How much revenue off 1 Singlehead

I worked for a large mail order co. that offered embroidery where I learned to run the machines was so impressed that I bought a singlehead machine and started my own business. I was able to pay off the machine within 2 years sewing part time while still holding down a full time job. So the possibility of income is all in what you want to put into it. I contacted schools and businesses that wanted the same logo on several different shirts so setup time was quick with a large run. I was able to also buy a used single head machine for business a couple years later.

I payed over $15,000, and never advertized it was all from word of mouth. I also live in a small community so I thought I did good.

Also, to CMRC's point, perhaps not every dime that was generated went towards paying off the machine....?

That's right I bought stock and other supplies as I have limited space so I ordered as the customer placed and order. I also constructed a room for my business.

I bought a PR-650... I wish I would have bought a used multi-head in hindsight... but it was too intimidating not knowing anything about it and thinking I was going to be buying a big head ache. Live and learn I guess.

I'm not upset that I went this route as I think a single head where I am at is useful, names and one off junk. But volume suffers right now.

That said, I'm making money, hell, I'm paying a guy min-wage (for now) and still making money on that machine.

My wife's cousin brings in overalls for us and we sew logo and name for $7.50 on them... Logo is 5k stitches and name is about 1k. That's under 10 mins of sew time and one is hooped and waiting for the next one to be done so machine runs constant. We do dozens of these. So that's $45/hour... not great, but not too bad.

Then if I'm sewing a $20 (cost) polo I'm charging $15 on top of that $20... so I've just doubled that rate. Obviously it depends on stitch count and what not.

I also screwed myself and worked for about $5/hour the other day on some towels but that was lesson learned and I priced the job WAY too low. Luckily it was for some really good customers so I didn't mind "losing" money to them. I also priced it correctly on the invoice and discounted it to what I quoted them as to give myself some wiggle room if they wanted to order them again.

Hats are what kills me... not much markup and they are always large orders.

But walk-in monogramming is like $10 bucks min. It takes 2 seconds to punch out some letters and load the machine... maybe 10 mins total on the job, that's $60/hour. Granted, it's not steady... but if I didn't have the single head machine, like Mike said, I'd be tying up the machine (when I get it) that makes the big bucks for this little guy. Then it's revenue lost.

That towel job would have made decent money if I had a multi-head. It was logo and name, different name on each towel. I could have been pumping out the names on the towels with the single head while the multi-head was crushing the logos in no time.

I think that is the main problem with a single head... you still have to compete in a multi-head world. You can't price yourself per hour running a single head... you have to do it as if it was a multi-head and take your lumps. Unless you are just THAT good people won't pay 4x the rate that someone with a 4 head would charge. And I'm surrounded by shops with anywhere from a couple of 6 heads to like 144 heads total!

My machine doesn't run non-stop by any means, but I don't have to turn away clients either!

email Joan and ask her eemb1996@gmail.com
she started out with a single head and now also has a four head
and after 15 years of making money she is now selling her 4 head and downsizing to a couple single heads
ask someone that know what they are talking about and no reason to lie

Honestly Robert I'm not one to answer this as I don't really even try to sell my embroidery work yet... what I get I take but I don't shop it around. I don't even have signs up really. We are growing and don't want to grow too fast right now. But we are gearing up for a big push forward.

It really would depend on your market. Can you get people in your door. If you think you can get the orders than do the math. You know what an average left chest stitch count is. Factor in that time (I'd say my PR-650 runs at about 450-550 ACTUAL stitches per minute, trims are SLOW) and then you can take a guess at how many pieces on average you will have orders for.

You obviously will have a wall production wise... you can only sew X stitches in a day. So if someone said I need 1000 pcs by the end of the week, it just ain't happening on that single head. But no reason you can't do 100 pcs order in a week's time. Depending what you can sell it for will depend on your profit. If you can consistently average 100 pcs a week and make $10 bucks profit per garment then you are making 1k/week. That's busting a$$ for about 8 hours a day though. This is why a 4 head can crush a single head in larger scale production. Cut your time by 1/4 or if you can sell it, increase your production/profits by 4x.

But all the heads in the world won't do you any good if you don't have the customers.

In the first 6 months I had my PR-650 I made about 2k in profit (after cost of goods/supplies). This was letting the work come to me and occasionally telling on of my computer customers "hey, you know I do embroidery work now". Nothing major, but I really didn't realize how much I was making either... it didn't feel like I was doing that much work. That was about 260 pcs sewn total. That averaged just over $7.50 a piece, but I did 170 caps in that 260.

For me it is a matter of having the equipment to be a one stop shop for some of my customers. I figure that the machine (at about 9k) will pay for itself in about 2 years. That's not great, but then again, it's not really about making a living with this machine. It's supplementing, growing and learning. I don't push this and just take the work as it comes.

I know my post are kind of all over the place but I'm trying to give you as much information and be as realistic and honest with you as possible.

My goal is to have a multi-head soon (auto screen printing first) and then I won't be afraid to take on large jobs. I think I will get a 6 head. But this single head will still see plenty of use. I'd likely run "7 heads" on any high capacity job and load the design on the single head as well as the 6 head. No matter where the thread breaks, I'm still sewing! ;)

Not a lot if they have to handle sales/proofing/and the digitizing (a lot of time will be ate up here if you care about what you put out/etc.

Let's say a 15,000 stitch file, you run it at around 750 stitches per minute. Let's say your machine never stops and you never run out a bobbin and it runs back to back to back with out problems. So you make 3pcs per hour at best. We also have to assume the person is doing the selling/hooping/digitizing/etc while the machine is running (which wont be easy). So lets say you get $1 per 1000 stitches (this would be way more than I charge). You make $45 per hour, $360 a day. Minus labor, material, machine payment, taxes, rent/mortgage, power, etc. This all really assumes the same file running all day as well. If you change out files, each item this will eat up a lot of time with calling in the file, tracing, checking/changing threads/etc.

Sure if you had files with a bunch less stitches this would up your volume but probably decrease your revenue per item as well.

IF you could get enough business to keep the machine running. That's the problem. I don't see how people can pay payments on a new 1 head machine and make any money. I'm able to make mine work because I paid cash for a used machine and only use it part time. But it's paid off several times over. The problem is that there's no steady business for me. I'll get a good dump of 50 shirts that need a logo and I'll get a nice $250 off it then it will be dead. Then I'll get a mom who wants their girl's shirts to all have their name on them and I'll make $70 off a few. Then come private school time I'll have a backlog and end up with about $500 worth of business.

The problem is that if you are doing the high dollar fru fru appliques and Mom business then not only does it take forever in the editing/digitizing part, but appliques are ridiculously time consuming. I couldn't imagine trying to make a living off a 1 head machine at all. Then if you decide that you really want the machine running you'll have to compete with a multi head shop and do production type work. Problem is that you do 1 and that shop will put out 100 to your 1. Production work on a single head machine is grueling and in the end you don't win. So why do I have a single head machine?

I don't have to make payments off my work. I don't have to view my time as billable. The way I view my time is that if I make $1/hr it's still $1/hr more than i would make watching television. But I also vinyl cut, heat press, and screen print too. Compared to those 3, embroidery is the slow painful money maker. Heat press is the easiest.

How much money could a shop make? I figure a real world figure would be about $1500-$2000. But that's hustling to make sales and getting business for the machine. If you're in an area with people like me then it's even lower. And most areas are full of people with PR type machines trying to make payments on them. Not to mention a lot of dry cleaner type places do it too. It's a pretty saturated market.

How's that for doom and gloom?

I think the numbers I gave are in line if you have someone that hustles and needs a job/check like they need air. But yes a lot of people don't approach work like that.

Now my real advice...don't buy a single head. Period. Our first machine was a single head, we made money with it but in no way would it have supported a business on its own, we did a ton of other services to make that work. We still use it for sure, but I now have 11 total embroidery heads and its the last machine we fill with something. Today knowing what I know now? I wouldn't buy less than a 2 or 4 head. Starting out, I would probably try to buy 2 x 2 heads (separate machines), so you can run 2 different things at once, and as many as 4 pcs at the same time. Now you can realize some profit on that type of thing.

We used to run our 2 and 1 head 7 days a week, nearly 365 days a year often 10-14hrs a day to keep up. Now with a 11 heads and 2 operators we can run them sometimes just a few days week and do way more volume in less time with a ton more profit per hour. There are days that in 4hrs I probably have done more work than my 1 head could do in a week. So food for thought.

Buy used when you can. Stick with the big 3 IMO. Tajima, Baruaden, and SWF. Make sure to get a full size embroidery machine as well. 450x500mm or bigger is a ideal embroidery area for a full size machine.

A single head is a fantastic thing to have for shops with multi head machines.

The single head itself will not make you money directly its purpose is to handle the large backs, short hat runs, and of course sew outs.

Indirectly it is making you money by not tying up the multiheads which in turn make the real money for you.

With todays tech tho you can daisy chain single heads all day long so it has more potential than in the past.

This whole convo tho is about commercial businesses no need to mention in your bed room machines making you $20 a day, I am sure there are some out there but that is not the spirit of the OP's question.

Also to add one should consider the wear and tear a multi head machine must endure if you use it for single pc orders and sew outs, there is many moving parts that operate on all heads whether they are turned on or not.

Robert,

Obviously you know my situation, but I felt like I could add a little more here. A single-head was all I could afford as I was not willing to take out a huge loan just to get started. It is in my home, so I can embroider whenever I feel like it, and also do not have to pay rent for a retail/warehouse space at this point in time. Basically, right now, I have 20 hours in my day where I can work if need be. I am still working P/T to have a little money coming in. Of course, having a military spouse that is currently stationed somewhere else gives me infinite free time...My business is obviously still in the infant stages, and orders are sporadic at times, but at least I am not worried about trying to make a machine payment and pay rent that I cannot afford at this point. I also have a contract embroiderer lined up that uses the same digitizer and runs Barudans, so he has already agreed to take on any orders that I cannot handle. He gave me his prices upfront, so I know how much mark-up I can add to make a little bit of money. But as we have discussed, my heart is really in the niche equestrian market and making things to sell, not doing logo work....my next machine will actually probably be another single head, 9-needle that I can take with me to shows. Just my two cents :)

Also, I must say for the record, that my Barudan rep NEVER made any promises or tried to sugar-coat things for me about getting a single-head machine.

In a perfect world, $2880 gross. Figure on 32K stitches per hour @ .75 cents using an 8 hour day/20 day month. Then subtract 25% for time involved taking orders (probably close to 40% {2304 gross}). Of course this is a gross figure based upon being busy all day every day. Now subtract your expenses (this is where it gets ugly) and when that is deducted your hourly labor rate surfaces. I'd be willing to bet it's about 8-9 bucks an hour or 4-5 if you have high dollar rent.

Embroidery was supposed to be all about selling the item embroidered. You can buy "wholesale" from any number of sources who's prices are double what walsmart sells it for and then try to convince the customer of the value of embroidered goods. You can also take the direct to china route and spend all your money stocking up on things to embroider that are not what you specified but hey, in china it's not right, just about right.

I'm not sure I understand the embroidery business model. You buy a machine, software, and all the assorted items you need to run the machine. Then you spend countless hours learning how to use it. For your 30K investment in all the above now you get to sell to the public for 5-6 bucks for a name on a shirt and they think that's too much. For less than $30 buy a bucket and a squeegee and charge small businesses $6 to clean a window that takes less than 5 minutes to clean. When tax time comes and you have an embroidery business, your business and personal property tax get assessed at 2-3% of the value of the machine ($500/year based upon 20K at 2.5% assessment). With the window washing example above, 0.75 cents.

Difficult to maintain a positive attitude......