Pricing Embroidery Per Stitch: How to Do It Right

As a small manufacturer of embroidery products, setting the right price per stitch is crucial to your business success: getting it wrong can mean losing profits and your customer base. But how exactly do you price embroidery per stitch?

In this blog post, we will discuss the important factors that affect embroidery pricing and provide tips on how to calculate the price per stitch.

Standard pricing approaches for calculating cost per stitch pricing

To determine pricing, the embroidery industry uses two general approaches. These are the Per Stitch Pricing, and Fixed Unit Pricing.

Per Stitch Pricing

This approach consists of charging for the number of stitches used in the embroidery. The rate can vary depending on the complexity and design of the embroidery.

Determining the Thread Count

The thread count, which is the number of stitches per inch, is the first factor you’ll want to look at to set your embroidery pricing.

Higher thread counts require more stitches and time, which increases the embroidery price per stitch. This factor is a crucial consideration, especially if you are creating products that require a high stitch count, such as badges, patches, and logos. Determining the thread count beforehand enables you to plan and price embroidery per stitch more effectively.

How to calculate your thread count

The thread count is the total number of stitches in a given inch. To calculate it, divide the total number of stitches by the width of your design. For example, if you have 2150 stitches and your design is 2 inches wide, then your thread count would be 1075 per inch (2150/2 =1075).

Evaluating your the Design Complexity

The complexity of the embroidery design is one of the most significant factors in determining the price per stitch. The more intricate the design, the more time and skill it takes to embroider, and therefore, the higher the price per stitch.

Designs with fine details and multiple colors require more thread changes and longer run times, leading to increased production costs. On the other hand, more straightforward designs with fewer colors and larger areas of embroidery can be priced lower.

How to evaluate your design complexity

• Assess the number of colors used in the design
• Check whether there are any complex outlines or details
• Evaluate if there’s a need to use a variety of stitches
• Take into account the size, shape, and placement of the embroidered area

Fixed Unit Pricing

This approach is based on a fixed rate per unit or item. It takes into account all the costs involved, including labor, materials, and overhead. This pricing method works if you are producing a large number of the same goods and don’t want to have to recalculate prices for each item.

Calculate your material costs

The cost of the materials used in embroidery is another important factor that affects pricing. The type, weight, and quality of thread; as well as the type of backing material used all contribute to the material costs. For this task, you can either set up a spreadsheet with all of your materials listed, or you can use a dedicated inventory system like Craftybase (which we will discuss in detail below).

Calculate Labor and Overhead Costs

Pricing embroidery per stitch doesn’t stop with evaluating the design complexity and thread count. You must also consider the labor and overhead expenses for each product. Labor costs include your time or your employee’s time, while overhead costs cover the company’s fixed expenses like rent, utilities, and equipment. These expenses should be included in pricing embroidery per stitch to ensure that you make a profit and cover your operational costs.

Other pricing tips for creating accurate prices for your embroidery

Research Competition Pricing

Researching your competition’s pricing is also important to set a competitive yet profitable price per stitch. Take some time to see what your competition is pricing at similar products. Do a comparison shop to see what values they offer. Remember that lowering your price too much can undermine your business’s value and worth, while setting your price too high will lower the number of potential customers. Research and compare until you hit the sweet spot for your pricing method.

Go for a fair pricing method that balances profit and customer satisfaction.

When setting the price per stitch for embroidery, consider fair pricing that balances profit and customer satisfaction. A lower-priced product makes customers happy but may undermine your company’s profitability. A higher-priced product may make you more money but risk running customers off. At the end of the day, the combination of the cost of your materials, time, and business overhead with competitive pricing can lead to success.

Using Craftybase to calculate your embroidery prices

Craftybase is a helpful tool for calculating the cost of embroidery per stitch. This web-based inventory system helps you manage your materials inventory, calculate labor costs, and set competitive prices that make sense for your business. Our popular pricing guidance feature takes all of the guesswork out of pricing embroidery per stitch by helping you find the right balance between customer satisfaction and profitability.

Craftybase also automatically calculates raw materials, sub-assemblies and connects to several popular ecommerce stores for easy importing of your orders and products. try our free 14 day trial today to make your embroidery business easy, efficient and profitful!