Calculating Costs

[Meli]

I know a number of you sell your quilts. Can you tell me how you calculate the cost? I have a couple of friends who are commissioning quilts. I want to treat them fairly, but I'd like to treat me fairly as well. It occurred to me to charge by the square inch, like they do for long-arming. Thoughts?

[Madeforyouinma11]

I know some people had talked about charging by the square inch on another thread a while back. I have sold a couple quilts and I always charge 2.5 - 3x the cost of materials. I may get them on sale, but always do the math using the regular price, because if I sell another, I may not be able to get materials on sale again. Hope this helps.

[Vonnie]

I have yet to sell a quilt. The ones that are completed and found homes were gifts. That being said, you should not charge the same for an easy quilt as you would for an advanced quilt. A bargello should cost more than a disappearing nine patch. Applique and hand quilting I can see charging more for. So the by inch would not be accurate. I like the multiply the cost of the material/supplies. I would say 2 times for easy and 2.5 to 3 times for difficult/advanced quilts.

[lilmouse]

My daughter calculated this out the other day and came up with 8 cents per square inch.....so if your finished quilt is 50 x 60 that would be 3000 x .08 which equals $240.00...this includes batting, backing and binding.....this is what we are going to go by for ourselves....hope it helps.

[HdWench]

Sold one, and recently the one I gave my gf in Florida was asked by her neighbor how much I'd charge for a King size. Without hesitation I said $800. I don't do FMQ, applique or those things, but your Time + all the fabric (at full retail). I'd rather not sell a quilt, then to feel like I worked hard on something they got "skimpy" paying me for. :-) Sue, great idea on your calculation too

[kensington]

I charge 20 per hour, and that is just to make the top, they have to take it somewhere else to have it quilted. I keep a detailed journal of time spent, hand work, cutting, pressing, sewing...

[brook]

I've heard $10. per hr, but this does not include materials. The hourly rate makes it hard to quote a price but I'm sure there's a way to figure it out.

[Meli]

THanks, everyone! My friend came over last night and picked two simple, yet striking, patterns for her sons' quilts. They'll be easy to get done. Turns out, she is a Reiki Master, and I would like to learn. We agreed to trade one quilt for one level of Reiki training. This comes out to about $250 - $300 per quilt, which, based on what y'all have said, is right on track.

[Peggi]

Here is a fabulous series of posts about this topic. In this one, she has a link at the bottom of the page to a free template you can use to determine your price. HTH

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