It’s not always easy to determine the right price for your latest pattern design.
You want the business to grow and to gain clients, but you also have to be mindful that you are, indeed, running a business. So the question remains: how much should you charge for your latest pattern or textile design?
Pricing Considerations
First, there are three pricing variables you need to consider, each one specific to your preferred niche:
- The industry you are working in helps determine a competitive, appropriate price.
- The complexity of the artwork of your pattern—exclusive and unique textile designs take time and your skills shouldn’t be undervalued.
- The size of the artwork; how much artwork are you providing the buyer?
With those three things in mind, let’s go through a breakdown of the most popular industries for textile designers. We’ll address the pricing for exclusive patterns in the most popular industries to give you an overview of what you can expect.
Pricing by Industry
- Apparel industry: exclusive patterns sell for between $500 – $750
- Quilting industry: in this market, exclusive patterns sell for between $350 – $750. You’ll notice that this is a broader pricing range. The reason for this is that very small scale patterns are very popular in the quilting industry, and since they don’t require as much time to create they are sold for a lesser price.
- Home décor industry: exclusive patterns in this industry average between $500 – $1,000. Again, it’s a broader price range. This is because large scale patterns are popular in the home décor industry, which are much more time consuming to create and are more likely to be developed in repeat. This means that a higher price is substantiated.
That’s right… In the textile design industry patterns are typically not sold in a production ready repeat. It’s important for you to understand why.
Additional Services
In the textile design industry, printing factories have a variety of requirements and limitations. Each factory is slightly different and it’s the textile designer’s job to adjust the pattern to fit the factories specifications.
Requirements can include:
- Certain repeat sizes
- A maximum amount of colors
- How far apart the motifs are placed.
It’s important to note that preparing patterns for production and other services is usually requested after a pattern has been sold or a concept has been approved by a client or buyer. Put some thought into your strategies for addressing this, as it is an important part of the business process and will involve you investing your time into it. The more information you can get, the better.
You’ve learned the basics, but this process involves so much more than what the words on this page allow. Are you interested in learning what services buyers need and how much you should be charging? Download our free Pattern Observer Pricing Guide here.
