Trying to figure out embroidery pricing...

shop around your area... check out as many embroidery shops as you can to see what your local market is used to charging...... then sit down with your business plan and decide if you can live with that pricing or can you go lower because you have less overhead for example, or can you price higher because you bring added services or quality that your competitors just don't have.... then you will answer the question properly for your own unique situation.
At our first digitizing company we charge lower than most..... because we built a website that did away with order entry positions and most live customer service... internet based only... so we brought our pricing in line... same margin, just less overhead. This strategy worked for that company. We do fall into the argument that you get what you pay for, so if they are so cheap they must not be good...... but we win the business battle when the economy is like now... because clients are willing to give us a try in order to cut their own costs.... our job is then to show them that we can be low cost but high quality.
At our second embroidered art company we went the other way, we charge a premium because we are offering embroidered art from some of the best digitizers around... people with years of experience... so our clients pay for that experience... that is worth a premium.

Well, I charge $1.25 per thousand to start. This has proven to make me money, but I also lose business to those guys who work out of the garage and just want to make a wage. I started the business to make money and not just have the headache of a business (can you hear my disdain for discounters?). I started out the other way, comparing, and it did not work. Further, it is very difficult to raise prices after you have a customer base.

seems like now the entire world is raising prices on everything....why not you? should be an easy sell nowadays I would think.

Consider the quantities you'll be doing. If its small orders you'll need to charge more for your time but if you're competing for large orders you'll have a greater need to be conpetively priced. If you work in a niche market and provide something that competitors don't you'll be able to raise your prices.

1.25 per thousand stitches, damn thats insane, i should post my price list here some people would flip out. embroidery is cheaper here.

professional here.... .56 a thousand. Most in my area are less than .40 a thousand...

interesting topic. and robert you are absolutely right. Here where im from and im not going to lie here my gross annual sales are just under 400k and im charging around .50 per thousand. even less sometimes. mind you i have 42 heads but thats not important. the point is people are underestimating the power of china. And the companies who charge 3.00 are going to eventually go out of business. 5 of the major companies here have gone under due to over pricing embroidery. they're charging 3.00 for a 6000 stitch design on a 100 piece order. and they went under. i dont know about the states but here prices are not like this. i do a job yearly its 60k alone and they bring me 5,000 t shirts alone with a 4000 stitch logo i charge $1 you heard me a dollar. lol and i did a 12,000 stitch logo for 2$ on a 250 piece order and im still making good money. good money too. The thing is if your charging 3 dollars per thousand stitch and someone has 20,000 units they might as well go to china and get it for 20cents for the whole design. but the only thing that is stopping small embroidery companies from going under is small businesses and smaller orders. someone with 500pcs is not going to china or peru etc.. theyre staying local. someone who is doing even 4000pcs is staying local. but the big orders are not here anymore.

and ive made over 100,000 investment and made my money a dozen times over again with lower prices good embroidery and happy customers. ive seen embroidery for as low as 10cents per thousand stitches thats a little extreme. but hey if you can get 3$ go for it. but that wont happen here. you'll be out of business in a week.

only my input and my market here.