Site founder Cathy Hay wrote an excellent article on how to price your corsets, which dealt a lot with the psychology of pricing. Below, I'll discuss the hard numbers of how to work out the actual cost for a given corset (or any garment), and how to use a simple mathematic trick to derive a baseline wholesale and retail cost from it. Your final prices may not directly reflect the hard cost of a piece (the precise ratio may vary from piece to piece), but they should be set with the knowledge of it. This information is of value for anyone with an indie corsetmaking business, be it ready to wear or bespoke. Even if you’ve already costed your corsets and other products, don’t forget to update and reevaluate any time your sourcing, overhead, or market changes.

Basic Division of Price

Retail price is based on wholesale price (even if you're not wholesaling... yet). It also includes overhead costs for retailing (ie. maintaining and staffing your retail space) and profit.

Wholesale price is based on cost of goods. It also includes overhead costs for manufacturing (ie. maintaining your production space) and profit.

Prime cost is the cost of all labor and materials to make a specific garment. Nothing outside of these direct costs is included.

Direct Labor

The idea of labor is pretty straightforward. But how do you set a pay rate? Is it hourly, or piece rate (a set amount per garment)? What is included in a piece rate? Is the hourly rate always the same? What kind of hourly rate should your piece rate be based on? It's when you start thinking about things like this that the question gets more complicated. If you're constructing all your own corsets, then you may forget that the labor cost is a separate entity from your profit, because in both cases the money goes to you anyway! But if you're hoping or planning to eventually upscale your production, you need to plan in advance how you will compensate your workers, and not just base it on how you're willing to compensate yourself for this labor of love.

Recommended Reading: When It's Time to Seek Help for Your Corset Making Addiction (Or Go Pro) by Alexis Black

“Does the idea of investing every cent of your profit back into the business make sense to you?” Alexis asks. Corsetry as a business often falls upon the unsuspecting: they make a corset for personal wear and next thing they know they are taking orders. As your business is developing, I think this is a really key question to ask yourself.

Determining an Hourly Wage and Resulting Piece Rate

As a baseline, in the USA, garment construction should pay an hourly rate of something like $10-$20 per hour. Independent designers may charge more like $25-$30 or more. How much is your time worth? Does it vary according to what task you are performing? (For example, I can do certain tasks while watching, or at least listening to, TV or riding the bus; others require utmost concentration, equipment, and a minimum of background noise.) How much would each task be worth if you had someone else doing it? While some employers may low-ball the piece rate in an attempt to speed production or lower the wholesale cost, I favor a rate based on a higher hourly wage that allows some wiggle room for the inevitable occasional un-picked seam, bobbin winding, and of course, bathroom breaks. It’s really not good for employee morale to be stuck in a piece rate situation where they feel every second of time must be carefully micromanaged to make anything close to a fair wage; a higher rate will encourage quality and attention to detail rather than simple speed.

Working under piece rate rather than hourly for standardized tasks is a more more professional, industrial method of doing things. In the prototyping phase of a garment, I like to break down the process (“cycle,” in the jargon) as much as possible, timing each step (“element”). Each seam won't actually have its own place in the production line, but I find it helpful to know how long it takes to do each thing. How long does a 4 stud busk take to set? 6 studs? A basic body seam? Double boned? Binding? First, I can see where I might be able to cut down on time in the future; secondly, I can use that information to ballpark construction time for future garments. It may seem like a lot of work, breaking down the construction of each item into smaller pieces, but it lays a foundation for growth in your business and production.

Example: One of the local boutiques for which I do small-scale production is just developing its studio program. Cutting is currently bundled in with the piece rate for stitching. A new seamstress was hired who is fairly speedy, but less accurate. Our patterns degrade quickly with notches and slivers trimmed or hanging. If the cutting rate was separate, production would go even faster (because both employees could work at once without requiring the same equipment and workspaces), and we would save money because the patterns would need to be replaced less often. Our product also would be of higher quality as a result of the increased skill and accuracy of the dedicated cutter.

A certain amount of bundling is reasonable – again, each seam probably won't have its own piece rate; the stitching of a given corset style will likely be a single entity. Is the cutting for that style likewise a fixed entity or does it have a direct relationship to the number of panels cut? How do you vary that: Are some pieces (bone casings, bindings) easier to cut than others? What about pattern matching rates?

Recommended Reading: Beating Your Worst Enemies: Wasted Time and Effort, by Laura Loft

Laura Loft discusses the importance and uses of note-taking in the production, sampling, or even home sewing process. My process is usually as follows:

1. Scrawl what I think the steps for constructing a given garment are.
2. Try to make the thing, running a stopwatch on my smartphone and marking each element as a lap.
3. Notate where the order of steps needs to be adjusted (or where I deviate from the list, so the laps correspond with the correct element on my list)
4. Type up the revised order of operations, including as much detail as possible and (this is important), writing as if the instructions will be read by someone else. Because if you ever want to increase your production beyond the number of corsets you, yourself, are physically able to make, someone else will need to be trained. You and your new stitcher will both be thankful of the clarity. Try giving yourself a day or two and then reading over your typed up notes again, seeing if they still make sense.
5. Leave the notes in a very logical place: with the pattern or in a common file that is your production guidebook.*

Don't forget the small things, like when and where your label gets sewn in and what stitch settings to use.

*A production guidebook is very useful, but far less so if it is not openly accessible to all those who might need the information within. If you have trade secrets or private business details within, make sure at least the relevant information is duplicated in a place accessible to the appropriate parties. It seems like this would go without saying, but at two different jobs I've recently said, “X item/information would be very handy,” and had the boss say, “Oh, I have that written down in Y place,” where I never would've known (or been able) to look.

The basic way to set a piece rate is: (# of minutes ÷ 60) x (hourly rate). You need to decide who your standard bearer is for this computation, though. There are several options for this:

1. Time yourself, fairly evaluating your strengths & weaknesses to gauge the hourly rate for various tasks as if you were not the business owner.
2. Time someone with a moderate skill level, who nonetheless is trained in the required tasks and can perform them within your quality control (QC) standards. Allocate them an hourly rate that is fair but not exceptionally high.
3. Time a seamstress with extraordinary speed and accuracy and allocate them an hourly rate that is at the top of your pay scale/budget for construction work.
4. Time several people of varying skill levels and average them out.

Obviously, when you are just starting out, the first option will be the easiest. As you hire new employees, you may consider asking them to time their performance – let them know it's so you can be assured of the fairness of the piece rate, not because you are looking to micromanage them.

Be careful about charging the consumer for flaws in, or undeveloped aspects of, your process. If you are not fully comfortable and proficient with a task, or lack the appropriate equipment to do it at a professional speed and standard, you can't charge for it the same way you would those tasks at which you are supremely competent. When something takes you a long time, ask yourself it's because the process simply is, and always will be, time consuming, or if it's because you are not yet adept at it. Attaching a binding, setting grommets, and inserting a busk are prime examples of tasks that seem daunting and time consuming for a while and take many corsets of practice to overcome. Foundations Revealed now has forums wherein you might inquire of others, politely, “About how long does is take you to set a busk?” if you don't have the resources to time trial another skilled seamstress.

I know the equipment to do some of these things may be expensive (wouldn't we all have powerful kick-set grommet presses if we could?), but don't be tempted to add it to your prime cost. Elements that go quickly but require expensive machinery should still be costed only for labor time; equipment should be accounted for in the overhead costs of your wholesale pricing.

Sample Costing for Determining Piece Rate

The below example features numbers that are an approximation for a basic 6 panel corset, not an actual timed trial of any particular corset. These might be the steps/workstations into which the construction of a basic corset can be broken up. Different stages in the process are accorded different hourly rates according to difficulty, mindfulness, or training required to perform them.

	# of Pieces	Time	Hourly Rate	Bundled Rate	Indiv. Pc. Rate
Interfacing	.75yd	0.75	12	9
Cutting – self	12	0.5	20	10	0.83
Cutting – bindings etc	6	0.08	20	1.6	0.27
Cutting – strength layer	12	0.33	20	8.25	0.69
Stitching		3.25	25	81.25
Grommet setting		0.17	18	3.06
Corset lacing		0.08	18	1.44
Total:		5.16		114.6

Cutting has been separated into three segments, though you may wish to balance it out into either a) a bundled rate for cutting a whole corset, with additional cutting charged hourly, or b) a simpler piece rate with all pieces made equal in value. My inclination, based on these numbers, would be to cost it at 70¢ (American) per strength layer piece, on which the grain is easy to see and match; 85¢ per fashion/self fabric piece, on which there may be pattern matching or reduced grain visibility; and 25¢ per simple binding or back grommet reinforcement piece, because they are simple rectangles.

Some tasks, in this case, interfacing, may have a great variance. Different fabrics may have variable difficulties, so you may wish to cost/invoice those tasks instead at an hourly rate, rather than attempting to standardize.

Raw Materials

After labor, materials are much more straightforward to calculate.

Cost of individual item = (cost of total purchase, including shipping) ÷ (# in order)

Again, if you're going into business, don't pass the cost of a troubled process on to your consumer. Sourcing materials is time consuming, but worth it in the long run: it's an investment.

Sourcing is the process of locating a preferred vendor for an item, seeking pricing and minimum order quantities that are within your means, and quality appropriate to the product.

In the USA, get a resale license so that you aren't paying sales tax on items that will then be taxed again when you sell them. Check your local laws; see if you can get a consultation with a business advisor on the specifics for your region, or at least check out a book - the rules vary widely from place to place.

Order in bulk quantities appropriate to your current production scale. The difference between retail and wholesale costs on your raw materials can be staggering. Don't go too far, though, and order bulk items you will never consume, because your overhead will then increase from holding onto unnecessary stock.

When estimating or calculating costing, do it based on an average size, preferably based on the mathematical median (“the middle term of a series arranged in order of magnitude”).

Fabric and hardware is pretty straightforward, but don't forget to cost your labels and any packaging that is always included, such as a swingtag if you're to be vending in any shops.

 

Item	Quantity	Price	Total
Fashion Fabric	0.75	11.5	8.630
Fusible Interfacing	0.75	4.87	3.650
Strength Layer	0.5	18.6	9.30
Waist Tape	28	0.05	1.4
Busk	1	12	120
Bones	14	0.5	70
Grommets	18	0.05	0.90
Ribbon	7	0.5	3.50
Label	1	0.2	0.2
			46.58

Basic Pricing

For small-scale production, you can set a ratio that you can expect to reasonably cover the indirect cost elements (your overhead, profit, etc).

Generally speaking, prime cost = 40-60% of wholesale price; wholesale price = 40-60% of retail price.

The latter will vary according to your sales outlet – if you're only ever going to sell direct to your consumers, it may well be much lower, or if you are exporting your product or selling it at a very exclusive boutique, they may set the retail price higher.

Complex Wholesale Pricing: Indirect Costs

These are the costs which may be built into your wholesale and/or retail pricing separate from the prime cost. Their sum total, when related to your prime cost, is the mark-up factor which, once established, can be applied to your prime cost to determine wholesale pricing.

Overhead: the cost of renting your space (even if you're working from home); purchasing, upgrading, and repairing your equipment; storing your supplies, etc. Don't forget the little things, like office supplies, lightbulbs, and bathroom tissue for your studio.

annual overhead ÷ # of working days in a year = daily overhead

daily overhead ÷ # of a particular style of garment* which could be produced in a work day = per unit overhead cost

If your business is growing and you don't have the hard number available, you can project a reasonable goal for your number of garments produced.

*If you make a range of items, such as accessories, corsets, and full ensembles, obviously this will vary widely, so you could run the number for some of your staple items. How many pairs of mits can you make in a day? Corsets? How far would you get on a complex custom skirt? Apply accordingly. Maybe you divide the daily overhead by the number of working hours in a day, and then cost it according to how long any given item takes to construct.

Return on Investment Objective: In short: your profit. A specific target can be calculated as:

your investment x desired return %

Since for most corsetieres, their investment is basically the entire process, you could also just calculate (for example) 20% of the wholesale or retail price to be reserved as profit. At this stage, one may often reinvest the profits back into new samples and supplies, however.

Intrinsic/Perceived Value: Any prestige or luxury perceived by the customer, indirectly proportionate to hard costs. Hand-detailing, luxury fabrics, licensing, etc.

Selling Expense: the costs which assist in the sales of each unit: your Etsy or Big Cartel fees, the time you spend emailing or meeting with clients/boutique owners, etc.

Trade Discounts: discounts offered to the retailer, such as a quantity discount if a shop were to order a full size run. In other words, if you have reason to offer discounts, make sure the ability is built into your pricing.

The Mark-up Factor

Mark-up Factor = Wholesale Price ÷ Prime Cost

Or

Prime Cost x Mark-up Factor = Wholesale Price

If you go to the effort of breaking down each of those elements, you can get a very precise wholesale price and markup factor. Depending on where you are in your company's growth, some of those numbers may be impossible to know, though you can project production goals onto certain things, such as cost of overhead.

Prime Cost + Overhead per Unit + Return on Investment Objective + Sales Expense + Trade Discount + Intrinsic Value = Wholesale Price

Dividing by Decimals to Get Price from Cost

A lot of people get their pricing by multiplying, ie doubling cost to find wholesale price, then doubling again for retail price. I find that dividing by decimals allows for more flexibility and precision.

So let's say you decide your cost should be 60% of your wholesale price (as a starting point – you can always go up!)

Cost = .6 x Wholesale

Well, that's all well and good, but you can't multiply the wholesale price because it's what you're trying to find out. So you divide both sides by .6:

Cost ÷ .6 = Wholesale Price

From there, you have a consignment vendor who is willing to split 60-40 in your favor.

Wholesale ÷ .6 = Retail

If you want to merge that into one step, the math is as follows:

(Cost ÷ .6) ÷ .6 = Retail = Cost ÷ .36

Basically, you multiply the % that is your cost:wholesale ratio by the % that is your wholesale:retail ratio.

You can also use this technique to determine any whole number based on a percentage thereof. Let's say you want to donate 5% of your profit to a charity: divide by .95 to have that calculated in.

Recommended Reading: How Much Should a Corsetmaker Charge? By Cathy Hay

“Do some research. Find out what products other corsetieres make, how they present them, whom they try to present them to, and how they price them. Decide where your corsets fit into that marketplace, and make sure that you charge what the market can stand. If it’s more than your cost price and it tells an accurate story of what your corsets are all about, then the price is right – however different you Cost and Price are.”

The above formulas are just a guide: as Cathy states in the quote above, knowledge of the market and where your corsets fit in it is also hugely important.

You may also consider the concept of what is called a loss leader, which is “a product sold at a low price, at or below its market cost, to stimulate other sales of more profitable goods or services.” In the corsetmaking market, you probably won't have a literal loss leader, but you may intentionally price one style at a lower margin to increase your market share in hopes that the client will return and invest in your pricier styles. You may have accessories or upgrades available, perpetually or for short-term sales, at a lower margin to encourage purchases of larger items.

Final Costing Example

Item	Type	Quantity	Rate	Cost
Interfacing	Labor - hourly	0.75	12	9
Cutting – self	Labor - piece	12	0.85	10.2
Cutting – bindings etc	Labor - piece	6	0.25	1.5
Cutting – strength layer	Labor - piece	12	0.7	8.4
Stitching	Labor - piece	1	81.25	81.25
Grommet setting	Labor - piece	1	4	4
Corset lacing	Labor - piece	1	2	2
Fashion Fabric	Materials	0.75	11.5	8.63
Fusible Interfacing	Materials	0.75	4.87	3.65
Strength Layer	Materials	0.5	18.6	9.3
Waist Tape	Materials	28	0.05	1.4
Busk	Materials	1	12	12
Bones	Materials	14	0.5	7
Grommets	Materials	18	0.05	0.9
Ribbon	Materials	7	0.5	3.5
Label	Materials	1	0.2	0.2
Prime Cost				162.93
Wholesale				271.55
Retail				452.58

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