How to price embroidered patches: sew-on, iron-on, and patch sets

Price a patch you stitch yourself by its stitches, its materials, plus your time. Never price it against what a patch factory charges. A factory sells patches for a couple of dollars each at a hundred pieces. Your lane is the small order: one patch, a set of six, or twenty for a scout troop, made this week instead of next month.

Patches are not most of what I stitch at Four Burners. The rates below are my own garment rates. The patch numbers come from shops and suppliers that publish theirs.

Why factory prices are the wrong comparison

Search for patch prices and you will find tables like the one Quality Imprint publishes: about $1.50 to $2.50 for a 2 inch patch, and $1.00 to $2.50 each at 1,000 pieces (Quality Imprint). A customer who has seen those numbers will bring them to you.

Those patches are made by the hundred. Stitchy Lizard, an embroidery shop that also sells patches, says it plainly on its patch page. Orders of 50 or more are made overseas. Orders under 50 are made in house with fewer finishing options, where "pricing is more" (Stitchy Lizard). Its overseas lead time is about 15 business days after the artwork is approved.

That is the honest line to give a customer. A factory wins on 500 identical patches. A home shop wins on a small run, a quick turnaround, and a patch nobody else will make in a quantity of one. Price for the job you are actually doing.

What one in-the-hoop patch takes

An in-the-hoop patch is the whole product, made start to finish on the embroidery machine. The usual order goes like this. A placement line stitches on the stabilizer. You lay the base fabric inside it. A tackdown holds the fabric, the design stitches, and a satin border finishes the edge (Urban Threads).

We All Sew's iron-on patch project shows how many materials go into one patch. It uses two pieces of twill, a fusible cutaway, a stiffener cut to the patch shape, two layers of wash-away stabilizer, tape, spray adhesive, and a fusible sheet for the iron-on back (We All Sew). Then the patch gets trimmed, rinsed, and left to dry completely before the backing goes on.

That is more handling than a left chest logo on a sweatshirt. The stitch count does not show any of it.

The stitches

Start the same place as any job: the stitch count from the file. My rate is $1.50 per thousand stitches. If a patch file comes in at 9,000 stitches, that is $13.50 of stitching on every patch. If you do not have the file yet, the stitch count guide covers estimating it from the size and the design.

A patch can run heavier than a garment logo of the same size. A garment logo can let the shirt show through. Many patches fill their whole face. Quality Imprint lists 75% and 100% coverage as upcharges over a 50% patch for that reason (Quality Imprint). Read the actual number off the file before you quote.

A small patch can come in at a few thousand stitches. It still takes a full hooping, trimming, and backing. That is what a stitch floor is for. Billing every piece at least a few thousand stitches keeps a small patch from quoting at almost nothing.

Materials, charged every time

Twill, felt, stiffener, wash-away stabilizer, fusible backing, and velcro are all things you buy for the patch. I charge materials at cost, on every job, on top of the stitching. A sweatshirt blank already has its own line on my quotes. A patch has no blank, so its materials are the blank. If you leave them out, you are paying for them.

Sew-on, iron-on, and velcro backs

The backing changes the price. In factory pricing, a sew-on back is included, iron-on adds about $0.10 to $0.30 a patch, and velcro adds about $0.50 to $1.00 (Quality Imprint). Your numbers will be higher than a factory's because you buy smaller quantities.

So price each back as its own answer:

• Sew-on. The base price. The customer stitches it onto the garment.
• Iron-on. Add the cost of the fusible sheet plus the minutes to cut it and press it on. We All Sew trims the fusible 1/4 to 1/2 inch smaller than the patch so the adhesive stays hidden (We All Sew).
• Velcro. Add what the hook and loop costs you per patch, plus attaching it. Velcro is the most common patch back to underprice.

If you will put the patch on a garment for the customer, that is a second job. Quote it as its own line.

Pricing by size

A 2 inch patch and a 4 inch patch are not the same price, and a stitch file does not scale, so each size is its own file. Digitize each size you sell. Read each file's stitch count, then price each size from its own count. A customer picking a size should see the price change right then, not hear about it in a follow-up message.

Patch sets

A set of six different patches is six designs. Each new design carries its own digitizing charge the first time it is made. The setup fee guide covers what to charge for that and when to waive it. Each patch in the set carries its own stitching and materials. The one thing a set saves is conversation. One customer and one order is one conversation, so my handling charge counts once for that product.

Quantity and discounts

I do not discount stitching for quantity, ever. Twenty patches are twenty hoopings, twenty trims, and twenty backs. The group orders guide covers collecting names and sizes for a troop or team without a spreadsheet.

There is a point where the right answer is to send the order out. Stitchy Lizard draws that line at 50 pieces (Stitchy Lizard). Pick your own line based on how many patches fit in your hoop and how many hours you have. When an order is over it, tell the customer a factory will be cheaper and take longer. A customer who needs the patches by Saturday will usually pay your price.

One patch

A single custom patch is where pricing goes wrong most often, because the stitching looks small. Digitizing, hooping, materials plus the backing are all still there. My minimum order is $20. The minimum order guide covers setting one and how to say it.

If your formula and your gut disagree on a patch, time five of them. The hat pricing guide walks through timing a piece from blank to bagged. Patches are another job where the stopwatch tells you more than the stitch count.

How I would set up patches in Broidry

In Broidry, a patch shop adds Patch as a product type under Products, on the Your own product types page. Each patch design goes in the design library. Under Sizes this design comes in, each size gets its own name, inches, machine file, stitch count plus an Adds to the price amount. Read the sizes from my stitch files fills in the rows from the files you uploaded, so you only type the prices. Your customer picks the design and then the size. The total updates as they pick.

For the back, add a question to the listing's order form, like "Pick your backing," with answers such as Sew-on, Iron-on +0.50, and Velcro +1.50. Each answer adds its own amount per patch. The order shows what the customer picked. A Minimum stitches billed setting on your pricing page sets the stitch floor. The pricing calculator runs the same math if you want to try numbers first. The full method is in how to price machine embroidery.

The short version

Do not price a patch against a factory. Price it by its stitches, at your rate, with a stitch floor for small patches. Charge the materials at cost every time, because a patch has no blank to carry them. Price iron-on and velcro as their own answers. Price each size from its own file. Charge digitizing once per design in a set and keep the stitching full on every patch. When an order gets big enough that a factory would be cheaper, say so and let the customer choose.