A longarm quilting business quilts other people's quilt tops: they bring the pieced top and backing, and the business sends it home quilted, with batting and binding if they want them. The work is priced by the square inch, the machine is the big cost, and the choice that decides everything is how much of the work is edge-to-edge, where a computerized longarm stitches a pattern across the whole quilt while the operator does something else, and how much is custom, where every block gets its own design and the operator's hours. In the example below, a longarm service in Kentucky quilts queens edge-to-edge and throws custom, and sells batting and binding, and ends its first year about $32,500 ahead on $60,600 of sales, with the operator's hours paid. Below is a description example, each part of the plan, the first year month by month, the startup budget, and a free template.
The short version
- Describe the service in a paragraph: the machine, the quilting styles, who brings quilts, the goals.
- Price by the square inch: a low rate for edge-to-edge, a higher one for custom.
- Cost a quilt from the thread, the machine's hours and the operator's minutes.
- Edge-to-edge on a computerized longarm leaves the most, because the machine works unattended.
- Batting and binding are extra sales on every quilt; keep batting by the roll.
- TaroStack keeps batting and thread counted, customers' quilts on orders, and every job costed. More below.
Part 1: the business description
Jackson Purchase Longarm, a made-up longarm quilting service in Paducah, Kentucky, I use in these examples, writes:
Jackson Purchase Longarm quilts customers' tops on a computerized longarm, edge-to-edge in a library of pantographs or custom by the block, with batting from the roll and machine-applied binding, for quilters, quilt shops and guilds in western Kentucky.
Part 2: what each job costs
A queen quilt of 90 by 95 inches is 8,550 square inches; at 2.2 cents a square inch, edge-to-edge, it's $188. A custom throw of 60 by 70 is 4,200 square inches at 5 cents, $210.
| Per unit | Edge-to-edge, queen | Custom, throw | Batting, queen | Binding, queen |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Thread | $6.00 | $5.00 | $1.00 | |
| Machine wear and power | $3.00 | $4.00 | ||
| Batting, cut from a 96-inch roll | $22.00 | |||
| Operator's time at $20 an hour | $40.00 (2 h) | $120.00 (6 h) | $1.67 (5 min) | $30.00 (1.5 h) |
| Card fees, 3% | $5.64 | $6.30 | $1.35 | $1.65 |
| Variable cost | $54.64 | $135.30 | $25.02 | $32.65 |
On edge-to-edge, the operator loads the quilt, sets the pattern, watches the start, advances the quilt and unloads it, about two hours, while the machine stitches for longer on its own. Custom quilting is the operator's hours, block by block. Pricing a quilt from its fabric and hours, for the quilter who brings it, is in how to price handmade items.
Part 3: customers and prices
| Product | Price | Variable cost | Contribution | Margin | A month at full speed |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Edge-to-edge quilting, queen, 90 x 95 | $188.00 | $54.64 | $133.36 | 70.9% | 30 |
| Custom quilting, throw, 60 x 70 | $210.00 | $135.30 | $74.70 | 35.6% | 6 |
| Batting, queen, cut from the roll | $45.00 | $25.02 | $19.98 | 44.4% | 25 |
| Binding, machine-applied, queen | $55.00 | $32.65 | $22.35 | 40.6% | 15 |
An edge-to-edge queen leaves $133 for two hours of the operator's time; a custom throw sells for more and leaves $75 for six. At full speed the edge-to-edge quilts bring about $4,000 of the month's $5,280 of contribution, the batting about $500, the custom throws about $450 and the binding about $340. Custom work is the craft and the reputation; edge-to-edge pays for the machine. A quilt shop that sends its customers' tops is a wholesale customer, priced as in how to price handmade items for wholesale.
Part 4: the first year, month by month
Fixed costs are $305 a month: insurance that covers customers' quilts ($60), machine service averaged ($40), power ($30), the website and booking ($40), marketing to shops and guilds ($100), and software and card fees ($35). Sales start at 15% of full speed and reach it in month 11:
| Month | Edge-to-edge queens | Custom throws | Batting | Binding | Sales | Profit | Cash, year to date |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 5 | 1 | 4 | 2 | $1,440 | $561 | $561 |
| 2 | 6 | 1 | 5 | 3 | $1,728 | $737 | $1,298 |
| 3 | 8 | 2 | 6 | 4 | $2,414 | $1,121 | $2,418 |
| 4 | 9 | 2 | 8 | 5 | $2,747 | $1,316 | $3,735 |
| 5 | 12 | 2 | 10 | 6 | $3,456 | $1,779 | $5,513 |
| 6 | 15 | 3 | 13 | 8 | $4,475 | $2,358 | $7,871 |
| 7 | 18 | 4 | 15 | 9 | $5,394 | $2,895 | $10,767 |
| 8 | 21 | 4 | 18 | 11 | $6,203 | $3,400 | $14,166 |
| 9 | 24 | 5 | 20 | 12 | $7,122 | $3,937 | $18,103 |
| 10 | 27 | 5 | 23 | 14 | $7,931 | $4,442 | $22,545 |
| 11 | 30 | 6 | 25 | 15 | $8,850 | $4,979 | $27,524 |
| 12 | 30 | 6 | 25 | 15 | $8,850 | $4,979 | $32,502 |
The year's sales are $60,610 and the profit $32,502, with the operator's time paid at $20 an hour, about 120 hours a month at full speed. A computerized machine runs about four hours on a queen edge-to-edge, so 30 queens a month is about 120 machine hours too, which leaves room for more. Quilts come in waves before the holidays and quilt shows; book the machine's calendar ahead.
Part 5: the startup budget
| Item | Example |
|---|---|
| Used computerized longarm and frame | $22,000 |
| Pantograph designs and software | $800 |
| Thread, starter set of cones | $300 |
| Batting, first rolls | $600 |
| Cutting table and tools | $300 |
| Website | $300 |
| Working cash | $1,000 |
| Total to start | $25,300 |
The machine is most of the startup. At $32,500 a year, the $24,300 spent before working cash is earned back by month 11. A manual longarm costs far less and does custom work as well, but every edge-to-edge quilt then takes the operator's whole run. How many batting rolls to keep is the question in reorder point example.
Get the template
Download the longarm quilting business plan workbook. Four sheets: your quilting, batting and binding with price, variable cost and a month's volume at full speed; the first year, month by month, with sales, profit and cash; your fixed costs; and your startup budget with working cash. It's an ordinary Excel file with no macros, and it works in Google Sheets, LibreOffice and Numbers.
Where this stops working
Thirty customers' quilts in the queue, each with its own top, backing, batting choice, thread color and due date, batting in four kinds by the roll, thread in forty colors, and a quilt show that brings in ten tops in a week. A notebook can't say how many inches of wool batting are left on the roll, which quilts are due Friday, or what an edge-to-edge queen costs now that thread went up.
How TaroStack does it
TaroStack keeps batting and thread counted, customers' quilts on orders, and every job costed.
Batting by the inch. Batting is bought by the roll and cut by the inch; thread by the cone. TaroStack does the unit math, and batting comes up on a reorder list in days of cover before the holiday rush.
Quilts on orders. Each customer's quilt is a sales order for its due date, with the batting and binding on it, so Friday's quilts and what they need are one list.
What a job costs. An edge-to-edge queen is a recipe of its thread and batting, so each job takes them off stock at what they cost, and the price creep report shows when a supplier's batting went up.
| The job | Notebook | In TaroStack |
|---|---|---|
| Wool batting left on the roll | Unroll and measure | Stock in inches |
| Quilts due Friday | A calendar on the wall | Sales orders by due date |
| What a queen costs now | Last year's thread | Each job, at what it used |
| Batting before the holidays | Found short | Reorder list in days of cover |
Counting, recipes, sales orders and reorder lists 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.