How Much to Charge for Embroidery: Per Stitch, Logo and Digitizing

October 21, 2026 · Selling products and running the numbers

To work out how much to charge for embroidery, find the floor rate an hour at the machine has to earn, turn your machine’s measured speed into minutes per 1,000 stitches, and price every piece as two parts: a charge per 1,000 stitches and a flat charge for hooping, finishing and backing. In the illustrative example below the floor is $62.50 an hour, which gives $1.6827 per 1,000 stitches plus $2.90 a piece. An 8,000-stitch logo has a floor of $16.37 a piece, and digitizing it has a floor of $124.58.

None of these are market prices. The income, costs, machine speed, thread counts and machine price belong to one made-up owner-operator with a single-head machine. Time your own sew-outs, count your own cones and bobbins, and use your own figures.

The embroidery price formula

floor rate        = (income / (1 - tax set-aside) + business costs)
                    / paid hours at the machine a year
machine minutes   = stitches / stitches per minute + stops x seconds / 60
price per 1,000   = floor x machine minutes per 1,000 stitches / 60
                    + machine wear per 1,000 + thread per 1,000
hooping charge    = floor x (hooping + finishing minutes) / 60
                    + backing and topping
price floor       = stitches / 1,000 x price per 1,000 + hooping charge

Step 1: the hourly floor

The example operator wants $45,000 a year kept and spends 25 hours a week at the machine on paid orders. Some of those hours go to re-sews: a thread break, a hoop that slipped. Quotes, proofs and ordering are real hours too, but no customer pays for them directly.

Ignore the re-sews and the answer is $57.50, short of the floor. Of the 1,680 hours worked in the year, only 1,104 are paid, 66%, so the income works out to $26.79 for each hour actually worked. The same split is worked through in the freelance hourly rate calculator.

Step 2: machine time per piece

The stitches per minute here are what the example machine runs at on its own sew-outs, stitches divided by minutes running, not the top speed on the spec sheet. Every color change and trim stops the machine for a few seconds.

On a single head the operator stands at the machine while it sews, so the 2.50 minutes of hooping and finishing add to the 12.43 machine minutes. That machine time works out to 1.5536 minutes per 1,000 stitches, the figure the per-stitch price is built on.

Step 3: thread, backing and machine wear

Thread is the smallest line on the piece, $0.11. Backing and topping come to $0.30, and machine wear to $0.41. Follow the manufacturer for thread, needle and backing choice; this is cost arithmetic, not a recommendation.

Step 4: how much to charge for embroidery per stitch

Your time, machine wear and thread all grow with the stitch count. Hooping, finishing and backing do not: a piece takes the same 2.50 minutes to hoop and finish whether it carries a small logo or a full back.

If the example operator charges $1.25 per 1,000 stitches plus a $2.00 flat fee today, the 8,000-stitch logo bills $12.00, which is $4.37 below its floor.

The insight: a per-stitch price alone undercharges small logos

The hooping charge is fixed per piece, so its share of the price depends on the design size:

On a 1,000-stitch design the stitches are worth $1.68 and the hooping $2.90, 63% of the $4.59 floor. On a 25,000-stitch design the hooping is 6%. Below 1,726 stitches the hooping charge is the larger part of the price. Quote per 1,000 stitches alone, even at the full $1.6827 floor rate, and the 1,000-stitch design bills $1.68 against its $4.59 floor. That is the case for a per-piece charge or a minimum, set from your own hooping minutes.

Step 5: how much to charge for embroidery digitizing

Digitizing is paid once per design. The example spends 1.5 hours digitizing and 20 minutes on a test sew-out and edits, at the floor, plus the software cost spread over the designs digitized a year ($600 over 60): a digitizing floor of $124.58. Each order also takes 15 minutes of setup, $15.63.

Bill digitizing as its own line, or spread it over the pieces. Spread over the pieces, the $140.21 of digitizing and setup moves the price per piece a long way:

The same 8,000-stitch logo runs from $39.74 a piece at 6 pieces down to $19.29 at 48, a 51% drop, and every cent of that drop is digitizing and setup. That is what quantity breaks are. A repeat order of the same design leaves digitizing out.

Multi-head runs, customer garments and names

On a 4-head machine, the operator hoops the next set while the heads sew. Hooping a full set takes 10.00 minutes, less than the 12.43 the machine sews, so the machine sets the pace. In the example 48 pieces take 2.69 hours against 11.94 on one head, and time and wear fall from $15.96 to $3.70 a piece.

A customer-supplied garment carries a spoilage allowance (2% spoiled x $25.00 covered) and 1 minute of handling: $1.54 a piece. A 1,200-stitch name with 2 minutes of setup and its own hooping adds $7.00. Supplying a $9.00 blank at a 35% markup earns $3.15 a piece instead, more than the customer-garment charge. The difference between markup and margin is worked in markup vs margin.

Did the order pay?

After the fact, check each order. 24 pieces at $22.00 that took 6.25 hours leave $492.52 after card fee, thread, supplies and machine wear: $78.80 an hour, above the $62.50 floor. The price per piece that pays exactly the floor on that order is $17.62.

How these were calculated

The floor rate is income divided by (1 minus the tax set-aside share), plus business costs, divided by booked hours a week x (1 minus the re-sew share) x working weeks. Machine minutes are stitches over stitches per minute plus stops x seconds per stop. Thread per 1,000 stitches is top-thread yards x cone price over yards per cone, plus bobbin price over stitches per bobbin. Machine wear per hour is price over working-life hours plus yearly upkeep over hours a year. The price per 1,000 stitches is the floor and wear for the machine minutes per 1,000 stitches, plus thread; the hooping charge is the floor for hooping and finishing minutes, plus backing and topping. Digitizing is the floor for digitizing and test minutes plus software over designs a year. Every figure was computed twice, once by the code behind the product below and once by an independent program that adds the paid hours week by week, prices thread from yards and bobbins used, and rebuilds each order total as pieces plus digitizing and setup, and the two agree to the cent. All inputs are illustrative, not market rates, measured machine speeds or product advice. None of this is financial, legal or tax advice.

To run this on your own year, machine and designs, the pack below has eight linked calculators, so a change to your floor rate flows through every price.