Fabric cost per garment is not a figure you can look up — it is one you calculate, out of three numbers rather than one: the price per usable metre, the metres your marker actually consumes, and the fixed costs of the run divided by the number of units. The quoted price is only the first of the three, and on a short run it is often not the largest. That is why two makers buying identical fabric at an identical price can end up with fabric costs per unit that differ widely.
Nothing below quotes a price. Fabric prices move with fibre markets, currency, quantity, and the mill, so any figure printed here would be wrong by the time you read it. What does not move is the structure of the cost — the conversions and drivers that turn a quote into a number per garment, and let you compare two quotes written in different units.
What the price on a fabric quote actually covers
Before any arithmetic, establish what you are being quoted. Four things vary constantly, and each one changes the number:
- The unit. Per kilogram, per linear metre, or per yard. Knits are commonly traded by weight, wovens by length, and yards are not metres until you convert.
- The state of the goods. Greige (loomstate, undyed) cloth is cheaper than dyed-and-finished, because dyeing, finishing, and the yield losses that come with them have not happened yet.
- The delivery terms. Ex-works, FOB, and DDP are different products: one leaves freight, duty, insurance, and customs handling with you, another absorbs them.
- The width the price assumes. The same price per metre buys very different amounts of cloth at different widths — the point most costings get wrong.
Ask for all four in writing; a quote missing any of them cannot be compared with another. The fabric spec sheet checklist covers the technical lines that should arrive alongside it.
How to convert a price per kilo into a price per metre
This is the conversion that stops per-kilo and per-metre quotes being compared honestly, and it needs two numbers you already have: GSM (grams per square metre — the fabric's weight per unit area) and width.
One linear metre of fabric is one metre long and one fabric-width wide. So:
Weight of one linear metre (kg) = GSM × width in metres ÷ 1000
Worked with typical figures rather than prices: a jersey at 180 GSM delivered at 1.8 m open width weighs 0.180 × 1.8 = 0.324 kg per linear metre. One kilogram therefore buys about 3.1 metres of it. Multiply your per-kilo price by 0.324 and you have the price per linear metre; divide a per-metre price by 0.324 to go the other way.
Two consequences fall out of that formula:
- A heavier fabric costs more per metre at the same price per kilo. Weight is bought, area is used. A 220 GSM version of the same cloth at the same per-kilo price is roughly 22% more expensive per metre than the 180 GSM.
- A wider fabric costs more per metre and can still be cheaper per garment, because you are buying more square metres in every running metre — provided your pattern pieces actually fit across the extra width.
Verify the GSM rather than assuming the spec sheet is exact — weighing a swatch takes minutes, the method is in how to calculate GSM, and every conversion above inherits any error in that figure.
Why cuttable width matters more than quoted width
The width on the quote is the full width of the cloth. The width you can lay pattern pieces on is smaller: you lose the selvedges, any needle marks or pin holes, and often some edge distortion. That difference is the cuttable width, and it is the number that belongs in your costing.
Two further width traps:
- Tubular knits are quoted at folded width. Ask whether a quoted width is the tube as it lies flat or the fabric opened out; the two describe very different quantities of cloth per running metre.
- Width tolerance is real. Mills quote a nominal width with a tolerance either side, so a marker that only fits at the top of that range can cost you a piece per lay when goods arrive at the bottom of it.
A pattern that fits three panels across a wider cloth and only two across a narrower one moves consumption per garment by far more than a few percent on the price ever will.
How much fabric does one garment actually use?
Consumption is the number people guess at, and guessing is where costings go wrong. There is no reliable rule of thumb, because it is decided by your patterns, your size ratio, and your cutting room rather than by the garment type. Take it from a marker — the plan of pattern pieces laid across the fabric width, which tells you the length of cloth a set of garments consumes.
What drives that length up or down:
- Marker efficiency — how much of the laid area holds pattern pieces rather than gaps. Nesting several sizes into one marker is among the few free savings available.
- Size ratio. Larger sizes consume more, so a run skewed to large sizes costs more fabric per unit than the same style skewed small.
- One-way layouts. Napped fabrics, pile, and directional prints force every piece to face the same way, removing the efficiency of interlocking rotated pieces.
- Stripes, checks, and placed prints. Matching across seams indexes every piece to the repeat, usually the largest consumption penalty a fabric can carry.
- Shrinkage and relaxation. Knits relax before cutting and lose length doing it. The allowance comes from your own wash test, not from the stated figure alone.
- Lay and fault losses. Lay ends, splices between rolls, and roll faults are all fabric you paid for and cannot cut — invoiced metres are not cuttable metres.
The costs that never appear on the fabric quote
These separate a fabric price from a fabric cost. Most are fixed per style or per colour, which is why they hurt small runs hardest.
- Sampling. Lab dips, strike-offs, hangers, and sample yardage are spent before a single unit is sold, and on a first run they can rival the fabric itself.
- Per-colour minimums. Dyeing has a minimum lot, and printing carries setup — screen engraving on rotary, different economics on digital. Every extra colourway multiplies fixed costs while dividing your quantity.
- Testing. Colourfastness, shrinkage, pilling, or composition tests are billed per test and per colour whenever a buyer or your own standard requires them.
- Freight, duty, and customs. Landed cost depends on the incoterm, the shipping mode, and the tariff classification. Air freight to recover a delay can cost more than the fabric it carries.
- Under-minimum surcharges. Buying below a mill's MOQ is sometimes possible with a surcharge; the trade-offs are covered in sourcing fabric with confidence.
Why the same fabric costs more per garment on a small run
Because the fixed costs are divided by fewer units, and because small buyers rarely reach the quantity price break either — both effects push the same way. That is the honest reason a small run cannot match the per-unit fabric cost of a large one, and negotiating does not change the arithmetic. What you can change is the shape of the run:
- Use a stocked colour instead of a custom dye, and the dyeing minimum and lab dips disappear.
- Cut colourways before you cut units — colourways multiply the fixed costs.
- Choose the width that suits your marker, not the cheapest per-metre quote.
- Ask about converter and stockist supply: smaller quantities at a higher per-metre price and no minimum lot, often cheaper per garment than a mill run you cannot fill.
The method, in order
- Confirm the quote basis: unit, state, incoterm, width.
- Convert to price per linear metre using GSM × width ÷ 1000.
- Reduce quoted width to cuttable width.
- Take consumption per garment from a marker at your real size ratio, with the one-way or matching penalty applied if the fabric needs it.
- Add allowances for relaxation, lay losses, and agreed faults.
- Multiply price per usable metre by consumption per garment.
- Add the run's fixed costs — sampling, dyeing minimums, testing, freight and duty — divided by units.
- Re-run the whole thing against the delivered goods if the weight or width differs from the sheet.
Steps 1 to 3 come off the quote; steps 4 and 5 need your patterns. Step 7 is the one small brands forget, and it is usually the difference between a costing that works on paper and a margin that does not survive production.
FAQ
Is fabric cheaper bought per kilo or per metre?
Neither is inherently cheaper — they are two ways of pricing the same cloth. Convert one into the other using GSM and width before comparing, because a per-kilo quote on a heavy fabric can look cheap and land expensive per metre.
How do I compare two fabric quotes with different widths?
Convert both to a price per cuttable square metre, then to a cost per garment using the same marker. Width only pays if your pattern pieces can use it, so the fair comparison happens at the marker, not the price list.
How much extra fabric should I buy for wastage?
That allowance comes from your cutting room, not from a standard percentage. It rises with one-way layouts, checks and stripes, small lays, and fabrics with more faults per roll. Ask your cutter for their figure on a comparable style, and agree a fault allowance with the supplier in writing.
Why is a printed fabric more expensive per garment than a solid?
Two reasons stack. Printing adds setup costs that are fixed per design and per colourway, and a placed or directional print raises consumption because pieces must be laid one way and matched to the repeat. The second effect is often larger than the first.
Before you cost the style
A cost per garment is only as good as the three numbers behind it, and each should be verified rather than assumed: weigh the swatch, measure the cuttable width, take consumption from a real marker. Verify the spec sheet against delivered goods before the money moves — mills and lots vary, and a costing built on a nominal figure is built on someone else's tolerance.
When you are narrowing candidates before any of that, the structured entries on Dexitex put composition, GSM, construction, and care side by side so you can shortlist on properties first. Where supplier listings appear there, they are paid placements, always labelled as such and never presented as an earned ranking.
