CBOs is a free 3D hat designer tool for custom caps, published by ClothingBrandOwners and run in the browser. Most cap design software stops at a picture; this one starts a cap. Upload a logo or generate one, drag it onto a 1:1 3D model of a cap CBOs actually manufactures, and turn the cap around while you judge scale, panel seams and where the embroidery can sit. Designing is free. When the design is right, one physical sample is $60 in about 7 days and a run starts at 50 caps per design and colorway at roughly $10-15 each.
Free to start, nothing to install. AI artwork and HD render exports run on CBOs Pro.
CBOs is browser-based cap design software published by ClothingBrandOwners. It is not general 3D garment software of the Marvelous Designer kind, and it is not a storefront customizer widget of the Zakeke kind: it does one product, the cap, from the first panel choice to a 50-piece run.
Nothing to install and no license. Hat design software that opens in a desktop browser, in an Android browser, and on iPhone and iPad, with the same project on every device. Designing is free; AI artwork and HD render exports run on CBOs Pro.
Cap customization software normally means recoloring somebody else's blank. Here the file being edited is a 3D cap: panel count, crown height, brim, closure, fabric and trims are all parameters, and the artwork sits on the curved panel instead of on a flat rectangle.
The output is not only an export. The same design becomes one physical sample for $60 in about 7 days, then a run from 50 pieces per design and colorway at roughly $10-15 a cap in about 14 days, produced by CBOs in the USA and/or China, payment 50/50.
CBOs is cap customization software where the customization goes past the graphic. Elsewhere it means recoloring a blank; here the blank does not exist, because the construction, the fabric, the decoration and the trims are all decisions, and what you preview is what the factory is asked to build.
Panel count, crown height, brim shape and closure are project decisions. The model you rotate is a construction the factory can be briefed from, which is why the sample comes back as a manufactured cap rather than a decorated blank.
Heavy cotton, cotton, suede and corduroy, plus a suede brim option. Fabric-aware fill recolors one panel at a time and leaves the texture visible, so suede still reads as suede after the color changes.
Mesh, half-mesh or perforated backs on the trucker build. Single or double snaps, strapback and tuck-in closures, sewn or metal eyelets, metallic top buttons.
Drag a logo across the front, sides, back and brim and watch it bend with the panel. A lockup that reads fine on a flat rectangle can come apart across a center seam, and that is the thing a template cannot show you.
Flat embroidery, 3D puff with real surface displacement, chenille, woven and leather patches, metallic pins, and rhinestones you paint straight onto the crown.
Woven labels, printed sweatbands, hangtags, brim stickers, rigid boxes and dust bags — the parts of the product that get decided last and forgotten before the sample.
Every model opens already built, with the silhouette that construction really has. Two of them make this a baseball hat design tool in the literal sense — a seamless 5-panel front and the classic center-seam six — and the other three cover dad hats, fitted flat brims and streetwear A-frames. Pick the one closest to the cap in your head and start there.
One uninterrupted front panel with no center seam. The base for camper 5-panels and for rope and golf caps, and the easiest surface for a single wide graphic.
The classic center-seam front. Snapbacks and mesh-back truckers are both built on this model, so a split lockup or a side mark can be judged before the back is decided.
The tall A-frame crown used on drops. The extra height above the brim is what gives 3D puff and leather patches room to sit without touching the visor.
Unstructured low crown with a pre-curved brim. The model carries the soft shape properly, so embroidery scale can be judged on a cap that behaves like the finished one.
Structured high crown, flat brim, retail proportions. The build for statement pieces with metal hardware, dense embroidery or stones.
Start from the style instead: the guide to designing your own hat opens the right model for a trucker, snapback, dad hat, 5-panel, fitted, golf or streetwear cap.
The editor is one screen, but the decisions come in an order. These pages cover each one on its own.
Shape, panels, colors, materials and construction, decided in 3D while changing your mind is still free.
Move logos across the front, sides, back and brim and check scale, spacing and balance against the actual panel curve.
Flat embroidery, 3D puff, woven patches and chenille, previewed as decoration methods rather than as a filter over your PNG.
Soft-enamel and hard-enamel pins, top buttons and labels. A pin can even be generated from your logo with AI, then placed on the crown.
Paint heat-set stones directly onto the cap, adjust color and scale, then see how they sit next to embroidery or hardware.
Turn an approved cap into HD product visuals for feedback, product pages, pre-orders or a drop announcement.
A mockup generator is fast and it is genuinely the right tool when you need an image today. It becomes the wrong one the moment you want the cap to exist, because the blank in the picture belongs to whoever made the template and nothing about it can be changed.
| Mockup generator | CBOs | |
|---|---|---|
| What you are decorating | A photo of somebody else's blank, or a flat PSD front | A 3D model of a cap CBOs manufactures — panels, mesh, brim, closure |
| What you can change | The graphic. The cap stays as the template shipped it | Panels, crown, fabric, mesh, closure, eyelets, trims and decoration |
| How decoration reads | Your file flattened onto the image | Flat embroidery, displacement 3D puff, patches, pins, rhinestones |
| What comes out | An image | An image, plus a cap the factory can be briefed from |
| What happens next | You still have to find someone to make it | 1 sample for $60 in about 7 days, then 50+ caps at ~$10-15 |
Four things the editor is honestly bad at. None of them are expensive to check on one cap, and all of them are expensive to discover after 50 are sewn.
A screen is backlit and thread is not. Two greens that look separate on a monitor can arrive nearly identical in cotton. This is the single most common reason a first sample surprises people.
Weight, hand and drape do not travel through a render. A suede that looks premium in the editor still has to be held before you commit 50 caps to it.
3D puff on a structured front works up to roughly three inches, and thin outlines, gradients and small text lose definition once foam goes under the thread. The preview shows intent; the sample shows what survives.
Crown depth, how the closure holds and how the cap actually sits on a head are physical. That is what the $60 sample is for, and why we do not pretend a 3D file replaces it.
The design does not get exported and handed to a stranger. CBOs manufactures the caps, so the same file that looked right on screen is what the sample and the production run are built from.
Free, in the browser, on desktop, iPhone or iPad. Nothing to install and no credit card. The cap loads already built, so the first decision is the shape and not a file format.
Upload a logo, or make one in the CBOs 2D editor, or generate one with AI. Drag it onto the cap and move it while the model rotates.
Switch the same artwork between flat embroidery, 3D puff, a woven or leather patch, chenille, pins or stones, and see which one the design can actually carry.
A single physical cap of your design. You check thread color, stitch height, fabric and fit in your hands before any run exists.
Production starts at 50 pieces per design and colorway, in the USA and/or China depending on the project, with your labels and packaging inside. Payment is 50/50.
CBOs is an online hat designer tool in the strict sense: a web app, nothing to install and no license. The same project opens in a desktop browser, in the browser on an Android phone or tablet, and on iPhone or iPad — and a custom hat designer tool that lives in the browser is the only kind that follows a design from a laptop to a phone in the middle of a decision. iPhone and iPad users can also install the CBOs app from the App Store.
A 3D cap design starts with something to put on it. Build lettering, logos and cap graphics in the CBOs 2D editor, or generate them with AI and clean them up, then drag the result onto the 3D model.
The design does not stop at a nice picture. These are the three things that happen to it next.
HD product visuals generated from the approved cap — for a product page, an ad, a line sheet or a pre-order, before a physical cap exists.
HD product visuals generated from the approved cap — for a product page, an ad, a line sheet or a pre-order, before a physical cap exists.
One physical cap for $60 in about 7 days, so proportions, thread color and fabric are confirmed on the real thing rather than on a monitor.
Approve the sample and the same design goes into production at roughly $10-15 a cap, about 14 days, with woven labels and packaging.
Both descriptions fit. It is hat design software that runs in a browser: you build the cap itself — panels, crown, fabric, closure, trims — and then place artwork on a 1:1 3D model of it. What separates it from a customizer is that nothing on screen is a fixed blank, and what separates it from general 3D software is that it only does caps.
Yes. Opening a cap model, rotating it, recoloring panels, uploading a logo and previewing decoration is free, with no credit card. AI generation and HD render exports run on CBOs Pro. The costs that are not free are physical: a sample is $60 and production starts at 50 pieces.
No. There is no cap modeling to do — the five cap models are already built and correct, so your work is choosing the construction, recoloring panels and dragging artwork into place. If you can move a file into a browser window you can use it.
Five: a Baseball Hat 5 Panel, a mid-profile 6-panel, an A-panel streetwear crown, a dad hat and a flat fitted. Between them they cover snapbacks, mesh-back truckers, camper 5-panels, rope and golf caps, dad hats, fitted flat brims and streetwear A-frames.
Yes. The Baseball Hat 5 Panel model has a single uninterrupted front panel, and the mid-profile 6-panel model gives you the classic center-seam baseball front. Both take flat embroidery, patches and side marks, and both can be sampled and produced.
A mockup generator flattens your artwork onto a photo of a blank someone else made. Here the cap is a 3D model of a cap CBOs manufactures, so you can change the cap and not only the graphic, and the same design continues into a $60 sample and a 50-piece run. If you only need an image for a post, a mockup generator is faster and that is a fair choice.
It is a web app, so it runs in the browser on desktop, Android phones and tablets, iPhone and iPad with nothing to install. iPhone and iPad users can also install the CBOs app from the App Store. There is no Android app and no desktop download.
From wherever you already have it. Upload a logo, build lettering and graphics in the CBOs 2D editor, or generate artwork with AI and clean it up before placing it. The 3D editor is where that artwork meets the actual cap shape.
It previews the decoration methods CBOs produces: flat embroidery, 3D puff with real surface displacement, chenille, woven and leather patches, soft-enamel and hard-enamel metallic pins, and heat-set rhinestones painted onto the crown. It shows intent and scale accurately. Thread color and stitch quality are confirmed on the physical sample.
No, and it should not. The 3D design settles placement, scale, colorway and decoration method. The sample settles thread color under real light, fabric hand, stitch height and fit. That is the whole reason one cap costs $60 instead of nothing.
Yes. One physical sample of your design is $60 and usually takes about 7 days. Bulk is separate: 50 pieces per design and colorway, roughly $10-15 a cap, about 14 days after you approve the sample, with payment split 50/50.
Yes. An approved cap can be rendered into HD product images for a product page, an ad, a deck, a line sheet or a pre-order, which is usually how brands test demand while the physical sample is still being made.
Open a model, put your logo on it and decide the fabric, the decoration and the trims. When it looks right, one sample proves it before 50 get made.