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How to set stitching charges: a rate card for tailoring shops

Published 28 October 2026

Most tailors set their prices by looking at the shop down the road and staying a little below it. That works until rent goes up, a good karigar asks for more per piece, or the wedding season brings in more work than the shop can finish. Then the prices that felt safe turn out to be the reason the shop is busy and still short of money at the end of the month.

This guide is for owners who want to set stitching charges on purpose. It covers what a garment actually costs you, what other shops publish, how to price the extras customers ask for, what to charge for urgent work, and how to put it all on one rate card.

Start with what a garment costs you

Before you decide what to charge, work out what each garment costs you to make. There are four parts.

1. Labour. What you pay the karigar for this piece. If they are on piece rate, it is the rate. If they are on a monthly salary, divide the salary by the number of pieces of this kind they finish in a month. If you cut or stitch yourself, count your own time as well. If you leave it out, you are working for free.

2. Materials you supply. Thread, hooks, buttons, zip, interfacing, and lining or cups if the price includes them. These are small amounts, but they add up over hundreds of pieces a month.

3. Shop overheads, per piece. Add up what the shop costs you each month whether you stitch anything or not: rent, electricity, machine repairs, the counter person's salary, phone and internet, and your software. Divide by the number of pieces you deliver in a normal month. That is how much each piece has to carry.

4. Margin. What is left for you and for the slow months. Remember that most shops earn a large share of the year's income in a few festive and wedding weeks, so the margin in a normal month also has to cover the quiet ones.

An example

These numbers are only an example, for a lined saree blouse in a small-town shop. Put in your own.

Two things usually come out of this exercise. First, overheads per piece are bigger than most owners expect. Second, the cheapest garments on the rate list are often the ones that earn nothing, because they take almost as much handling at the counter as the expensive ones.

What shops charge in 2026

A cost tells you the lowest price you can charge. The market tells you how high you can go. Here is what some tailoring shops and stitching services list on their websites, as of October 2026:

Read these carefully. Most of the shops that publish prices online are doorstep or online services in big cities, with pickup, delivery and a website to pay for. A shop in a smaller town will usually charge well below these, and most of those shops do not publish prices at all. Use this table to see the spread, then ask around your own market.

Price the extras separately

The quickest way to lose money on a blouse is to quote one price and then add piping, a deep back neck, tassels and cups because the customer asked nicely. Each of these is extra work for your karigar. Put them on the rate card with their own price.

These are the extras most Indian shops charge for, with prices that shops publish:

A few rules make extras easier at the counter:

• Say what the base price includes. "Blouse ₹450: front hooks, plain round neck, short sleeves, no lining." Everything else is an extra.
• Price the work, not the material, for things the customer brings. If she brings her own latkans, you still charge for attaching them.
• Write every extra on the order slip. If it is not on the slip, the karigar will not know about it and the counter will forget to bill it.

What to charge for urgent work

Urgent orders jump the queue. Something else gets pushed back, a karigar works late, or you pay a helper. That has a cost, and the customer asking for it knows it.

Indian shops rarely publish an urgent surcharge, and there is no fixed rule. A simple scheme that is easy to explain:

• Normal: your usual delivery time, for example 7 to 10 days, or longer in the rush.
• Express, 3 to 4 days: add about half the price.
• Next day: charge double, and only take it if a karigar is actually free.

In the festive and wedding season, consider taking no urgent orders at all for the busiest weeks. A late regular order costs you more goodwill than a declined urgent one.

Put the delivery date in writing

In October 2025, a consumer commission in Ahmedabad ruled against a tailor who had taken a ₹4,395 advance for a wedding blouse. The blouse was not made to the design the customer had asked for, it was not fixed before the wedding, and the commission ordered the tailor to refund the advance with 7% interest and pay compensation, about ₹7,000 in all.

The lesson is not about the money. It is that a customer who is let down for a wedding will go further than you expect. Write the design details, the trial date and the delivery date on every order, take the advance against them, and keep a copy.

Show GST clearly

If your shop is registered for GST, your customers will ask whether the price includes it. Decide once and print it on the rate card: "All prices include GST" or "GST extra at 5%". Customers argue over a surprise at the counter, not over a number they saw on the wall. Our guide to GST for tailors covers when you need to register and what rate applies.

Put it on one rate card

A good rate card fits on one page and answers the questions customers ask every day. Hang it at the counter and send it on WhatsApp to new customers.

Add a line at the bottom with the advance you take, whether GST is included, and how long you keep a garment that has not been collected.

Review the card twice a year

Prices that never change quietly get cheaper every year. Look at the card before the festive season and again before the wedding season:

• Has a karigar's piece rate gone up? The garment's price should too.
• Has rent or electricity gone up? Redo the overheads per piece.
• Which garments did customers never bargain on? You may be below the market.
• Which extras are you giving away? Put them on the card.

How Tailoring App helps

In Tailoring App you set a default price for each garment and a list of extras, such as lining, padding or urgent delivery, each with its own price. When a customer books, the price fills in, you add the extras she asked for, give a discount if you want to, and take one advance on one bill for everything she ordered in that visit. The bill can be shared as a PDF on WhatsApp, and the shop always knows who still owes how much. Bills are in beta, and you switch them on for your shop when you are ready.

Karigars see the job, the measurements and the dates, never the price. It is free for one person and 50 orders a month, and ₹499 a month for the whole shop.