What should custom patches cost, and what gets added later

A quote of “$1.80 a patch” and a quote of “$2.25 a patch” are frequently the same price. Here is what sits in the gap.

Why patch pricing is hard to compare

Most of this industry quotes by email, and most quotes are a per-patch figure with the rest arriving later. That is not necessarily dishonest — it is just how the trade has always worked — but it makes two quotes genuinely difficult to put side by side.

The gap is usually made of these:

Setup or run fee. A one-off charge for putting your job on a machine.

Digitising fee. Redrawing your artwork as stitch paths. Frequently $30 to $100, sometimes described as one-time, sometimes per revision.

Artwork or redraw charge. Levied when the file you sent needs work — which, as covered in the artwork guide, it almost always does.

Backing upgrade. Hook-and-loop quoted as an extra on top of a plain-backed base price.

Shipping. Added at the end, and on a small light parcel it is a meaningful fraction of a 25-piece order.

Tax and card fees. Added at checkout.

Six line items, each individually reasonable, that together can move a $1.80 quote well past $2.50.

How to compare two quotes properly

Ask one question of each: what is the total, delivered, for the exact quantity I want?

Not per patch. The total, including everything, on your doorstep. That number is comparable and the per-patch figure is not.

If a supplier cannot answer it without a follow-up email, that is itself informative.

How this shop prices

Every price is published on the pricing page and on each landing page, per quantity bracket and per construction. What is inside the figure:

• No setup fee
• No digitising fee
• No artwork charge
• Hook-and-loop backing included
• Free tracked shipping
• Taxes and card fees already in the number

So the per-patch price multiplied by your quantity is what gets charged. There is no second number at checkout.

We are not always the cheapest headline figure, and that is the point of writing this down — a headline figure is not what you pay.

What actually drives the price

Quantity. By far the largest factor. Setup is spread across the run, so per-patch cost falls at 50, 75, 100, 250 and 500.

Construction. Flat embroidery is cheapest, standard full-coverage embroidery next, PVC most at low volume — and PVC becomes the cheapest of the three at high volume, because a mould is paid for once while stitching time never falls.

Size. Larger patches take more stitches or more material.

What does not drive it: how complicated your artwork is, how many revisions the proof takes, or which backing you pick.

Is cheaper worse?

Sometimes, and the tells are worth knowing: no proof before production, a minimum of 100 or more, vague answers about backing, or a price that only exists after you hand over an email address.

The reasonable checks are simpler than judging thread quality from a website. Does the price include everything? Do you see a proof before anything is made? What happens if the patches are wrong?

Ours: yes, yes, and we remake or refund. Nothing is manufactured until you approve the proof.