What to buy first, and what to wait on
Wraps, gloves and a mouthguard get you through your first three months. Everything else is a decision you are not yet equipped to make.
New students routinely arrive with four hundred euros of equipment and no idea which code they want to train, which is exactly the wrong order.
Start with hand wraps, one pair of gloves and a mouthguard. Wraps protect the small bones in your own hand and cost almost nothing; gloves protect the person you hit. Add shin guards once you begin partner kick drills and a groin guard before any sparring. That is the complete list for ninety days.
On gloves: one pair does not cover everything, but one pair is enough to start. Spar in 16 oz above roughly 75 kg and 14 oz below — the weight is there to protect your partner, not you. Leather outlasts synthetic by years at the same price point, which makes it the cheaper option if you train more than twice a week.
What to wait on is anything code-specific. Savate shoes are the legal striking surface in one sport and banned in every other one covered here. Competition gloves are usually specified by the promotion rather than chosen by you. Long trousers make sense under American full-contact rules and nowhere else.
One piece of advice that is not about product: a vented bag and drying your gear before packing it will do more for your training life than any upgrade. The reason gym bags smell is that damp wraps sit in an unventilated space for two days, and the fix is free.