How Much It Costs to Start Producing Clothing

The real investment to start a clothing production run: sewing patterns, fabric, cutting, sewing, and trims and notions, with concrete numbers in dollars.

The five line items of a first production run

Almost everyone miscalculates the first production run because they add up only the fabric. Fabric is the most visible line item, but it is rarely the most expensive one per unit when quantities are small. These are the five real line items, in the order you pay them:

• The pattern. It is a one-time payment: you buy it once and it serves every garment made with it, today and three years from now.
• Fabric. It is bought by the meter or by the roll, and the price per meter drops considerably when you go from cut lengths to a full roll.
• Trims and notions: elastic, zippers, thread, labels, drawstrings, snaps. Cheap per unit, heavy in total.
• Cutting. If you outsource it, you pay per lay-up or per garment; if you cut in-house, it costs time instead of money.
• Sewing. It is the biggest line item when you outsource it, and it is quoted per garment and by complexity.

Why the pattern is not where you should save

The pattern is the only line item you pay for just once and spread across every unit you produce. A Moldey sewing pattern costs $10 in PDF A4 and $15 in PDF plotter, with all sizes included. If you cut 50 garments from that pattern, the pattern added 20 cents to the cost of each one.

Fabric, trims and notions, and sewing, on the other hand, are paid again on every garment. That is where it pays to negotiate, compare suppliers, and check your fabric yield. Saving $20 on the pattern and wasting fabric because of poorly done grading is the most expensive trade you can make.

That is also why you should test the pattern before committing fabric: a pattern error is paid for multiplied by the number of garments cut.

An example with numbers

Take a small, realistic first production run: 30 cotton jersey t-shirts, in five sizes.

• Pattern: $10 in PDF A4, once. Spread over 30 garments, that is $0.33 per garment.
• Fabric: if each t-shirt uses about 1.10 m of tubular jersey, you need about 33 meters plus a margin for waste.
• Trims and notions: thread, a brand label, and a fiber content label — a few cents per garment, but required if you are going to sell.
• Cutting: in a 30-unit run the lay-up is small, so it often makes sense to cut it yourself.
• Sewing: this is what sets the final cost. Ask for a quote per finished garment before buying the fabric, not after.

The number to watch: how many garments cover the investment

The useful question is not “how much does it cost to start” but “how many garments do I have to sell to get back what I put in.” You work it out by dividing the total investment by the margin on each garment, that is, the selling price minus that garment’s variable cost.

If a t-shirt costs $8 to produce and sells for $20, the margin is $12. With a total investment of $360, the production run pays for itself by selling 30 t-shirts. Everything sold after that unit is profit, and the pattern never costs anything again.

How to lower the initial investment without lowering quality

There are three levers that work and one that does not.

• Start with few styles and many sizes, instead of many styles with few sizes. Fewer patterns, fewer lay-ups, less risk of dead stock.
• Choose straight-fit garments (t-shirts, sweatshirts, joggers): they are more forgiving of fit errors and sell to any customer.
• Try free sewing patterns before buying the whole catalog, to check printing, grading, and fit without investing.
• The lever that does not work: lowering the fabric quality. It is the first thing the customer touches and the first reason they do not buy again.