causes confusion. The cleanest way to think about it: the spec sheet — the points-of-measure table — is one component inside the tech pack, not a separate rival document. The tech pack is the whole package (flat, BOM, construction, colourways, labels and the spec sheet); the spec sheet is specifically the measurement chart the factory grades and inspects against. If someone asks you for a spec sheet, they usually mean the measurements; if they ask for a tech pack, they mean everything.

Do you actually need a tech pack?

If you are having anything produced by a manufacturer — even a small first run — the answer is essentially yes. Without a tech pack the factory improvises, samples take more rounds because each one surfaces another undocumented decision, and you have no objective standard to reject a wrong bulk against. A tech pack is also what lets you get comparable quotes from multiple factories, because they are all pricing the same defined garment rather than their own interpretation of a sketch. The only time you can skip it is if you are making the garment entirely yourself.

Tech pack template vs managing tech packs at scale

For your first style or two, a tech pack template — a spreadsheet or a fillable document — is a perfectly reasonable place to start, and there are many free ones. The trouble begins not with creating a tech pack but with maintaining it. A tech pack is never finished on the first try: the fit sample changes a measurement, the factory suggests a different trim, a colour is added. Each change spawns a new version, and within a season you have 'final', 'final-2', and 'final-USE-THIS' floating between email, WhatsApp and three people's laptops — and someone eventually cuts bulk from the wrong one.

This is the exact problem apparel PLM software exists to solve. Instead of a static file that is copied and emailed, the tech pack lives as a versioned record attached to the style: everyone sees the current spec, every change is tracked with who made it and when, the BOM links to a shared material library, and sample rounds and approvals are recorded against the same style rather than lost in a chat thread. The tech pack stops being a document you chase and becomes the single source of truth the whole team — and your factory — works from.

From a document to a living style record

The real shift, as a brand grows from a few styles to a full seasonal range, is from thinking of a tech pack as a file to thinking of it as the front end of the style's whole lifecycle. The measurements and BOM you define in development are the same data production runs on. When the tech pack, the sampling, the costing and the eventual production order share one record — as they do on a platform that runs apparel ERP and garment manufacturing alongside PLM — the approved style flows straight into production without being re-keyed, and the expensive gap between 'what we designed' and 'what got made' closes.

Start with a good tech pack template if you are making your first style. But as soon as you are juggling versions across more than a handful of styles, that is the signal to move the tech pack out of a spreadsheet and into a system built to manage it. If you want to see tech packs, samples and BOMs managed end to end, you can book a short demo and we will set one up with one of your own styles.