by The Embroidery Coach | | Embroidery Business Marketing, Embroidery Pricing
The Real Reason Your Embroidery Business Isn’t Making Money
Most embroidery business owners think their problem is:
- Not enough orders
- Customers won’t pay their prices
- Too much competition
But those aren’t the real problem
The real problem is not knowing how to price your embroidery correctly.
Busy Doesn’t Mean Profitable
You can be working:
- 10… 12… even 14 hours a day
- Running machines nonstop
- Taking every order that comes in, and still not making money.
That’s the frustrating part.
Because it feels like you’re doing everything right.
But if your pricing is off; even a little, you’re working hard for very little return.
The Most Dangerous Pricing Mistake
Most embroiderers price like this:
They look around and ask:
“What is everyone else charging?”
Then they match it, or go lower.
That feels safe.
Because:
- You don’t know their costs
- You don’t know their efficiency
- You don’t know if they’re even profitable
You’re building your business on someone else’s numbers.
But it’s actually one of the fastest ways to stay stuck.
Why “Charging More” Feels So Hard
Even when you know your prices are too low…
Raising them feels uncomfortable.
You might be thinking:
- “What if I lose customers?”
- “What if they say no?”
- “What if I’m too expensive?”
So instead, you keep your prices where they are, and hope that more orders will fix the problem.
But more low-priced orders don’t solve anything. They just make you busier, and more exhausted.
What Pricing Is Really About
Pricing is not just a number. It’s a combination of:
- Your time
- Your machine costs
- Your materials
- Your overhead
- Your profit
If you’re not accounting for all of those, You’re guessing. And guessing is not a business strategy.
The Truth Most People Avoid
If your pricing is too low:
- You will always feel behind
- You will struggle to pay yourself
- You will hesitate to grow
- You will attract price-focused customers
And those customers will continue to push your prices down even further.
What Happens When You Price Correctly
This is where everything starts to change.
When your pricing is right:
- You make money on every order
- You feel confident giving quotes
- You stop second-guessing yourself
- You attract better customers
And here’s the part most people don’t expect…
You often get more respect, not less, because confident pricing signals a professional business
The Hidden Cost of Staying Where You Are
Every day you continue pricing too low:
- You lose money you can’t get back
- You reinforce bad habits
- You delay building a real business
And over time, that adds up in a big way.
Where to Start
You don’t need to overhaul everything overnight.
Start here:
- Look at your last 3 jobs
- Ask yourself honestly:
“Did I actually make money on these?”
Not just revenue.
Profit.
If you’re not sure, that’s your first sign something needs to change.
by The Embroidery Coach | | Embroidery Business Marketing
Most embroidery business owners believe they have a marketing problem but the truth is they do not have an embroidery follow-up system.
They think:
- “I need more customers.”
- “I need to post more on social media.”
- “I need to lower my prices so people will order again.”
But after working with embroidery businesses for years, I can tell you something very clearly:
That’s not the real problem.
The real problem is this…
You don’t have an embroidery follow-up system.
What’s Really Happening
A customer places an order.
You do beautiful work.
They’re happy.
They pay.
And then…
Nothing.
No follow-up.
No check-in.
No reminder that you exist.
So what happens?
They move on.
Not because they didn’t like your work.
Not because your prices were too high.
But because you were never put back in front of them again.
Out of Sight = Out of Business
Your customers are busy.
They have employees to manage.
Events to plan.
Businesses to run.
They are not sitting around thinking:
“I should reorder from my embroiderer today.”
If you are not staying in touch with them with your embroidery follow-up system…
They will forget about you!
And when they need something again, they will:
- Search online
- Ask someone else
- Or go with whoever shows up first
The Hidden Opportunity Most Embroiderers Miss
Here’s what most people don’t realize:
Your next sale is far more likely to come from someone who has already ordered from you.
Not a stranger.
Not a new lead.
A current or past customer.
But if you’re not following up…
You are starting over every single time.
This Is Why You Feel Stuck
If your business feels like this:
- You’re constantly chasing new orders
- Sales feel inconsistent
- You’re working long hours but not seeing steady income
It’s not because you’re not working hard enough.
It’s because you don’t have a follow-up system bringing customers back.
What a Simple Follow-Up System Can Do
When you have even a basic follow-up system in place, everything changes.
You:
- Stay top of mind with your customers
- Create more repeat orders
- Build real relationships
- Get more referrals without asking
And most importantly…
You stop starting over every time.
It Doesn’t Have to Be Complicated
This is where many embroidery business owners get stuck.
They think:
- “I’m not good with tech”
- “I don’t know what to say”
- “I don’t want to bother people”
So they do nothing.
But a follow-up system doesn’t need to be complicated.
It can be as simple as:
- A message after the order
- A quick check-in a week later
- A reminder a month later
- A way to stay in touch consistently
That’s it.
The Truth Most People Don’t Tell You
You don’t need more customers to grow your embroidery business.
You need:
A way to keep the ones you already have.
Because when your customers come back…
Everything becomes easier.
What I See Over and Over Again
I’ve worked with embroidery business owners who:
- Struggled to get consistent orders
- Felt like they were always chasing work
- Were afraid to raise their prices
And once they started focusing on:
- Relationships
- Follow-up
- Staying in touch
They began to:
- Get repeat customers
- Build trust
- Create steady income
This Is Something I’ll Be Teaching Soon
Over the years, I’ve seen how powerful this is when it’s done the right way.
And more importantly…
When it’s actually set up and used.
That’s why I’m putting together something very practical and hands-on where I’ll walk you through:
- How to stay in touch with your customers
- What to say (so it feels natural, not pushy)
- How to create a simple system that keeps working for you
Because once this is in place…
You’re no longer chasing customers.
You’re building a real business.
Final Thought
If your customers aren’t coming back…
It’s not because they don’t want to work with you.
It’s because you don’t have an embroidery follow-up system that brings them back.
And once you fix that…
Everything changes.
If this is something you know you need to work on, I am having a 2-day workshop on April 17th & 18th. Here is the information page. https://www.theembroiderybusinessacademy.com/follow-up-system
by The Embroidery Coach | | Embroidery Business Marketing
No matter how much you want it or how long you’ve been working toward it, the next level of financial success will not happen until you understand the power of planning. It doesn’t have to be difficult or take up a lot of time. Keep it Simple! In fact, planning can be fun and very rewarding. Planning is the key to your embroidery business success.
Planning can be done in many ways. There is no one-size-fits-all plan! You always hear, create your goals, and then work backwards to create the plan. This is true, and it works great, but it does not work for everyone.
2025 A year of Changes and Challenges
It is now 2026! We have just started week 1 of 2026. This is a whole brand new year and a time when you can start all over again, no matter what you have done in the past or how your business has been going. You can turn over that new leaf and start fresh! This part is really exciting.
2025 was not an amazing year for me, as it had many challenges. You may have experienced some of the same in your business. Now is the time for you to start fresh and get your 2026 Marketing Plan in Place, but before you can do that, you need to evaluate this past year and go over all of the positives and negatives that happened in your business throughout this past year!
There have been so many changes in my business, and I have felt like there have been some new beginnings from those changes. And I am happy to say that in 2026, I expect to see the fruits of the labor from all of those changes.
I have always done a lot of planning, and I try to work my plans, but sometimes our plans just do not work out the way that we expect, no matter how hard we try!
This was one of those years for me. I had many changes that took place in my business that I had not planned for, some positive, some negative, but there were three major changes that I would like to share with you that drastically affected my Marketing Plan for 2025.
- Rebuilding my membership pages in a new system that took twice as long as I had in my plan.
- I had to change autoresponders, and I lost some of my contacts. I am in the process of rebuilding my list. This also cut into my actual marketing time that I had planned for 2025.
- Most important of all, I decided to hire a coach to help me move a little quicker in my business, and that is a positive move! It helps to keep me accountable and make the right decisions.
My 2025 Marketing Plan Kept Me On Track
This does not mean that my marketing plan was a failure or that it did not work. It did work and kept me on track as much as it could, despite the unexpected changes that did take place. Without the guidance of my plan, I would not have been able to accomplish nearly as much as I did. Planning is key to embroidery success. I have all of my goals and accomplishments set for 2026, and the actions set to follow through with those goals for each month. I do not have the weekly plans set. I will do them towards the end of each month for the following month.
Even though my 2026 plan is basically finished, I expect that I will have to make changes as I go along because when I am creating my plan, I also have to stay flexible to accommodate those unexpected happenings.
Really Excited About 2026!
I am really excited about 2026. My plan is ready, and I know what I am going to be marketing each month. I will continue to do my weekly planning at the end of each month so that I will stay on track. Each Saturday, I sit down and plan out my week thoroughly, and sometimes I have to make adjustments during the week, but it really helps me to stay on track. Planning is the key to your embroidery business success. If you would like some help creating your plan for 2026, send me an email to joyce@theembroiderycoach.com
by The Embroidery Coach | | Embroidery Production
Some basic issues can have a huge effect on the quality of your designs. We need to go back to the basics to create high-quality embroidery designs.
Machine Speed
Machine speed has a huge effect on the quality of your design. I cringe when I see a machine going faster than 850 stitches per minute. I run mine on an average of 750 stitches per minute, but if I am working on caps, it is down to 600 or 650 spi at max.
The machines are being sold on the fact that they operate at a significantly faster pace, allowing for more production to be completed in a day. Yes, this is true, but it can also cause many issues that slow down production. The faster your machine is sewing, the more pull you have on your thread. This can distort your small lettering and in satin stitches that border fill areas. The faster the machine speed, the tighter the thread pulls, and the narrower the stitch sews out. If the machine is going too fast, it can skip stitches or force the needle to penetrate in a bad spot and form a stitch that is uneven, such as on heavy pique or fabric that has wide ribs, such as twill. This really shows up on a twill cap.
The machine speed can also cause the thread to come out of the needle at the beginning of sewing, and can leave a long thread or a loop at the beginning of the first part of your stitching.
Bad Tension
Your machine needs to be using either rayon or polyester thread. You should not be switching back and forth if you can help it. This is something that we have to do at times, and I am very unhappy when we have to do this, but we have customers that insist on a certain shade, and if it matches in the rayon rather than the polyester, then that is what we use. I do not want to use any rayon thread on a garment that is going to be washed in the strong laundry detergents because it can fade. We do not have many issues with our thread bleeding.
If you stick to polyester, you eliminate a lot of issues. In today’s world, this is the thread that you should be using. We have been gradually switching over, and we are using more and more polyester. It is much stronger, and of course, it will not fade out when bleached. Your polyester thread has to run with a tighter tension than the rayon thread. When you are switching back and forth, it is very tough to keep your thread tension correct. It needs to be adjusted for the different types of thread.
Worn or Wrong Needles
Worn or Wrong Needles can create holes in the fabric. On knits, it can create runs. You really need to be careful with this. Sometimes you can get away with a sharp needle on a knit, such as a pique, if you are using the 70/10 needles and they are new needles. It is strongly recommended that you change your needles to ballpoint needles if you are working with knits, especially the performance wear knits. You can almost count on holes in your fabric if you do not switch to the ballpoints on those types of fabrics. This can have a huge effect on your design.
They recommend that you change your needles every 2,000,000 stitches or after every 8 hours of constant stitching on that same needle bar. That is hard to keep track of and something that we really do not do, but I always had operators who were very detail-oriented and knew exactly when the needles needed to be changed. You can hear the difference in the sound when the needle goes down into the fabric. This comes from lots of experience and a lot of trial and error.
Wrong Backing
Using the correct backings or stabilizers is extremely important in stabilizing your design on your garment. If you are using the wrong backing or a cheap backing, your design can rip right through the backing, and it just does not sew out very good. It becomes very distorted, especially after it has been laundered.
This is something that you have to be very careful of. For all of your wovens, you need to use a tearaway backing. Do not ever use a cutaway on the woven fabrics, not even the no-show. Many times the backing shrinks, and it will cause the design to pull up and pucker. I have had several complaints about the no-show backing shrinking. I have had several students tell me that they have discontinued using it because it was shrinking and their designs were distorted after they had been washed. I have some items here that have been washed, and you can plainly see that this no-show has not shrunken at all! You need to always use quality backings.
Cheap Supplies
Do not use cheap bobbins either. This is huge! Not only do they slow down your production, but they run very erratically, and it is almost impossible to keep an even flow of tension. I highly recommend the Filtec bobbins. They can run all the way to the end without the tension changing, and rarely do we have a bad one. Yes, they are more expensive, but the difference is the look and the production, which more than pays for the difference in cost.
No Topping On Your Knits
This is a tough concept to get across to a lot of people. The difference in your designs is night and day when you use them. Every knit that went out of my shop was done with a topping on it. It keeps the thread on top of the fabric instead of letting it sink into the garment and is very easy to remove. Yes, it is another step, but at the same time that we are steaming it off, we are also removing the hoop mark from our item. I do not ever want to see a garment go out of here with a hoop mark on it. There is no excuse for that one at all.
Garments Not Hooped Correctly
When you are hooping your garments, you want to make sure that they are tight enough. If it is, there will not be any movement of the fabric inside the hoop, and you can hear a drum noise when you tap on it.
Size of Hoop
The size hoop that you use is critical. Many embroiderers will use the same 15 cm hoop for all of their designs. This is fine if the design was created for that 15 cm hoop, but if the design is smaller than that, you will not get the same effect.
Many times, we just need to go back to the basics to create high-quality embroidery designs. We sometimes forget the basics and how important they really are.
by The Embroidery Coach | | Embroidery Business Marketing
This is Joyce Jagger, The Embroidery Coach. Here at The Embroidery Coach, we help embroiderers master embroidery skills and succeed in growing their embroidery business.
Through online training and private coaching, I help you avoid pitfalls as you are learning how to grow your embroidery business.
People come to me because they are frustrated with their business. It is not as easy as they thought to build their embroidery business and many times, they do not know what to do next. In a simple email or a phone conversation, we can steer you in the right direction.
It may be a single course that I have created, it may be multiple skills that you can easily learn inside of the embroidery business academy or it may be some personal coaching designed just for you. Our goal is to help all embroiderers succeed!
Today’s tip is about concerning embroidery on caps.
“Why you Have Thread Breaks or Needle Breaks When Embroidery On Caps.”
- Cap too stiff
- Not walking the machine at the start
- Wrong needle or Bad needle
- Cap does not sit on the needle plate
- Design too low on the cap
- Lettering too small
- Too many locks & trims
Pressing Caps To Prevent Thread/Needle Breaks!
I have found that by pressing the cap fronts of those stiff caps, especially the Flexfit caps, solve many problems with thread breaks, needle breaks and flagging. I press most of my 6 panel structured cap fronts.
To Press the cap, I lay a folded hand towel over the top of my cap framing device, put the cap over it, just like I was going to hoop the cap and then I use my household iron and press it with steam. If you have a cap press you can use that, but you may have to spray the cap with a spritz of water to create some steam. The steam really helps with the total process.
By pressing the cap fronts you are tightly adhering the backing to the top fabric and softening it up, flattening out the center seam and removing the hump that is in so many of them. You can see the difference in the two caps. This helps the cap to sit closer to the needle plate and reduces a lot of the flagging. Pressing the cap fronts has reduced my thread breaks and needle breaks to almost nil.
I have a video inside of the Embroidery Business Academy membership site showing you exactly how to do this.
I hope that you will find this tip helpful. If so, please respond below this video and let me know. I have a free ebook for you. Just go to MasterEmbroiderySkills.com
Embroidery Business Mastery, “The 3 Skills For Every Successful Embroidery Business”. Go pick it up today!
If you have already received the Free Ebook, check out Embroidery Business Academy.com.
I have a whole module on working with caps inside in the first Skill Set of Mastering Embroidery Skills. This is the perfect place to start your embroidery business training.
