How to Price Made-to-Measure Suits in Your Shop: A Margin Guide

When a boutique or independent tailor partners with an atelier, the pricing question comes up fast: what do I pay, and what can I charge? The model is simple — you buy each garment at atelier-direct cost and set your own retail price; the spread is your margin. What makes made-to-measure different from ordinary rack retail is that there is no inventory to mark down, so the margin you quote is much closer to the margin you keep. Here is how to think about it.

The basic model

• Your cost: what you pay the atelier per garment, in your chosen Biella cloth.
• Your retail: what you charge the client — entirely your call.
• Your margin: the difference, minus your own costs (your time fitting, packaging, card fees).

Because every garment is made to order with no minimums, you never buy stock you might not sell. You take the client’s order and money first, then we produce. That single fact is what makes the numbers work.

What the trade typically does

Apparel retail usually prices at a 2.0–2.5× markup on wholesale cost — keystone (2×) is the common starting point — which lands a gross margin of roughly 50–60%. Direct-to-consumer brands often push higher. Made-to-measure sits comfortably in this range, and frequently above it, because the cloth-and-make story supports a premium and there is no discounting cycle to erode it.

A note on the words: a 50% markup is only a 33% margin. Always check which one a supplier or a calculator means before you compare.

Where to position your price

Think in terms of the three reference points your client already knows:

• Local bespoke tailor — the ceiling. Multiple fittings, weeks of work, the highest price.
• Your made-to-measure — below bespoke, but with named Biella cloth and hand finishing that online commodity MTM cannot show. This is your lane.
• Online MTM / rack retail — the floor. Cheaper, but generic cloth and no personal service.

A garment cut in a named mill’s cloth, fitted by you in person, finished by hand and delivered in 21 days earns a price well above online MTM — and still lands under local bespoke. That gap is a comfortable, defensible position in most markets.

Why the margin math is healthier than retail

In ordinary clothing retail, the headline margin is a fiction: markdowns, unsold sizes and carrying costs quietly eat it through the season. Made-to-measure removes all three:

• No markdowns — nothing sits on a rail waiting for a sale.
• No dead stock — every garment is already sold before it is cut.
• No carrying cost — no capital tied up in inventory or warehousing.
• Sub-1% remakes — a low remake rate (against a 6–9% category average) means returns rarely claw back the margin you booked.

So the gross margin you quote on a made-to-measure order is, give or take your own time, the margin you actually keep.

What to factor in before you set a number

• Your time measuring and fitting — the part only you do. Price it in.
• Shipping and packaging — to you or drop-shipped to the client under your label.
• Card and platform fees — small, but real on a high-ticket sale.
• A house markup for service — fittings, advice and after-sale care are worth paying for.

Getting real numbers for your market

The only figure we have not put here is the one that depends on cloth, cut and your market: your atelier-direct cost. Tell us what you sell and where, and we will send an indicative price grid so you can model your own retail and margin before you commit to anything.

Talk to the atelier · See the partner programs · What it costs to start

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Linea di Biella is the 160-tailor private-label suit manufacturer behind boutiques, independent tailors and emerging labels worldwide — Biella wool, single-garment minimums, your label inside.