How to price machine embroidery work | Embroidery Machine Guide

Most shops price machine embroidery from stitch count: a rate per 1,000 stitches (published US small-shop rates work out to about $1 to $4), a minimum per piece (about $10 to $18 for a simple placement), a one-time digitizing or setup fee for new artwork, and the garment billed separately. Check that price against your time, using stitches divided by real machine speed and a machine-hour rate, then add your margin. Offer quantity breaks only on identical runs, where setup is truly shared.

Most embroidery shops price a job from its stitch count. They charge a rate for every 1,000 stitches, apply a minimum to small designs, add a one-time fee for digitizing new artwork, and bill the garment separately. That is a sound starting point. Then check it against your own time and costs so no job loses money.

This guide covers each piece, with example math you can copy. The ranges below come from published small-shop price lists and a shop-costing guide, checked October 2026. Rates vary by region and by shop, so treat them as a starting point, not a market price. To run the sums quickly, use our embroidery pricing calculator.

Price per 1,000 stitches

The formula is: stitches ÷ 1,000 × your rate = embroidery price per piece. An 8,000-stitch logo at $2 per 1,000 is $16.

Few shops publish their rates, so the evidence is thin and the spread is wide. One small shop’s rate sheet starts at about $3 per 1,000 stitches. It rises to about $3.50 for designs with more than three color changes and about $4 for designs with 10 or more colors. Another shop prices by placement instead, such as $10 for a left-chest logo and $15 for a hat front. Divided by the typical stitch counts below, that works out to roughly $1 to $3.75 per 1,000 (our arithmetic, not a published rate). A planning range of about $1 to $4 per 1,000 stitches covers both.

You need a stitch count before you can quote. Your digitizer or software gives you the exact number. Before that, these typical counts from two embroidery companies help you estimate:

Placement	Typical size	Typical stitch count
Left-chest logo	3 to 4 in (75 to 100 mm) wide	4,000 to 10,000
Hat front	4 to 4.5 in (100 to 115 mm) wide	4,000 to 12,000
Sleeve	about 2.5 in (65 mm) tall	3,000 to 6,000
Polo center chest	about 4 in (100 mm) wide	8,000 to 15,000
Full chest	8 to 10 in (200 to 250 mm) wide	15,000 to 30,000
Medium jacket back	about 8 in (200 mm) wide	20,000 to 35,000

Simple wordmarks sit at the low end and multi-color crests with shading at the high end. For a rough count before you have a file, try our stitch count estimator, and see the left-chest design size page for the most common placement.

Here is the formula at a made-up rate of $2 per 1,000 stitches with a $12 minimum, not a market quote.

Stitches	Stitch charge	Price per piece
4,000	$8	$12 (minimum applies)
6,000	$12	$12
8,000	$16	$16
12,000	$24	$24
20,000	$40	$40

Some shops charge a flat price per placement instead. One Long Island shop assumes a design under 10,000 stitches and adds a per-piece surcharge above that. Both methods work if the price covers your real cost.

Set a minimum per piece

Small designs take almost as long to hoop, load, trim and clean up as larger ones. A minimum stops a 3,000-stitch design from paying less than the work behind it.

Published prices for one simple placement, such as a left-chest logo, run about $10 to $18 per piece, with the blank garment extra. One shop lists about $10 for a left-chest or sleeve logo and says it has no minimums. Another lists about $15 to $18 for its simplest tier. A minimum is a choice, not a rule.

A minimum per order is a separate decision, and the sources we read publish no typical figure. Plixalabs says setup (threading, a test sew, a hoop or cap-frame change and approval) can be its own line or folded into a minimum order charge. Set yours so a one-piece job still pays for setup.

Add a setup or digitizing fee

Digitizing turns artwork into a stitch file, and you charge for it once per new design. Our digitizing guide explains what the work involves.

Where the fee comes from	Published range (checked October 2026)
Outsourced digitizing companies	about $15 to $30 per logo, the higher figure for larger designs
Small custom shops charging customers	about $50 to $125 per new logo

At the top of that range, one shop includes three rounds of revisions and waives the fee on larger orders. Another charges about $50, or $75 and up for large, complex artwork.

If you use a purchased design instead of digitizing your own, check the license before you sell anything stitched with it. Our guide to finding machine embroidery designs explains the licensing rules.

Price the garment, thread and stabilizer

The blank is your supplier’s invoice plus whatever markup you choose. Keep it as its own line on the quote.

Thread and stabilizer cost far less than the garment. Plixalabs quotes Madeira’s figures of about 5.5 yd (5 m) of top thread and 3.3 to 3.8 yd (3 to 3.5 m) of bobbin thread per 1,000 standard stitches. In its 10,000-stitch example, thread and stabilizer together come to under $0.50 per shirt. They belong in the cost but rarely decide the price.

When customers bring their own garments, you carry the risk of ruining someone else’s item. Remove the garment line, then raise the stitching price or add a handling fee, and agree a written spoilage policy. Shops handle this differently. One charges about $5 per item with a $15 minimum handling fee, and another adds no upcharge. If a job has several placements, such as a chest logo and a sleeve, price each location separately.

Check your price against your time

A per-stitch rate is a shortcut. Time is the check. The calculation is:

minutes per piece = stitches ÷ (machine speed × efficiency), plus hooping and handling time

Rated top speeds in our machine database run from about 400 to 1,050 stitches per minute on home machines and 800 to 1,500 on multi-needle machines, with most multi-needle models at 1,000 or below. You will not sew at rated speed all day, because trims, color changes, thread breaks and bobbin swaps slow you down. Impressions Magazine says the share of available time a machine is actually sewing runs about 40 to 70 percent at best for many jobs. Use something in that range as your efficiency figure.

For example, 8,000 stitches on a machine running 700 stitches per minute takes about 11 minutes at full speed. At 60 percent efficiency, it takes about 19 minutes. At $30 per machine hour, a placeholder rate from Plixalabs’ worked example, that is about $9.50 of machine time. Single-needle machines add more, because you stop to change each color. Our single-needle vs multi-needle guide covers how that changes your capacity.

Your own machine-hour rate depends on your costs. Plixalabs builds it by dividing yearly shop costs (wages, rent, power, insurance, depreciation, service, software, needles and parts) by the productive hours you can realistically sell. Leave out time lost to setup, maintenance, sampling and gaps between jobs.

Pricing by the hour also suits jobs that stitch count hides: one-off custom pieces, samples, rework and removal. One shop lists removal at about $75 per hour for complex work.

To add margin, divide cost by one minus your margin. Margin is not markup. A $10 cost at a 40 percent margin sells for about $16.67. A 40 percent markup on the same cost gives $14, which leaves a thinner margin.

Quantity breaks

Setup and digitizing happen once per design, so they are the costs that really shrink as quantity grows. Plixalabs shows this with an example. Holding a 40 percent margin steady, the price per piece falls by only about 59 cents between 24 and 144 pieces. Larger discounts come out of your margin, unless you gain something else, such as fewer setups, a fuller machine or cheaper blanks.

One shop’s published schedule for identical decoration looks like this.

Pieces	Discount
1 to 11	None
12 to 24	5%
25 to 49	10%
50 to 99	15%
100 to 249	20%
250 or more	Quote

Another shop gives no automatic volume discount and quotes breaks only on identical runs. A few rules help:

Discount only identical runs: the same design in the same place.
Take the discount from the embroidery line, not the blank.
Decide your lowest acceptable price per piece before you offer a break.

A worked example

This uses made-up numbers. Replace them with yours.

A customer wants 24 polo shirts with a new 8,000-stitch left-chest logo. Your rate is $2 per 1,000 stitches, with a $12 minimum.

Embroidery: 8 × $2 = $16 per piece.
Garment: you pay $9 and sell it at $13.
Digitizing: $50 once.
Order total: 24 × ($16 + $13) = $696, plus $50 = $746.
Time check: about 19 minutes of machine time plus about 3 minutes of hooping and handling is 22 minutes. At $30 per hour that is about $11, plus about 40 cents of thread and stabilizer, so roughly $11.40 of cost against $16 charged. That is a margin of about 29 percent before the garment.

If the margin comes out too low, raise the rate or the minimum.

Mistakes to avoid

Pricing from the rated machine speed. Use a realistic efficiency figure.
Forgetting handling time. Hooping, trimming and packing take minutes on every piece.
Using one price for every item. Caps, bags and thick towels take longer to hoop than flat shirts, so charge for it.
Discounting before you know your floor. Work out the lowest price that still pays first.

Quote a job in six steps

Get the artwork, finished size, placement and quantity.
Get a stitch count from your digitizer or estimate one.
Multiply by your rate, then apply your minimum.
Add the garment and any setup or digitizing fee.
Check the time and margin.
Apply a quantity break if the run is identical, and state your deposit and rush terms. One shop asks for 50 percent up front and starts rush fees at about $50.

If you are thinking about taking paid work, read how to start an embroidery business and see our machines for a small business.

Frequently asked questions

How much should I charge per 1,000 stitches?

Published small-shop rates in the US run from about $1 to $4 per 1,000 stitches, depending on color count, placement and region. One shop's rate sheet starts near $3 and rises toward $4 for designs with many colors. Start in that range, then check it against your own time and costs.

Do I charge a digitizing fee every time?

No. Digitizing is a one-time fee for each new design. The shops we checked quote about $50 to $125 per new logo, and outsourced digitizing companies list about $15 to $30. Once the file exists, repeat orders reuse it.

What is a fair minimum for one embroidered piece?

About $10 to $18 for a simple placement such as a left-chest logo, with the blank garment extra. A small design still needs hooping, stabilizer, a test run, trimming and cleanup, so very small jobs should not fall below your minimum.

How do I price embroidery when the customer brings the garment?

Remove the garment line, and consider raising the stitching price or adding a handling fee, because you carry the risk of spoiling their item. Agree a written spoilage policy first. One shop lists a handling fee of about $5 per item with a $15 minimum.

Should I give discounts for bulk orders?

Only on identical runs, where setup and digitizing are shared. One shop's schedule runs from 5% off at 12 to 24 pieces to 20% off at 100 to 249. Work out your lowest acceptable price first so a discount never cuts below it.