Garment Costing Calculator
Calculate per-unit garment cost including fabric, trim, labor, and overhead, with suggested wholesale and retail pricing.
About this calculator
This calculator builds a garment's per-unit cost the way a production cost sheet does, then applies standard apparel-industry pricing multiples on top. Fabric cost is simply cost per yard times yards consumed per garment (the yardage figure should already include cutting waste, not just the pattern's net yardage). Labor cost converts minutes into hours and multiplies by an hourly rate, so a 30-minute sew time at $15/hour comes out to $7.50. Fabric, trim, and labor are summed into a subtotal, and overhead — the percentage covering rent, utilities, and equipment depreciation — is applied as a flat percentage of that subtotal, not of the final price.
Adding overhead back to the subtotal gives the fully-loaded total cost per unit. From there, the calculator applies two industry-standard rules of thumb: wholesale price is set at 2x cost (standard "keystone" markup for wholesale-to-retail relationships) and suggested retail is set at 4x cost ("double keystone," the common target when a brand sells direct-to-consumer and needs to cover both wholesale and retail margins in one price). These multiples are starting points, not guarantees of profitability — actual viable pricing depends on your market positioning, competitor pricing, and how much margin retailers in your channel expect to keep. The biggest input sensitivity is yardage: because fabric is usually the largest cost driver, even small differences in cutting efficiency or fabric width can shift the per-unit cost more than labor rate changes will.
Inputs
Results
Total Cost per Unit
$36.60
Suggested Retail (4x)
$146.40
≈ 10 movie tickets
How to Use This Calculator
- Enter Fabric Cost per Yard and Yards per Garment for the main fabric.
- Add Trim Cost per Unit for buttons, zippers, labels, and packaging.
- Set Labor Minutes per Unit and Labor Rate ($/hour) for your manufacturing location.
- Enter Overhead as a flat dollar amount or percentage of direct costs.
- Review Total Cost per Unit, Suggested Wholesale (2×), and Suggested Retail (4×) to verify margin targets.
How the result changes with Fabric Cost per Yard
| Fabric Cost per Yard | Total Cost per Unit | Suggested Retail (4x) |
|---|---|---|
| $4.00 | $24.60 | $98.40 |
| $6.00 | $30.60 | $122.40 |
| $12.00 | $48.60 | $194.40 |
| $20.00 | $72.60 | $290.40 |
What each input means
- Fabric Cost per Yard
- Cost of fabric per yard. Includes any textile finishing costs.
- Yards per Garment
- Fabric yardage required per garment including waste from cutting.
- Trim Cost per Unit
- Cost of buttons, zippers, labels, thread, and other trims per garment.
- Labor Minutes per Unit
- Total sewing and finishing time per garment in minutes.
- Labor Rate ($/hour)
- Hourly rate for sewing operators including benefits.
- Overhead
- Overhead percentage covering rent, utilities, equipment depreciation.
How this is calculated
Worked example, using the default values
- Identify Input Parameters4 parametersFabric Cost per Yard = 8, Yards per Garment = 2.5, Trim Cost per Unit = 3, Labor Minutes per Unit = 30 = 6 input(s) provided
- Calculate Total Cost per UnitTotal Cost per Unit36.6 = $36.6
- Calculate Suggested RetailSuggested Retail146.4 = $146.4
- Calculate Fabric CostFabric Cost20 = $20
- Calculate Labor CostLabor Cost7.5 = $7.5
Engine last updated . Checked against 2 independently-derived tests — how we verify calculators. Built by Paul Gunder, a software engineer, not a licensed financial, medical, or legal professional.
Frequently Asked Questions
Why does 'Suggested Retail' come out to exactly 4x the total cost, not something based on my margin target?
The calculator applies the standard apparel 'double keystone' convention — retail at 4x total cost — which assumes the price needs to cover both a wholesale markup (2x) and a retail markup (another 2x) somewhere along the chain, even if you're selling direct-to-consumer. It's a starting reference point built into the calculation, not a margin you can adjust here, so treat it as a sanity check against your actual pricing rather than a final number.
Does the Yards per Garment figure need to include fabric waste from cutting?
Yes — the calculator multiplies this figure directly by fabric cost per yard with no separate waste adjustment, so if you enter the pattern's net yardage instead of the marker's actual consumption (including waste from cutting layout, fabric width, and pattern matching), the fabric cost and everything built on top of it will be understated.
Is overhead applied to the fabric and labor cost, or to the final retail price?
Overhead is calculated as a percentage of the subtotal — fabric plus trim plus labor — before any markup is applied, then added back to that subtotal to produce the total cost per unit. It's never applied to the wholesale or retail price, so raising your overhead percentage increases your baseline cost but doesn't directly touch the 2x/4x multiples applied afterward.
Which input has the biggest effect on my total cost per unit?
Fabric cost is usually the dominant driver in apparel, since it's cost-per-yard multiplied by yardage rather than a flat per-unit fee like trim. A small change in yardage — from a tighter cutting layout or a different fabric width — typically moves total cost more than an equivalent percentage change in the labor rate, because labor here is capped by the minutes actually spent sewing.
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