How it works

Bought or made

Everything you cost is an item along the chain — a resin, a fibre, a yarn, a fabric or a garment — plus the dyes and chemicals used to finish fabric. For each one you answer a single question: how do you get it?

I buy it

Enter the price the way your supplier quotes it, in any unit

I make it

Build it from other items in your library, plus waste and processing

Made items stay linked to what they’re made from: change the price of a fibre and every yarn, fabric and garment made from it updates straight away, like a spreadsheet without the formulas. Each item’s page shows the knock-on effect of a change on everything made from it, down to the shelf price. Use What if… to try figures without saving them.

Saving. Items save as you type. One with a problem, such as a deleted component, is marked as needing attention.

Units

Imperial units use the exact international definitions, so conversions round-trip without drift.

1 in

0.0254 m

1 yd

0.9144 m

1 lb

0.45359237 kg

1 oz

16 to the lb

28.349523125 g

1 yd²

0.83612736 m²

1 oz/yd²

≈ 33.9057 gsm

Precision. Figures are kept in full and only rounded for display. Choose how many decimals the library shows.

Fabric prices

A fabric quoted per kg, per running m or per m² converts to the others once its weight (gsm) and width are known:

Weights given per running length (g/m, oz/yd) are turned into gsm using the width. The roll width is the full width, selvedges included; the cuttable width is what patterns can use. Without the weight or width, you see the conversions that don’t need them and what to add.

Yarn count

Every count system converts through tex, the weight in g of 1,000 m of yarn:

Cotton count (Ne)

840 yd hanks/lb

tex ≈ 590.54 ÷ Ne

Metric count (Nm)

km/kg

tex = 1,000 ÷ Nm

Decitex (dtex)

g/10,000 m

tex = dtex ÷ 10

Denier

g/9,000 m

tex = denier ÷ 9

For plied yarn, the count is that of one ply, as in the trade notation: 30/2 Ne is two 30s plies twisted together, which weighs about as much per m as a 15s singles:

Give the weight and length of a cone instead of the count, and tex is worked out from them:

Give the count too, and a warning appears if the two disagree by more than 3%.

Yarns of different counts compare fairly per 1,000 m:

Blends

Shares are percentages by weight. If they don’t add up to 100%, they’re scaled to 100% for the maths and a warning shows, so the inputs can be fixed. A fabric’s fibre content is worked out from each yarn’s own fibre content, weighted by the yarn’s share.

Resin to fabric

Fibre extruded from resin, yarn spun from fibre (or filament straight from resin) and fabric knitted or woven from yarn are all costed the same way, per kg of output (Σ adds up over the materials):

A conversion cost quoted per m is converted to one per kg using the fabric’s weight and width.

Dyeing and finishing

Fabric goes through three stages:

Greige

Straight off the knitting machine or loom

PFD

Prepared for dyeing: scoured and bleached

Finished

Dyed, printed or otherwise finished

Wet processing is a series of steps — preparation, dyeing, finishing — each with its chemical recipe, a processing charge and a loss. Chemicals are dosed per kg of fabric going into the step, as g/kg:

g/L, batch

Liquor ratio: L of bath/kg (10 for 1:10)

g/kg = g/L × liquor ratio

g/L, continuous

At its wet pick-up

g/kg = g/L × pick-up%

% owg

On the weight of goods

g/kg = % owg × 1,000

g/kg

Used as given

–

Tip. At a 1:10 liquor ratio, g/L and % owg are the same number.

A step’s recipe then costs, per kg of fabric going in:

Each step’s costs are spread over the fabric that comes out of it and every later step. Per kg of finished fabric, with “greige” standing for whatever fabric goes in (Π multiplies across the steps):

The upcharge is shown per kg, per m, per yd and as a percentage of the greige cost.

Garments

Fabric is entered as a length per garment from the marker, a yield (garments/yd) or an area of pattern pieces:

Each garment then builds up to what it costs you:

Wastage. An allowance on top of marker consumption, the way cost sheets usually give it.

Imported garments start from the supplier’s price on the trade terms you set (FOB, CIF, DDP…), with duty as a percentage of that price.

Profit and margin

Any item can have a selling price, which gives its profit, margin and markup:

A garment also has a retail price, what the shopper pays:

If every step keeps its multiple, a change in cost reaches the shelf too:

Planning an order

Start from what you’ll sell and the plan works back up the chain, grossing up each component for the waste in every process after it:

The plan shows it three ways:

Materials

What the order takes of every component, back up the chain

To buy

Bought items in each supplier’s unit, with minimums, top-ups and lead times

Costs

What each stage adds to the price, then the margins on the way to the shopper

Quotes and currencies

Bought items can carry who quoted them, when, on what trade terms, with what minimums and lead time. When a price changes, the old one is kept in the item’s price history, dated by its quote.

Tax. When tax on a quote is a cost to you, it’s added on top of the price.

Each costing stays in its own currency. A component priced in another currency is converted at your exchange rates, and the costing says so. Without a rate, its cost is used as is, with a warning.

Published figures

Some inputs can come from published data instead of a quote. They’re offered, never forced: nothing changes until you use one, and nothing you’ve typed is replaced. Each says where it’s from and which day or month it’s for.

Exchange rates

The European Central Bank’s daily mid-market rates, with ExchangeRate-API for the rest

World prices

IMF monthly averages via FRED for cotton, wool and Brent crude, the feedstock for polyester and nylon

Import duty

The standard rate for a tariff line, from the US tariff (USITC) or the UK’s (GOV.UK)

Templates

Examples, not quotes: typical numbers, converted to your currency

Exchange rates are in Settings. World prices are on the home page and under a cotton or wool fibre’s price. Duty is looked up from a garment’s duty field.

Duty. Not included: extra duties by origin (such as Section 301), trade deals, anti-dumping, fees or VAT.