Why a polo order is priced from minutes per piece, not stitch count
Stitch count tells you how long the machine runs. It says nothing about hooping, clipping jumps, pulling the backing, folding and bagging. Of the 8.6 minutes the example allows per polo, less than half is the machine stitching. The rest is hands on the garment.
That is why the calculator asks for minutes. On a 4-head machine the stitching time is shared by four shirts, but hooping and finishing are not. Enter the time one polo really takes from blank to bag and the stitch count is already inside it. The embroidery pricing guide covers when a per-stitch price still makes sense as a check.
Setup hours: why 12 polos cost $39.79 each and 100 cost $26.26
The example carries 1.75 setup hours: loading the machine for a 3-color logo, a test sew-out, the mock-up the customer signs off, counting the order by size and the messages back and forth. At $53 an hour that is $92.75 before a single polo is stitched.
That setup is the same on 12 polos or 100. Spread over 12 it adds a lot to each shirt, spread over 100 it almost disappears. The break table under the price shows it: $39.79 a polo at 12, $32.10 at 24, $28.26 at 48 and $26.26 at 100. If a customer asks why their small order costs more per shirt, that table is the answer.
When the customer brings the shirts
Put the cost per polo down to $0.50 for floss, backing and a bag, and set the two blank boxes under it to 0, since you neither buy nor freight the shirts. The same 24 polos then come to $393.68, or $16.40 each.
Look at what it earns per labour hour, though. The full order leaves $97.40 an hour after materials and one-off costs. The bring-your-own version leaves $66.80, because the markup on the blank was doing part of the work. If a ruined customer jacket would cost you more than the job pays, that belongs in your terms, not in this price.
A repeat of the original order is the other common change. With the logo already digitized, set that box to 0 and the 24 polos come to $728.48.
What the quick embroidery estimate leaves out
The $53 break-even rate belongs to the example shop. Yours comes from your rent, machines, insurance and the hours you can really bill: the free true hourly rate calculator works it out in a few minutes. The 50% on blanks is a markup, not a margin, and markup vs margin shows why those two numbers differ.
The spreadsheet also charges each machine by its own hourly cost, puts a markup on outside digitizing, adds a small safety cushion, keeps a price list of blanks and supplies, prints a customer quote with three quantities and logs whether each order made money. That is why its version of the same 24 polos comes to $34.97 each rather than $32.10.
The $60 minimum holds either way. A single cap with its own setup will never price under it, and a quick name drop on a customer's shirt should not either.