When you go to buy a custom embroidered shirt, you might get a little surprised by the cost. Especially if it’s a high-quality shirt. What makes custom embroidery more expensive than, let’s say, buying a shirt off the shelf at your local big box store?
Well, the cost of custom embroidery isn’t arbitrary, and there are several good reasons for it.
Today, we’re going to go over the different factors that affect the price of a custom embroidered shirt, why they’re important and more.
Let’s dive in!
How Much Does Custom Embroidery Cost?
While custom embroidery is typically more expensive than grabbing a random shirt off a big-box store shelf, it’s not a luxurious expense. On average, the cost of custom embroidery is between $20 and $40. The price you get can also vary a bit depending on where you’re buying your shirt and the various factors we’ll talk about throughout this guide.
Factors That Affect the Price of Custom Embroidery
There are a lot of factors that determine the cost of custom embroidery. Some of them are completely unavoidable, and some of them have to do with the decisions you make.
1: Location
This isn’t controllable, but it goes into the cost of your custom embroidery. When we say “location”, we mean both the area you’re in and the service itself.
Some areas have higher costs of living, and that raises the cost of practically every other part of the process. The location of a business might also affect supply costs, but that’s typically not a problem with custom embroidery and shirt printing.
For the service itself, there are different overhead costs such as wages, rent, and everything else that goes into operating a business, and those things impact the cost you pay as a customer.
2: The Size of the Custom Embroidery Design
You might not be able to change anything about the business’s upkeep costs being passed down to you, but you do get to dictate a lot of what the final cost is with your design choices.
One of the biggest determining factors is the size of the design you want embroidered. Not only are more materials required for larger designs, but they require more time, work, and energy to do.
In general, it costs up to $3 per 1000 stitches. Embroidery, especially large designs, requires thousands of stitches, and that’s before factoring in other costs we’ll be talking about shortly.
If cost is a major factor for you, such as with bulk ordering, opting for a smaller design can greatly reduce the cost of your overall order. If you’re just trying to buy a single embroidered shirt, that’s not as big of a concern.
3: The Amount of Detail in Your Design
The size of your design has the biggest impact, but the amount of detail the design has also impacts the cost.
If a design is extremely elaborate, it takes a lot more work to get it right. Just translating the design to a template takes far more time. Let alone actually stitch it and make sure it comes out right.
Because of this, highly elaborate designs often come at a premium cost.
If you can tone down the details necessary for the design to look good, you can often avoid those problems and get a more standard cost that’s determined mostly by the size of the design.
4: Letters are Cheaper
If you simply want a name, word, or phrase on your shirt, you’ll spend less than you would with an equally sized graphic design. Monogram letters, or letters that aren’t overly stylized, tend to only cost about $1 to $2 per inch of lettering. So, a small embroidered first name that’s only a few inches long won’t be very expensive at all.
With that being said, that only applies to monogram letters. If you stylize the lettering of a word with all kinds of visual flare, you’ll likely pay the same standard price as a graphic designer. After all, it’s far more complex, and standard templates can’t be used.
5: The Number of Embroidered Designs
Maybe you don’t just want a single design or word on your clothing item. Maybe you need a name, a large back embroidery, and a small chest patch on the same clothing piece? Well, that greatly increases the price. The different designs will be priced separately in that case, and they’ll all be added up to a total.
It’s completely fine to do this as long as the embroidery service has the equipment to do it but keep in mind that the price can quickly add up. Especially if you’re ordering a bulk order for a special event or similar occasion.
6: Thread Quality
Just like anything else the quality of each component matters. The thread used for the embroidery is one of the bigger determining factors here. A low-quality thread will be considerably cheaper, but it will also come with several flaws. If the service uses a high-quality thread, the price will have to reflect that.
7: Fabric Quality
The fabric the clothing item is made of is also a big determining factor. Not only are you paying for the clothing itself, but different types of fabric require different approaches to embroider properly. If more work is required, it’s going to cost more.
Typically, you buy a shirt, sweatshirt, or similar item from the shirt printer, and they embroider it. So, your options are going to be limited to what the shop has in stock. Go over each option and balance the cost-to-quality ratio.
8: Extras
Finally, some customers want extras. This can include rhinestones and similar bits that aren’t embroidered on, but they are part of the design. These aren’t part of the stitching cost, and they will be added to the price if you have anything like that added.
Get the Best Custom Embroidered Shirts at the Best Price
Now that you are familiar with the cost of custom embroidery you need to pick a reliable T-shirt printing company.
If you’re looking for custom embroidered shirts and other items, AA Custom T-Shirt Printing has you covered! We offer custom printing and embroidery at competitive prices and only offer the highest quality products.
Browse our store today!
