How to price embroidery work

Many shops combine them: per-1,000-stitch pricing behind the scenes, published as simple size bands so customers can pick a price without knowing what a stitch count is.

A rate per 1,000 stitches is an hourly rate in disguise. Work it out from what an hour of machine time has to earn, not only from what other shops charge:

1. Add up what the machine costs to run per hour: payments or depreciation, maintenance, needles, power and a share of rent.
2. Add the hourly wage you want for running it.
3. Estimate realistic stitches per hour, including hooping, trims, thread changes and breaks, not just top speed. A single-needle machine sewing at 700 stitches a minute rarely averages more than about 25,000–30,000 stitches an hour on real jobs.
4. Divide the hourly target by stitches per hour and multiply by 1,000. That's your minimum rate.

For example, $30 an hour at 30,000 stitches an hour gives $1.00 per 1,000 stitches. Many shops land somewhere around $0.75–$1.50 per 1,000 on typical orders, with wholesale contract work often lower, but rates vary a lot by region, machine and order size, so treat that as a sanity check rather than a target. Before the design exists, estimate its stitches with the stitch count calculator.

A 2,000-stitch name at $1.00 per 1,000 comes to $2.00, which doesn't cover the time to hoop, thread and trim the piece. That's what a minimum per piece is for: charge whichever is higher, the stitch price or the minimum. Many shops also set an order minimum, such as 6 or 12 pieces, or add a small-order fee below it.

Quantity breaks share the savings of long runs. Once a design is set up and the machine is threaded, every extra piece is quicker. A simple break table, as an example:

Keep the breaks few and clear, and check that each one still covers your time.

Turning a customer's logo into a stitch file is a one-time job, so charge for it once per design, not per piece. Many shops charge a setup or digitizing fee on the first order and waive it on reorders of the same design.

What you charge depends on what it costs you. A digitizing service often charges roughly $10–$50 or more for a typical logo and takes a day or more. Digitizing in-house on a subscription costs far less per design: on Embrizo's Shop plan, 100 designs a month come to $0.50 each billed monthly, or $0.20 billed yearly, if you use them all. The service comparison sets the options side by side, and the pricing page lists the plans.

• Artwork clean-up, when a logo arrives as a blurry screenshot and has to be redrawn. Run it through the embroidery image checker before you quote.
• Edits and resizes after the customer has approved a proof. A new size usually means digitizing again.
• Sample sew-outs for large orders, often credited back if the order goes ahead.

If you supply the garments, the blank is often the biggest single cost in the quote, and it needs a markup. Ordering, receiving, counting and the occasional ruined piece all take time and money. Many shops add somewhere around 30–50% to the cost of the blank, often more on small orders and less on large ones.

• Thread, backing, needles and bobbins are small per piece. For a left chest logo they typically come to well under $0.50, but count them: on large, dense designs they add up.
• Spoilage. Plan for the odd bad hooping, thread break or flawed blank. A spare or two on larger orders is cheaper than a reorder.
• Customer-supplied items. Many shops charge more per piece when customers bring their own garments, since a ruined piece can't simply be replaced, and ask them to accept that risk in writing.
• Shipping and packaging, if you send orders out.

A coffee shop orders 24 polos with its logo on the left chest. The logo is 3.5 × 2.5 in (90 × 65 mm) in three colors, and the digitizer reports 6,000 stitches. Using the example rates above:

Then check it against time. At 700 stitches a minute, 6,000 stitches take about 8.5 minutes; with hooping and two thread changes, call it about 12 minutes a piece on a single-needle machine, or about 5 hours for the order. The stitch charge of $5.10 × 24 is $122.40, about $25 an hour. If that's below your target, raise the rate or the minimum, or run the job on a faster multi-needle machine.