Embroidery Digitizing - Charge! - Part I

It's been a "debate" now for a couple of years; Charging for digitizing by the stitch or charging by time and complexity. AND, more recently you'll see the influx of folks charging a flat rate for any given design up to a certain stitch count.

It is my opinion that I have no idea what the flat rate people are thinking since every design is different and takes a different amount of time and skill to complete properly. Digitizing a left chest logo, from start to finish, can take anywhere from 10 minutes to hours depending on the design and experience of the digitizer. Charging this way is not efficient for either the customer or the business, which would lead me to think that they are either "eating" most of the cost of creating a complex, high stitch count design, or they let the customers with simpler lower st count designs pick up the tab on the rest of the stitches for the other customers. By charging every customer the same, are they expecting it to come out in the wash? Charging this way can tend to rush the digitizer through the process in order to finish the job so they can move on to the next design. Nuff said.

That leaves the other two, more popular ways to charge for digitizing: Stitch count and time/complexity. I hear arguments that charging by the stitch count is unfair and "old school" because you could have a simple design with a large stitch count. The nay sayers will tell you that its more precise to charge by the time it takes to complete a logo and stitch chargers can also pad the design with un-needed stitches.

I've been doing this a long time (17 yrs to be exact) and I have seen many things. I can tell you that an unscrupulous digitizer can pad time OR stitches. How would you know if the digitizer was honest about the time it took to digitize? What if the digitizer was less experienced and it took them longer than a seasoned professional? At least with a design charged by the stitch count, you could see if the design had unnecessary underlay or density.

What you need to understand, whether you pay by the stitches or by the time it takes, you're not just paying for the design. Part of what you're paying for is the digitizer's experience and creative talent to be able to turn out a production friendly design that looks fabulous, get it to you in a timely manner and be available to you if a problem arises so your production isn't down for any period of time.

That's where the most important aspect of choosing a digitizer comes in: Can you build a relationship with this person? Will this person work with you? Believe me, it will greatly benefit you in your dealings. I charge by the stitch count but take into consideration the complexity of the designs too...my customers know that I'm fair. That all comes from the relationship I spoke of...they get a few extra benefits and considerations. Search it out. Build a rapport with your digitizer. If they aren't listening to you, move on.