One of my blogging buddies ask me “How much do I sell my prim dish towels with machine embroidery on them for?” It got me thinking that this would make a great topic for a post on my blog. This way I can share with anyone else that might also be wondering what to sell their machine embroidered items for. I got my formula from an embroidery magazine that had an article on what home-based embroidery businesses should charge and it has worked out pretty good for me.
What I charge for my embroidered dish towels~ I sell them for $5.00 (4×4 designs) and $6.00 (6.75×4 designs). I have been lucky enough to find good quality prim/country looking towels for $1.00 each. I figure my design pricing on $1.00 per 1000 stitches. (This price is also taking into count the thread, backing materials, and machine time that you use.) I try to pick designs that stay within this stitch range, so that I can keep my selling price affordable and able to compete with the store purchased dish towels. Dish towels in our local stores sale anywhere from $4.00 to $10.00 depending on if it is a discount store or department store. (dish towel cost + design stitch count cost = my selling price) Example: I pick out a design that has 5000 stitches in it =$5.00 ($1.00 per 1000 stitches), then add the price that the dish towel cost me to purchase ($1.00), that makes my sale price $6.00.
When picking out my designs for my dish towels~ I use some designs that are 1000-2000 stitches and some that are higher than 6000-8000 stitches. Sometimes I even go alittle higher if I have used alot of lower count designs because it all averages out to about 5000-6000 stitches. I embroider up as many as 20 to 30 towels for my craft shows.
I use the same pricing formula as above on all items that I put embroidery on.
On my special orders~ I used to do alot of special orders for the local schools and some small business where I ordered in shirts for them and then put the embroidery on. I used the same formula for the designs but added some money on the final cost for the time it took for doing all the ordering and delivering to the school or business. (Emb. design cost + clothing cost + extra cost for ordering/delivering,etc. = final price) I stopped doing the really big embroidery jobs, even though the money was great, it took up all my time and I felt that I wasn’t being able to be creative anymore. I still do small special orders for customers that bring me the item/items that they would like to have embroidery put on.
I do know that my sewing buddy that lives in Tenn. is getting $2.00 per 1000 stitches but with the economy the way it is where I live in Ohio, I can’t go that high. I know some go by an hourly wage on how long it takes them to stitch it out. I’m sure it varies depending where you live and what your market is willing to spend. I would love it if others would leave a comment and share on how they figure out their embroidery pricing.
Until next time, Happy Stitching!
Just wanted to share with everyone what I’ve been working on. These are little embroidered mini HaLLoWeeN orine pillows that I’ve made to take to my FaLL craft shows in October. Last year was the first time that I had made them, they were a hit and I sold out! Only made a dozen of them, so I making alot more this year. They all have HaLLoWeeN/FaLL print fabric on the back of them. (Guess I should of turned them over and taken another photo to show you.) On some of them, I have sewn on a small rusty tin star.
I will post some more photos as I get more of them made. I have some really cute new prim designs that I can’t wait to stitch out. Also getting ready to start on my HaLLoWeen/FaLL dish towels and finish up some tote-bags. I have 8 bags with FaLL Floral fabrics almost finished. Still need to put the machine embroidery on the denim pockets. (Will also share these in a later post.) 
