A design’s stitch count gives you a place to start, but it does not give you a way to set your prices so that your business is profitable.
Most embroidery shops price things the way they learned: count the stitches, add the cost of the item, and that’s the number you quote. It’s a common method, it feels precise, and it became standard because it gave shops a clear and what seemed like a logical method for pricing.
I used stitch-count pricing myself, so I get why people start with it, and often stick with it.
Stitch-count pricing isn’t exactly wrong, but it only tells you what the machine does. It doesn’t tell you how much an order truly costs you, how it affects your work schedule, or its real value to the customer.
Stitch count answers one question. To run a profitable shop, you need to answer five.
This habit is quietly costing you money.
Think about what stitch-count pricing completely misses.
It doesn’t consider that some jobs take much more time to handle, even if they have the same stitch count. It doesn’t factor in rush orders that squeeze your whole schedule. It also doesn’t show that a new customer’s small order is different from your best customer’s big reorder, even with the same stitch count.
Stitches show what the machine does. They don’t show how much the order costs to make or what it’s worth.
No two orders affect your business the same way, even if they have identical stitch counts. A job that fits easily into your schedule and one that makes you move three other orders around don’t cost your business the same. Most stitch-count pricing systems treat them as if they do. This leads to problems. It is why some jobs feel good to finish, and others make you wish you hadn’t taken them in the first place.
If your pricing doesn’t change based on the real details of each order, it’s not a system. It’s simply your best guess, which uses stitch count as a starting point.
Every profitable order answers five questions.
What really separates profitable shops from those struggling isn’t how hard they work. It’s whether they consider all five main things, what I call PRICE drivers, that make an order profitable (or not), every single time.
At NNEP, we call this the PRICE Framework. Here’s what each PRICE driver means.
P — Production Cost
This is everything it truly costs to make the order: thread, backing, machine time, and any other materials used. It’s not a guestimate or an old number from a few years ago. It’s a real accounting of what the order costs you to run it right now.
Most shops have a rough awareness their material costs. But fewer have checked those numbers lately. Thread and backing prices have changed. If your basic production costs are out of date, every quote you give is based on shaky ground.
R — Real Labor
Time costs money, and most shops either skip this or greatly underestimate it.
Real labor isn’t just the machine’s running time. It’s also the time spent setting up, hooping, trimming, inspecting, packaging, and invoicing. It includes calls, texts, and emails with the customer. It even covers approval processes that take days instead of minutes or hours because the customer keeps changing their mind about the design.
Every minute of that time has a cost, and it should be reflected in the price. If you don’t include real labor in your pricing, you’re essentially paying for part of your customer’s order with your own time. In other words, you are putting in your time for free.
I — Intended Profit
This one surprises people.
Most shops see profit as whatever money is left after all their expenses are paid. Profitable shops plan for profit before they ever give a quote. Intended profit means you decide what this job will add to your business’s bottom line before you put any numbers down.
Not leftover profit; planned profit. This change in thinking turns your pricing system from guessing what you hope the customer will pay, to actual business management.
“An embroidery professional’s pay should not depend on how much money is left in the bank at the end of the month. It should come from the profits intentionally made on every single order.” – Jennifer Cox
C — Capacity Pressure
This is a factor almost no one prices for, yet it’s one of the most significant.
What else is scheduled when this new order comes in? What are you giving up, putting off, or changing around to fit this job into the schedule and meets the customer’s deadline? A job that fills an empty spot during a slow week and one that makes you work overtime during your busiest month are worth different amounts to your business. Your pricing can flex to show that, not ignore it.
Capacity pressure is also the drive that keeps you from undercharging for rush orders. If a customer needs 200 items in four days and your schedule is packed, that order genuinely costs your business more. Price it that way.
E — End Customer Value
Not every customer or order has the same value to the person placing it.
Uniforms for a local fire department, custom items for a regional trade show, and a corporate client who orders every three months are all different. How much is the order worth to them? This context should be part of your pricing system.
This isn’t about overcharging customers who are in a tough spot. It’s about creating a pricing system that shows the full reality of what you’re offering and its true value.
What this looks like for a real order.
Imagine a simple job: 48 polo shirts, a logo on the left chest, 9,500 stitches, standard turnaround time for a local business.
With stitch-count pricing at $1.50 per thousand stitches, the embroidery costs $14.25 per shirt. Add a $7.00 shirt, and you’re at $21.25 per shirt, making the total order $1020. That seems fair, maybe even like a good job.
What’s left out? The 20 hours of actual work that order will take. Things like setup, hooping, trimming, a size change halfway through, a customer taking three days to approve the sample, and packaging. None of that is in the price. This means none of it adds to your profit.
Now, let’s quote the same order using all five PRICE drivers:
Production Cost: $14.25 per shirt, same as before.
Real Labor: 20 hours at $30 an hour equals $600 for the job, or $12.50 per shirt. So, the base cost is now $23.75.
Intended Profit: With a 70% profit margin decided beforehand, the price per shirt becomes $40.38.
Capacity Pressure: There’s open machine time this week, so no change needed.
End Customer Value: This customer is likely to order again. A 5% adjustment for this relationship makes the price $42.40 per shirt. Total order: $2,035.20
The PRICE-based quote is nearly twice the stitch-count quote.
It’s not just the final number that changes. It’s the logic behind it, and how that logic boosts your confidence when you give the quote. The shop owner using stitch count just hopes their number is correct. The shop owner using PRICE knows exactly why their number is right. Same order, different system, totally different result.
The confidence gap.
I want to talk about something directly, because it always comes up when I discuss changing how prices are set.
Many shop owners immediately say, “My customers won’t pay that,” or “I’ll lose the job if I charge more.” I hear this all the time. That fear is very real.
Here’s what I have noticed. Customers already pay vastly different prices for embroidered and decorated clothes. The market isn’t as consistent in pricing as most shop owners think. What actually causes hesitation for the shop isn’t that the price is too high. It’s that the shop owner isn’t sure why the price is what it is.
If you can’t clearly explain your pricing, if you feel like you have to apologize for it, offer a discount, or give in the second a customer pushes back, your prices are not based on the solid foundation of real math, what it costs to operate your business.
Having a structured pricing system changes this. When you know you’ve considered every factor, and you have a system you believe in instead of just a gut feeling you hope you can defend, your conversation with the customer completely changes.
Find out where your pricing really stands.
NNEP created the Pricing Diagnostic to answer a question most shop owners haven’t directly considered: how many of the five PRICE factors are actually in your pricing?
It takes about three minutes. It scores your current pricing out of 20. And it gives you a clear idea if your pricing system is really working, or if it’s quietly costing you more than you know.
Most shop owners who take it are surprised by their score.
Take the NNEP Pricing Diagnostic at nnep.com/diagnostic
No sales pitch, just your pricing system core, what it means, and what you can do next. If you complete the Diagnostic by June 14, 2026, you are eligible for some Gifts and entered in a Drawing on June 15, 2026.