Embroidery Pricing Calculator for Small Shops: Quotes, Quantity Breaks and Margin

How much should you charge for this embroidery job?

A flat price per 1000 stitches ignores digitizing, setup, color changes and hooping, which is why it loses money on small runs. Enter the job and your machine, and see the per-piece price that hits your target margin, the true cost and machine time, a quantity-break table (12, 24, 48, 100, 250), how price moves with stitch count, and whether to take the job at your lowest acceptable hourly rate.

For home and micro embroidery shops running one to six heads. Nothing is uploaded: the numbers stay in this browser. They are your inputs, not a forecast.

Enter the job

1. The job

Pieces in the job Garment cost each ($, 0 if customer supplies) Stitches in the design Thread colors in the design Digitizing fee, one time ($) Price the customer offered per piece ($, optional)

2. Your machine and time

Machine heads Rated stitches per minute Real efficiency (% of rated speed) Hooping and handling per piece (min) Setup per job (min) Setup per color (min) Seconds per thread change

3. Your costs

Thread, backing and topping per 1000 stitches ($) Labor rate per hour ($) Overhead per machine hour ($)

4. Your price rules

Target margin (% of the quote) Minimum order charge ($) Rush surcharge (%) Lowest hourly rate you will accept ($) Flat rule of thumb: $ per 1000 stitches

Quantity breaks to compare (comma separated)

The quote

True cost

Garments	Thread and backing	Labor	Overhead	Digitizing	Total cost	Machine and hand time

Quantity breaks

Pieces	Per piece	Quote	Drop	Effective $/hr	Setup + digitizing share	Flat rule per piece	Flat rule profit	Note

Stitch count vs price

Stitches	Per piece	Quote	Flat rule per piece	Flat rule profit

Checks

Prefer a CLI?

Same logic, zero dependencies, one command. Quote a CSV of jobs, or one job from flags:

node cli.mjs quote jobs.csv --heads 2 --spm 650 --margin 40 --min-charge 75 --min-hourly 35 --json
node cli.mjs quote --quantity 24 --garment-cost 4.5 --stitches 7500 --colors 4

Get cli.mjs and engine.mjs: Node 18+, nothing to install, no network call. More: How much to charge for embroidery: per-stitch pricing, setup and quantity breaks.

What's recognised

Input	Handling

Hooping is assumed to happen while the machine is stopped, with one operator for the whole job. Digitizing is treated as a cost you recover inside the quote. Bobbin changes, hoop-burn rejects and re-stitches are not modelled; raise the garment cost or lower the efficiency to allow for them.

Common questions

Does it upload my job?

No. The page works on the numbers you type, in your own browser, and never sends them anywhere. The CLI reads a local file or stdin and makes no network call.

How is the quote worked out?

Clock time is job setup plus color setup, plus one run per hoop (stitches divided by stitches per minute at your real efficiency, plus thread changes) for each batch of pieces across your heads, plus hooping minutes per piece. Cost adds garments, thread and backing, labor and overhead for that time, and digitizing. The quote is cost divided by one minus your target margin, at least your minimum charge, plus any rush surcharge, rounded up to the cent per piece.

Why does the per-piece price drop as quantity grows?

Digitizing, job setup and color setup are paid once however many pieces you stitch, so their share of each piece shrinks. The break table shows the drop at each quantity and flags where the minimum charge or setup dominates.

Is a flat price per 1000 stitches enough?

It ignores setup, digitizing, color changes and hooping, so on a small run it can sell below your cost. The page compares it with the quote that hits your margin at every quantity and shows the quantity from which it covers your cost.

What does the take-the-job verdict mean?

Effective hourly rate is what is left of the price per clock hour after garments, thread, overhead and digitizing are paid, before you pay yourself. If it is below your floor the page tells you the price that reaches it.