How much should you charge for custom embroidery? Formula and pricing table

Why not just charge what other shops charge?

Copying the competition is the most common mistake of new embroiderers. The shop down the road may own its machine outright, work from a spare bedroom and never count the owner's time; copying its prices with a financed machine and rent to pay means working for free. The right path is to know your costs and decide what your hour is worth. Then, yes, look at the market to position yourself: cheaper with volume, or pricier with better finishing and turnaround.

The good news is that the math is simple and, once done, lets you quote any job in a minute.

Which costs go into an embroidery price?

Notice that your labor is the biggest cost. Embroidery is not only the time the machine runs: it is answering the customer, digitizing, hooping, changing thread, trimming, folding, packing and delivering. For a name on a towel, the machine runs 4 minutes and you spend another 8.

How does per-1,000-stitch pricing work?

A design's stitch count is the best measure of machine time, which is why the industry prices per thousand stitches. A home machine sews 400 to 800 stitches per minute; a single-head commercial machine, up to 1,000 or 1,200. Impressions Magazine, a trade reference, cites 18,000 to 20,000 stitches per hour per head as a conservative production estimate once thread changes and stops are counted, and uses $1.50 per thousand stitches as an example base rate, with per-piece and per-order minimums.

The formula for your per-thousand rate:

1. Add up your hourly cost: machine hour + labor hour (in the example: $5 + $30 = $35/h).
2. Estimate how many stitches you really sew per hour, including stops. On a home machine at 600 spm, with thread changes and rehooping, 20,000 stitches per hour is realistic.
3. Divide: $35 ÷ 20 = $1.75 per thousand stitches (cost). Add your margin (30 to 50 percent): $2.30 to $2.60 per thousand stitches.
4. Set a minimum, because a 1,500-stitch name would come to $3.50 and would not even pay for the conversation. Common minimums are worth 15 to 30 minutes of your labor rate.

Tip: The footer of the Meus Bordados editor shows the stitch count and the estimated time at 800 stitches per minute. The viewer also shows thread consumption. Use those numbers in the quote before stitching.

Worked example: a name on a towel and a logo on a polo

See how the minimum rescues the towel? Without it you would sell for $12.75 a job that, between messaging, hooping and handover, eats 15 minutes of your day. That is why shops use quantity breaks: 1 towel at $15, 3 at $13 each, 10 at $11.

How should you charge for digitizing?

A logo file is a separate job: you create it once and the customer uses it on every order. Charge a one-time digitizing fee, stated on the quote, in complexity tiers: simple logo (text plus one shape), medium (several shapes and colors) and complex (fine detail, many colors). With auto-digitizing a simple logo takes 10 to 30 minutes, and some shops waive the fee on orders above a certain value to close the sale.

Names and monograms in a stock font need no digitizing fee: the setup is part of the per-piece handling time.

Pricing mistakes that eat your profit

• Not counting your own time. If your hour is worth zero, the business will never pay for an employee or a better machine.
• Forgetting spoilage. One ruined piece in 20 is a 5 percent cost. Build a 3 to 5 percent reserve into the price.
• Not covering customer-supplied garments. When the customer brings the towel, the risk is yours. State on the quote that customer-supplied items are not replaced, or charge a little more.
• Discounting without a reason. Discounts only for quantity, longer turnaround or prepayment.
• Not tracking orders. Without recording what came in and what went out, you do not know whether you are profitable. An order board with price, deposit and balance plus a simple receivables/payables log solves it; that is what the orders module and the financial dashboard in Meus Bordados do.

A price list template for a small shop

A simple public price list speeds up quoting and stops haggling. A structure that works:

• Embroidered name (up to 2 lines, up to 4 in wide): flat price per piece, quantity break from 3 pieces.
• Monogram or name with a stock motif: slightly higher flat price.
• Business logo: one-time digitizing fee + per-piece price in stitch-count tiers (up to 5,000; 5,000 to 10,000; 10,000 to 20,000).
• Large pieces (jacket backs, blankets): quoted on stitch count.
• Rush turnaround: 30 to 50 percent surcharge.

Publish the list on your website and send the link by text. With the shop website in Meus Bordados you can build that page with services and a quote button without a developer.