Charging Strategy for Stitches/Colours

[Stitch Up]

We always have a problem working out what we should charge for an embroidery job!

1. Creating the pattern.
2. Number of colours and/or stitches.

We're just embroidering a one colour design of 47,024 stitches on a fleece in one colour. The design measures 25cms wide by 18.5cms high. We have no idea what we should charge for this!

We obviously need to have some consistent way of calculating the price to charge.

Anyone have a calculator for this?

Thanks

John

[ArferMo]

That's a very time consuming job that one and the noise

[Stitch Up]

That's a very time consuming job that one and the noise

Very noisy although out Tajima is relatively quite!!

The noise doesn't bother me so much as I set it going and hide somewhere else. I put a webcam on it so I can see if there's been a break or whatever.

[Earl Smith]

Hi John, another embroidery thread...
I charge nothing for digitising if the job is just text. That I can do easily in the Wilcom program which, I believe, you have as well. However, if the deisign needs some graphics doing I will charge between 10€ and 20€ depending on how long it takes to do. If I send the work away to be done I make a standard charge of 30€. If the digitising costs more then the customer pays for it. I explain all that when we are doing the consulting.
AS for the actual embroidery. I worked out my machine cost at 30€ an hour. So your design with 47,000 stitches should take around an hour to do so I would charge 30€ . If there is more than 4 or 5 garments to do then I would drop the price down to 25€ each.
Thats my calculations at my costs. Yours might be different if your costs are more. Remember, my costs are in Euros.

[socialgiraffe]

When I did embroidery I followed the large embroidery houses who charged per 1000 stitches (or part there of). So for example, if you charge 60p per 1000 stitches and the job is 47,000 stitches it would be costed as follows:

50 (47k is rounded up to 50k) x 60p = £30.00
Some also added an additional 20p per colour change

With regards to digitising, I think Earl has the best solution although there are some companies who charge a flat fee regardless. If you simply send it to them and put a mark up you know exactly what you are going to make each time.

[logobear]

we do flat rate digitizing of £25
47k stitches would take about an hour, so about £30 for the first one.
But how many do they want, and how many heads have you got?
The material cost is virtually zero, but it is a lot of time & noise!

[jennywren]

[QUOTE=socialgiraffe;116930]When I did embroidery I followed the large embroidery houses who charged per 1000 stitches (or part there of). So for example, if you charge 60p per 1000 stitches and the job is 47,000 stitches it would be costed as follows:

50 (47k is rounded up to 50k) x 60p = £30.00
Some also added an additional 20p per colour change

With regards to digitising, I think Earl has the best solution although there are some companies who charge a flat fee regardless. If you simply send it to them and put a mark up you know exactly what you are going to make each time.[/QUOTE

we send our away to be digitised and then put our mark up and for us that is so much simpler

[Stitch Up]

Thanks all for the replies.

We didn't charge nearly enough for that job and it took an age! Fortunately we just started the stitching and left it.

We need to be competitive but not excessively so :) :)

What would be a reasonable charge for a left breast logo of say 5cms x 10cms or maybe 6000 stitches - is there an average stitch count?

a. One colour
b. Two colour
c. Three colour
Etc etc

What I need to be able to do is print up a flyer showing prices and be able to quote when a customer phones or pops in the shop.

Cheers

John

[Stitch Up]

Not cast in stone and for upto 5 items.

Embroidery Pattern Pricing
Minimum charge per left breast logo £4.50 up to 4,500 stitches single colour.
Plus:
20p for each additional colour.
60p for each additional 1000 stitches or part thereof.

e.g
6.500 stitches with 3 colours
Minimum charge £4.50
3 x 20p (3 colours) £0.60
2 x 60p (2000 add stitches) £1.20

Total £6.30

About right?

[Paul]

Out of interest, what quality 4.500 stitches will provide?

[Stitch Up]

This pattern has 4300 stitches and measures about 9cms wide

[Earl Smith]

Hi John,
I would charge a minimum of 10€ for a front chest regardless of number of colours. If the customer has more than 10 items to be embroidered then I will come down a little.
I found it a little petty and time wasting when talking to the customer about colours and design size. 10€ blanket charge and no discussion. Saves me time as I have to do everything in the shop and dont want to waste time "negotiating" with the customer.

[Stitch Up]

Thanks Earl,

I'm trying to establish what the marketplace can take :)

I agree, complicated formula does make it more difficult.

Would you also charge for digitising on top of the 10Euro?

Regards

John

[Earl Smith]

The prices quoted by the others on here seem to be the same as mine ( more or less).
Charging for digitising? I have the same Wilcom program as you have and the Auto digisising feature give surprisingly good results. If the design is vectorised easily and then put through the Auto feature and it looks good then I dont charge for digitising.
However, if I need to work on it for any time ( more than 10 mins) I will charge a fee of between 10€ and 25€. If it has to be sent away because its too hard for me to do then I charge 25€

[Paul]

I am glad you started this tread. Is anybody here does this service for members? if so how is it look like? how much for digitising etc??

[calvinabc]

yes we have done a few now for different members. we charge a one off fee for digitising £10. plain text is free setup. we charge £5 for items brought in to us and £3.00 per item for upto around 8000 stitches. just depends on quantity but would rather give a price including the garment etc.

[logobear]

we digitize £25 - but happy to discount.
standard breast is £6.50 discounted for numbers above a dozen or so.
NEVER below £3.50

[TjCanvas]

We charge £10 to the general public for digitzing logos and text is free (lower for trade) and have a standard embroidery charge of £2.95 per chest logo which is in line with the competition in our area. Would love to charge what some of the other on here charge but we have acquired some good contracts in the local area with repeat monthly orders which due to the amount of local competition we probably wouldn't have if the prices were higher.