How to price embroidery on hats: caps vs a flat garment

I price hats as a menu item, not by the stitch. A dad hat or a trucker with a logo on the front starts at $32 when I supply the blank and $24 when the customer brings their own hat. A bigger design, a heavy fill, or 3D puff costs more. Everything below is how I got to those numbers and why the per-stitch formula I use on shirts gives the wrong answer on a cap.

Why a cap is not a small shirt

On paper a hat logo looks like a left chest. Both are small, and both run around the same stitch count. On the machine they are different jobs.

A cap goes on a cap frame or a cap driver, not a flat hoop. Melco's start-to-finish cap instructions walk through locking the frame into a cap gauge, pulling the cardboard out of the hat, walking the strap teeth into the seam between the crown and the bill, and adjusting the strap for each new hat style (Melco). The same instructions slow the machine to 900 stitches per minute for caps. That is per hat, every hat.

The design file is different too. A file built for a flat chest pushes fabric ahead of the needle on a curved front panel, which is how you get ripples and outlines that miss their shapes (AB Digitizing). A cap file stitches from the center out and from the brim up, so the loose fabric gets pushed toward the sides of the hat instead of piling up in the middle (SanMar). So one logo on a shirt and a hat is really two files.

The space is smaller as well. The placement guide has the measurements: about 1/2 inch above the bill and just over 2 inches tall on a standard hat. A logo that reads fine at 3.5 inches on a chest has to shrink. Small text on a cap is where things go wrong first.

None of that shows up in a stitch count. That is the whole problem with pricing a hat by the thousand stitches.

Why I stopped running the formula on hats

For shirts I use a rate per 1,000 stitches plus the blank with a markup, plus hooping and a small handling charge. The full method is in how to price machine embroidery. The pricing calculator does the math. My rate is $1.50 per thousand.

Run that on a hat and two things happen. A small cap logo of about 8,000 stitches comes to $12 of stitching, which says nothing about the cap frame, the slower speed, or a separate cap file. Then someone tries to fix that with a complexity charge. Now the number drifts. I once built a dad hat quote from the formula and it came to $41. My own shop page was selling the same kind of logo cap for $32. The formula was $9 over my own published price. I would have had to explain to a customer why their hat cost more than the one on my page.

So hats got a menu price. I know what a logo cap takes on my machine. I set one price that covers the blank plus all of the work. I charge it every time. A customer who looks at my shop page and then asks me for a quote gets the same number.

If you are setting your own hat price, here is a way to check it without the formula:

1. 1Time five hats from the moment you pick up the blank to the moment it is trimmed and bagged. Include loading the cap frame and changing the strap for a new style.
2. 2Multiply that time by what you want to earn an hour.
3. 3Add the blank.
4. 4Round up to a whole dollar and compare it to what local shops and your own past orders sold at.

If your shirt formula and your timed hat price disagree, trust the timed one. Hats are where the stopwatch tells you more than the stitch count.

Trucker vs dad hat

I charge the same $32 for a trucker and a low-profile dad hat with a logo. The work is close enough that two prices would only start a conversation I do not need to have. What changes my price is the design, not the silhouette.

Unstructured hats do take more care. Melco's instructions call for two pieces of backing on an unstructured cap instead of one, plus extra clips to hold it steady (Melco). That is a minute of setup. It is not a reason for a separate price on an ordinary logo.

When the price goes up

$32 is where my hats start. A plain logo or a script word on the front is $32. These cost more:

• A large design with a lot of fill. A dense, multi-color design that uses the whole front is more stitches and more machine time. I price it higher and tell the customer the number before they order.
• 3D puff. Puff is stitched over a sheet of foam that gets peeled away afterward. Ricoma's own instructions say the design has to be digitized for puff or it will not work. They also run the machine at 500 to 600 stitches per minute (Ricoma). That is a slower machine, extra material, and cleanup on every hat. Puff always costs more than a flat logo.
• A second placement. A side logo or a word on the back of the cap is a second hooping and a second design. Price it as its own line, not as a freebie.
• A new logo. Digitizing is a one-time charge for the design and is separate from the hat price. The setup fee guide covers what to charge and when to waive it. If the same logo is going on shirts too, ask your digitizer for the cap version and the flat version at the same time. Many digitizers sell the pair together; AB Digitizing lists a left chest and hat combo as its own price (AB Digitizing).

When the customer brings the hat

When someone brings me their own cap, the price is $24. That is my $32 hat without the blank. Nothing else drops, because their hat does not load into the cap frame any faster than mine.

A hat I did not buy is a hat I cannot replace, so the customer agrees to that in writing before I stitch it. The customer-supplied garments guide has what that agreement says and the items I turn down. On hats, I look closely at the front panel before I agree. A cap with a thick seam right down the center, a mesh front, or a front panel that is already printed changes what I can do. It is better to say so before I take the hat than after.

Team and group hat orders

I do not discount the stitching on a team order, ever. Each of twelve hats still goes on the cap frame, runs at cap speed, and gets trimmed one at a time. The one thing a group order saves is conversation. Twelve identical hats is one conversation, so my handling charge counts once for that product instead of once per hat. The group orders guide covers collecting names and sizes without a spreadsheet. If a single hat is small enough to fall under your floor, the minimum order guide covers that. Mine is $20. A hat already clears it.

Etsy is a different price

My Etsy dad hat is $44, not $32. Etsy takes its fees and the hat ships free, so that price has to carry costs a local pickup order does not. A higher Etsy price is correct. Do not sync it down to your local price, and do not raise your local price to match Etsy.

How I quote a hat in Broidry

In the Broidry quote builder I turn on Price this item myself, type the hat price, and turn on This price is the whole item. That tells Broidry the number already includes the blank plus the work, so nothing gets added on top of it. The customer sees the hat and its price on one line. On a quote for more than one of the same hat, I also turn on My handling fee is already inside that price, so the handling counts once for the whole group. A single hat still quotes at exactly $32.

For a customer's own hat I turn on Customer supplies the garment, which removes the blank charge. For puff, my rate card has a 3D puff charge per placement, per item, so a puff hat prices above a flat one without me remembering to add it. Digitizing, a rush fee, or a minimum still applies to the order as usual.

The short version

Price a hat as a menu item, not by the stitch. Time your own hats and set one price that covers the blank and the work. Charge the same for a trucker and a dad hat. Charge more for a big fill design, for 3D puff, and for a second placement. Take the blank off for a customer's own hat and change nothing else. Never discount stitching on a team order. Keep your Etsy price higher than your local price, because it has more to cover.