Brands usually ask for a price per piece. Factories usually answer with a number that bundles six different costs together. Understanding the components is what lets you compare quotes and find the places where your design is quietly expensive.
What is inside a cut and sew unit price
- Fabric, priced per yard and multiplied by your consumption per garment
- Trims: thread, labels, zippers, drawcords, elastic, hardware
- Cutting, usually priced per piece or per marker
- Sewing labour, the line that varies most between garments
- Finishing: pressing, trimming, tagging, folding, bagging
- Overhead and margin
Why sewing labour swings so much
A basic crewneck tee might take a few minutes of machine time. A lined jacket with welt pockets, topstitched seams and a full zip can take an order of magnitude longer. When you compare two quotes, you are often comparing two different assumptions about how the garment will be constructed, not two different profit margins.
Design decisions that move the number
- Seam count and seam type
- Number of separate panels to cut and join
- Topstitching, bartacks and other reinforcement
- Linings, facings and interlinings
- Number of colourways, which affects cutting efficiency
Fabric consumption is where money hides
Fabric is frequently the largest single line. Consumption depends on your pattern, your grading, your fabric width and how efficiently the marker nests your pieces. A pattern adjustment that saves a tenth of a yard per garment is invisible on a sample and significant across a production run.
Quantity and the real shape of the curve
Unit price falls as quantity rises, but not smoothly. The steepest drop tends to come once you clear the point where setup costs, marker making, and machine changeover are spread across enough pieces to stop dominating. Past that point the curve flattens, and ordering far beyond your actual demand buys you inventory risk rather than savings.
How to compare quotes fairly
Ask every factory to quote the same tech pack, the same quantity, the same fabric, and to state clearly what is excluded. A quote that omits finishing or freight is not cheaper, it is incomplete.