How to Price Quilts: Three Methods and What Each Pays You

To price a quilt, add up the materials, the quilting if you send it out, your hours at a wage you'd accept, and a little overhead, then add a margin. That gives the price that pays you. The common shortcuts, materials times three or a price per square inch, give much lower numbers, and the useful thing is to know what each one pays you for an hour of work. In the example below, a queen quilt has $231 of fabric, batting and thread, $171 of longarm quilting and 40 hours of cutting, piecing and binding. Materials times three prices it at $693, which pays $6.65 an hour; 10 cents a square inch prices it at $855, $10.70 an hour; full cost and a 20% margin prices it at $1,534, which pays $20 an hour and a $307 profit on top. Below is what a quilt costs, the three methods, what to do when buyers won't pay the full price, and a free calculator.

The short version

• Materials: top fabric, backing, batting, binding and thread, at what you paid.
• Quilting: longarm services often charge by the square inch; in the example, 2 cents.
• Your hours: cutting, piecing, pressing, quilting if you do it, binding. Count them honestly.
• Price = (materials + quilting + hours × wage + overhead) ÷ (1 − margin).
• Materials × 3 and per-square-inch rules usually price a pieced quilt far below what it costs to make.
• Simpler patterns and smaller quilts are how a quilter's hourly pay goes up.
• TaroStack keeps fabric by the yard and costs every quilt from what it used. More below.

What a queen quilt costs

Bluegrass Bend Quilts, a made-up quilter in Paducah, Kentucky, I use in these examples, makes a pieced queen quilt, 90 by 95 inches:

The hours are two-thirds of the cost. A pieced queen top with small blocks can take far more than 40 hours; a simple pattern with large pieces, fewer. Time a quilt or two before you set prices; how to put your hours into any price is in how to price handmade items.

Three methods, and what each pays

"Pays you an hour" is what's left after materials, quilting and overhead, divided by your 40 hours. The full-cost price pays the $20 an hour you set and a $306.75 profit on top, which comes to $27.67 an hour all told. Materials times three is popular because it's easy, but on a pieced quilt it treats 40 hours of work as worth $266.

For a smaller quilt the same thing holds. A 60 by 70 inch throw with $136 of materials, $84 of longarm quilting, 22 hours and $15 of overhead costs $675 in full and is $843.75 at a 20% margin; materials times three would be $408, about $7.86 an hour.

When buyers won't pay the full price

Plenty of buyers won't pay $1,534 for a queen quilt, and that's the honest problem with quilts as a business. Four things help:

1. Price commissions at full cost. A custom quilt in someone's colors is made for one buyer, to their order, and the full price is fair for that.
2. Make patterns that take fewer hours. Larger pieces and simpler blocks can halve the hours, and the price that pays you falls with them.
3. Sell smaller things. Baby quilts, table runners and throws take fewer hours each and sell at prices more buyers will pay.
4. Know your floor. If you sell a ready-made quilt below full cost, do it knowing what it pays you an hour, so it's a choice and not an accident.

Pricing for shops and galleries, who take a share, is in how to price handmade items for wholesale, and selling at shows is covered in how much inventory to bring to a craft fair.

Get the calculator

Download the quilt pricing calculator. Type your quilt into the shaded cells: size, top fabric, backing, batting, binding, thread, the longarm rate if you send it out, your hours, your hourly rate, overhead and the margin you want. It works out the full cost, the price at your margin and per square inch, and what materials times three and a per-square-inch price would charge, with what each pays you an hour. It's an ordinary Excel file with no macros, and it works in Google Sheets, LibreOffice and Numbers.

Where this stops working

One quilt is easy to cost. A quilter with a stash of a few hundred fabrics, bought over years at different prices, plus batting by the roll and thread by the cone, can't say what the fabric in any one quilt cost, or how much of a fabric is left before cutting a top that needs four yards of it.

How TaroStack does it

TaroStack keeps the fabric counted and every quilt costed.

Fabric by the yard. Each fabric is an item kept by the yard, at what you paid, and units convert: batting bought by the roll, used by the inch. A quilt pattern is a recipe of its fabrics, batting, binding and thread.

Each quilt at what it used. Recording a finished quilt takes the fabric off stock at what you paid for it, so its cost is the cost of what went in, not a guess at stash prices, and margins are reported by product.

And the stash before a big cut. Stock is counted on a phone, and the reorder list works in days of cover for the things you use all the time, batting, thread and backing, so they're there before a commission starts.

Recipes, batches, counting and margins by product are on every plan, from $49 a month. The first 30 days are free, with no credit card. If you'd like a hand setting up, ask, and we'll do it with you.

Questions people also ask

How much should I charge for a handmade quilt?

Add materials, quilting, your hours at a wage you'd accept and overhead, then a margin. In the example, a queen quilt costing $1,227 in full is priced at $1,534.

What is the formula for pricing a quilt?

Price = (materials + quilting + hours × hourly rate + overhead) ÷ (1 − margin). The shortcuts, materials × 3 or a price per square inch, are quicker but often pay much less for your time.

How much do quilters charge per square inch?

It varies widely by region and quilt. A 10-cent rate prices the example queen at $855, which pays the maker about $10.70 an hour; the full-cost price works out to about 18 cents a square inch.

Why are handmade quilts so expensive?

Because they take many hours. In the example, 40 hours of cutting, piecing and binding are two-thirds of the cost, more than the fabric, batting and quilting together.