Free tool
What it costs to open a machine embroidery shop, line by line, at prices read this month and linked so you can check them. Pick a tier, edit any number, uncheck what you already own, and see how many orders it takes to earn it back.
What you buy to start
Prices read 2026-09-24. Every number is editable; uncheck a line you already own.
Low $1,180 · Typical $5,079 · High $17,000
Low $0 · Typical $145 · High $450
Low $45 · Typical $60 · High $120
Low $50 · Typical $225 · High $500
Low $139 · Typical $308 · High $1,199
Low $100 · Typical $250 · High $600
Low $35 · Typical $132 · High $500
Low $279 · Typical $379 · High $700
Your first 20 orders
Priced with the standard formula. The blank is doubled and the stitching is $1.50 per 1,000 with a 5,000-stitch floor. Each piece carries a $5 hooping and a $5 handling line, and the order has a $20 minimum. Digitizing is left out, since it is passed through.
After 20 orders like this you have earned back $585 of the $6,578, which is 9%.
Break-even is order number 226.
Your time is not in this number. Divide the leftover by the hours an order really takes before you call it profit. Change the rates in the pricing calculator.
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A machine, the hoops it came with, one roll each of cutaway and tearaway stabilizer, a topping film for towels and knits, enough thread to cover white, black, and the school colors around you, and software that can put a name in a font and save the file. That is the whole list. Everything else is something you buy after a customer asks for it.
Everything else on the page together costs less than the gap between a single-needle and a multi-needle machine. A single-needle Brother sews clean work and costs about $1,200. It also stops at every color change and waits for you. A 10-needle machine at around $5,000 changes color on its own and runs while you hoop the next piece, which is the difference between a hobby that earns money and a business.
Precut sheets are convenient and cost three to four times as much per hooping. A 10-yard roll of medium cutaway is about $15 and covers a lot of sweatshirts. Start with cutaway for anything that stretches, tearaway for stable wovens like totes and towels, and a water-soluble topping for anything with a nap.
A 12- to 48-spool polyester set covers the first months. Once you know which colors you go through, buy those as 5,500-yard cones. White, black, and whatever the local schools wear will be most of what you sew.
Most first-year orders are names and monograms, and a $139 program like Embrilliance Essentials handles those. Real digitizing software costs $650 to $1,200 and takes months to get good at. Send logos out to a digitizer at $15 to $25 each until the volume says otherwise, and charge the customer a setup fee that covers it.
The right-hand box prices one typical order with the standard formula: the blank doubled, $1.50 per 1,000 stitches with a 5,000-stitch floor, a $5 hooping, a $5 handling line, and a $20 minimum. It takes the blank, about $1.25 of thread and stabilizer per piece, and the card fee back out, and calls what is left earned toward the startup cost.
One sweatshirt at a $10 blank and 8,000 stitches leaves about $30. Twenty of those orders is $600, which pays back a single-needle setup in a few months and a ten-needle setup in a busy season. Put your own numbers in. Then divide what's left over by the hours the order takes, because the number in the box is what the order earns, not what you earn.
The rates are the defaults from the pricing calculator, where you can change any of them and see the math.
With a single-needle machine and the basics, about $1,800 to $2,500. With a 10-needle machine, which is what most people who mean to sell move to within a year, about $6,000 to $7,500. A commercial 16-needle setup runs $18,000 and up. The machine is most of it; everything else on the list together is usually under $1,500.
If you are testing whether you like it, a single-needle machine is the cheap way to find out, and it sews fine work. If you already have customers waiting, buy the multi-needle. A single-needle machine stops for every color change and you stand there and rethread it, so a six-color logo on twenty shirts is an afternoon of babysitting. A ten-needle machine runs it while you hoop the next one.
Not legally in most states, and plenty of shops sell their first year as a sole proprietor. The reasons to file early are that it separates your business money from your house, some wholesalers and schools ask for it, and it is cheaper to do it now than to change everything later. Your state's filing fee is the whole cost, from $35 to $500, and the average is $132.
The day you sell at a craft fair, a market, or to a school or business, someone will ask for a certificate, and a crafters policy is about $280 to $400 a year. Before that it's your call. A home shop with a few Facebook customers is a small risk, but it is not zero, and a ruined batch of a customer's own garments is the usual claim.
Your time, first of all. It counts the blank, the thread and stabilizer, and the card fee against the order price, and calls the rest earned back. Divide that by the hours an order really takes, including the messages and the packing, before you call it profit. It also leaves out digitizing, which you usually pass through, and shipping, which you should charge at cost.
Each line links to the page it was read from, with the date. Machine prices move with promotions, so treat the machine line as the one to re-check the week you buy. The others are stable enough to plan on.
Broidry is order-management software for machine embroidery shops. It holds your rate card, prices each quote from the stitch count, takes the payment, and keeps every order on one list with a due date. It is the part of the startup list you don't need until the first week you have more than five orders open.
The calculator above stays free either way.