What is embroidery for apparel, and when is it worth it?

Your artwork is first digitised: converted into a stitch file that tells the machine where every stitch goes, in what order, in what thread. This is skilled work — the same logo can be digitised well or badly, and the difference shows in how the thread lies and how the edges hold. Once the file exists, the garment is hooped with a stabiliser behind it, loaded onto a multi-head machine, and stitched. Our machines run up to twelve heads at once, so twelve garments embroider in parallel.

The digitised file is a one-off cost that is reused for every reorder. The stitching time per piece is what you pay for after that, and it is set by the stitch count — a small text logo might be 3,000 stitches; a dense 10-centimetre crest might be 15,000.

Caps, polos and workwear. The classic embroidery garments. On a structured cap or a piqué polo, an embroidered logo looks more expensive than any print and survives industrial washing.

Logos and lettering. Clean shapes with defined edges are what thread does best. A wordmark, a monogram, a crest, a simple icon.

Anything that will be washed hard and often. Uniforms, hospitality wear, school kit, sports club training gear, corporate polos. Thread does not crack, peel or fade.

Heavier fabrics. Fleece, twill, canvas and denim carry embroidery beautifully. The fabric has enough body to hold the stitches without puckering.

Fine detail and small text. Thread has a minimum practical size — text under about 5 millimetres tall becomes unreadable, and very fine lines cannot be stitched. If your logo has thin strokes or tiny type, it needs simplifying or printing.

Large areas. A full-back embroidery of 30 centimetres is possible but slow and expensive — tens of thousands of stitches — and it makes the fabric stiff. Above a chest-sized logo, print.

Gradients and photographs. Thread comes in solid colours. Blends can be suggested with careful digitising, but a photographic image is not an embroidery job.

Very light fabrics. A dense logo on a 140 gsm tee will pucker the fabric around it, however good the stabiliser. Keep embroidery small on lightweight garments, or choose a heavier one.

Two things set the price: the digitising, a one-off cost of around $25 for a typical logo from our current rate sheet, and the stitch count, which we estimate from the artwork's size and density. As a guide, a left-chest logo around 9 by 4 centimetres adds roughly $1.60 per garment at 50 pieces; a larger, denser crest around $2.90. Thread colour changes add a little per colour.

On a 220 gsm piqué polo starting near $16 at 50 pieces, a left-chest embroidered logo lands around $17.60 per piece before labels and packaging. On a cap it is under $12. Caps and polos are where we quote embroidery most, and where the calculator will price it live.

Our embroidery heads run in the same unit that cuts, sews and prints — so a cut-and-sew garment can be embroidered flat before assembly, which gives a cleaner result than hooping a finished piece. Digitising is done in-house, and a sample stitch-out is part of every quoted job before bulk.

We embroider for uniforms, corporate wear and brands across Pakistan, and export embroidered caps, polos and workwear to the Gulf, the UK, the US and beyond. Minimum 50 pieces across sizes; as fast as 7–10 days on stock garments.