Embroidery Cost Breakdown: Where Every Rupee of a 1,517 Tee Goes

person Vee Threads
calendar_today Sep 29, 2026
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Infographic showing where every rupee of a 1,517 rupee hand embroidered t-shirt goes

Short answer. The embroidery cost breakdown on a ₹1,517 hand-stitched tee: ₹667 artisan wages and studio floor, ₹258 the blank 220 GSM tee, ₹137 shipping, ₹137 payment and platform fees, ₹121 wash, press, QC and packaging, ₹106 design and sampling, ₹91 thread, needles and stabiliser.

Most brands will not publish this, and we understand the reasoning: it invites arguments about margin. We are publishing it anyway, because “handmade with love” is not an explanation of a price.

The tee below is a mid-range chest-motif design of roughly six artisan hours, priced at ₹1,517. That is the median of our catalogue.

Line by line

Stacked bar infographic breaking a 1,517 rupee hand embroidered tee into seven cost lines with artisan wage largest at 44 percent — Seven lines. The largest is a person's time, which is the point of the product.

Indicative allocation. Individual designs vary, particularly on thread shade count.
Line	Amount	Share	What it covers
Artisan wage and studio floor	₹667	44%	Six hours of skilled work, plus rent, light, frames and thread storage
Blank tee	₹258	17%	220 GSM combed cotton, pre-shrunk and bio-washed before hooping
Shipping across India	₹137	9%	Courier, included on orders over ₹999
Payment and platform fees	₹137	9%	Gateway charges, marketplace commission where applicable
Wash, press, QC, packaging	₹121	8%	Marker removal, steam press, inspection, recycled box
Design, digitising, sampling	₹106	7%	Redraw, size test on a real garment, thread shade trials
Thread, needles, stabiliser	₹91	6%	Colourfast cotton floss, 2 to 9 shades, plus consumables

Follow one ₹1,517 tee from sketch to doorstep

Tap each stage in order to see what it costs and what the money pays for.

1 Design2 Blank3 Thread4 Stitching5 Finishing6 Delivery

Design and sampling, ₹106. Every motif is redrawn, sized against a physical garment and trialled in thread before it goes live. Scrapped designs are paid for by the ones that ship.

Blank tee, ₹258. 220 GSM combed cotton, pre-shrunk and bio-washed before hooping.

Thread and consumables, ₹91. Colourfast cotton floss in 2 to 9 shades, plus needles and stabiliser.

Artisan wage and studio floor, ₹667. Six hours of skilled work, plus rent, light, frames and thread storage. The biggest line, and the point of the product.

Wash, press, QC, packaging, ₹121. Marker removal, steam press, inspection and a recycled box.

Shipping ₹137, payment fees ₹137. Courier is included on orders over ₹999. Fees cover gateway charges, marketplace commission and the cost of cash on delivery.

Indicative allocation on a mid-range chest-motif design of roughly six artisan hours.

The two lines people are surprised by

Payment and platform fees at 9 per cent. Gateway charges, marketplace commission, and the cost of serving cash on delivery, which carries higher failure rates and return shipping. COD is not free to offer, and on a hand-made garment a refused delivery is a garment that cannot easily be resold if it has a name on it.

Design and sampling at 7 per cent. Every motif gets drawn, sized against a physical garment, and trialled in thread before it goes live. Designs that do not work get scrapped, and the scrapped ones are paid for by the ones that ship.

Hand embroidery in progress in a wooden hoop, the artisan hours that make up the largest line in the embroidery cost breakdown — Six hours in a hoop is the single biggest line on the invoice. Our Single Initial & Heart Embroidered T-Shirt.

How this shifts on larger designs

On a ₹4,464 full back panel, the artisan wage line climbs past 55 per cent because fourteen hours is fourteen hours, while the blank tee, shipping and packaging stay flat in rupee terms. The percentages move; the absolute costs of everything except labour barely do.

That is also why cheap hand embroidery is arithmetically impossible. Roughly ₹450 of every order is blank, courier and fees before anyone picks up a needle. The full argument is here.

What changes when the design gets bigger

All bars share one rupee scale. Tap a price to compare it with the ₹1,517 tee.

₹1,517 chest₹4,464 back panel₹599 price

Mid-range chest motif. ₹1,517, about six artisan hours. Wage and studio floor is 44 per cent, ₹667.

Full back panel. ₹4,464. Fourteen hours is fourteen hours, so the wage line climbs past 55 per cent. Blank tee, shipping and packaging stay the same in rupees; only their percentages shrink.

Why ₹599 cannot be hand work. Roughly ₹450 of every order is blank, courier and fees before a stitch. That leaves nothing for hours of skilled work.

Dark segments: blank tee, shipping and packaging. The light end of the back-panel bar is everything else, including wage above 55 per cent.

Woman wearing a white hand embroidered t-shirt covered in colourful florals, the kind of large design that pushes the labour share of the cost above half — More surface area and more thread shades move the labour line, not the courier line. Our Petal Poise Hand Embroidered Floral T-Shirt.

What we are not showing you

Net margin, because it is not a single number. It varies by design, by whether the order came direct or through a marketplace, and by whether it was prepaid or COD. Direct prepaid orders through our own store are meaningfully better for us than marketplace COD, which is why we would rather you bought here. That is a preference, not a hidden fee.

Black oversized tee with a blue hand embroidered bloom on the chest, a mid-range design at the median of the cost breakdown — A mid-range chest motif like this one sits right on the ₹1,517 median. Our Azure Bloom Embroidered Oversized Tee.

Comparing this against a printed tee

A ₹599 printed tee has a similar blank cost, near-zero decoration labour, and a much larger share going to volume, retail markup and returns. Neither structure is wrong. They are just different products with different failure modes. Side by side across six criteria.

Close-up of kantha running-stitch trim and the Vee Threads label on a hand embroidered tee, thread sitting on top of the cotton rather than printed into it — Thread sits on top of the cloth. Ink sits in it. That is the whole cost difference in one photo. Our Concepteur Hand Embroidery Tee.

Frequently asked questions

What does an embroidered T-shirt actually cost to make?

On a ₹1,517 tee: ₹667 artisan wages and studio floor, ₹258 blank tee, ₹137 shipping, ₹137 payment fees, ₹121 finishing and packaging, ₹106 design and sampling, ₹91 thread and consumables.

What is the biggest cost in hand embroidery?

Artisan wages and the studio floor, at about 44 per cent of a mid-range tee and over 55 per cent on a large back panel. Nothing else comes close.

Why do payment fees cost 9 per cent?

Gateway charges, marketplace commission where applicable, and the cost of serving cash on delivery, which carries higher failure rates and return shipping on garments that may carry a custom name.

Does the cost breakdown change on bigger designs?

Yes. On a fourteen-hour back panel the labour share rises past 55 per cent, while the blank tee, courier and packaging stay flat in rupee terms.

Why can nobody sell hand embroidery at ₹599?

Because roughly ₹450 of every order is blank tee, courier and payment fees before a single stitch. That leaves nothing for hours of skilled work.

Who wrote this

Vee Threads is a hand-embroidery label run by Vikash Tomar and Mansi from a studio in Bulandshahr, Uttar Pradesh. Every piece is stitched by hand by women artisans on the studio floor, on 220 GSM combed cotton tees and 400 GSM sweatshirts. We have shipped more than 5,000 orders. Mansi runs the studio and quality control, Vikash handles the digital side. Prices, timings and hours quoted in this article come from our own production records, not from industry averages. Browse the hand embroidered T-shirt collection or start a custom hand embroidery order.