Inside a Kids Clothing Factory Quote

Two factories quote the same romper sketch. One comes back at 4.10, the other at 5.65. Same tech pack, same fabric description, same quantity.

The reflex is to assume someone is padding. Occasionally that's right. Far more often the two numbers were built on different assumptions, and every one of those assumptions is a line the buyer never saw.

We're a kids clothing manufacturer in Humen, Dongguan, 19 years in, and a large share of our first conversations with new brands start with a quote they don't trust. Usually the quote is fine. What's missing is the sheet behind it.

Here's what's actually in the number, and which parts of it you can influence.

What This Guide Covers

How fabric consumption is calculated and where the allowance sits, why trims carry minimums that have nothing to do with your order size, what printing and washing add, why testing hits a small order far harder than a large one, where packaging quietly sits, how labour time becomes a price, and how to put two quotes side by side so the comparison means something.

1. Why Two Quotes for the Same Style Differ So Much

A quote is a set of estimates made before anything is cut. Some of them are tight. Some are guesses that get replaced during sampling.

The estimates that move the most are fabric consumption, the wastage allowance on top of it, the efficiency the factory assumes for your order size, and whether fixed costs like testing and development were spread across the whole quantity or quietly left out.

Two factories can disagree on all four and both be acting in good faith. One prices the marker at a utilization the cutting room actually hits. The other prices it at a number that only works on a long run. One amortizes sampling into the unit price. The other bills it separately and leaves it off the quote entirely, which is why its headline number looks better and its final invoice doesn't.

This is the practical reason to ask for structure rather than a single figure. A quote you can take apart is a quote you can negotiate.

2. Fabric: More Than Price Per Metre

Fabric is normally the largest single line on the sheet. On a simple knit style it can be half or more of the total. Which means the two things that decide it matter more than the price per metre you were quoted.

Consumption and Yield Loss

Consumption is how much fabric one garment takes. It comes from a marker, which is the layout of pattern pieces on the fabric width. The tighter the pieces nest, the less falls away as waste.

Marker utilization in the mid-80s percent is a normal working figure for a straightforward knit style. Wovens usually run a little lower because checks, stripes and directional prints constrain where pieces can sit. A quote that assumes a very high utilization and then cuts a small, seven-size run will not hit its own number, and the gap shows up later as a re-quote.

On top of consumption sits a wastage allowance, typically a few percent, to cover cutting loss, end-of-roll bits, and fabric faults found at spreading. Three to six percent is a common band. A factory quoting with no allowance at all is either absorbing it elsewhere or has not thought about it yet.

The honest way to read this line is to ask for consumption and allowance separately. One number covering both hides whether you're being charged for a lot of fabric or for a lot of waste.

Shrinkage Allowance

Separate from cutting waste is the allowance for the fabric moving in the wash. Knits move. A garment cut to finished dimensions will come out of a hot wash smaller than the spec, which is why the pattern is cut with room for it.

The size of that allowance depends on the fabric, not on a rule of thumb. Bamboo jersey and cotton jersey behave differently. Rib behaves differently again, which is why a collar rib spec matters more than most briefs assume.

What matters commercially is that shrinkage allowance is fabric cost you pay for and then wash away. If your brief doesn't say what shrinkage tolerance the garment has to meet, the factory picks one, and a tight tolerance costs more fabric than a loose one.

Allowance	Typical band	What it covers
Cutting and spreading loss	3 to 6 percent	Marker gaps, end-of-roll bits, faults found at spreading
Shrinkage	Set by the fabric, not a rule of thumb	Movement in the wash, tied to your stated tolerance
Shade variation	Case by case	Roll-to-roll colour difference, more likely across dye lots

None of these are padding. They're fabric you pay for and never ship.

3. Trims and Their Own MOQ Rules

Trims are where small orders get hurt, and it has almost nothing to do with the trim being expensive.

Every custom component is bought from a supplier who has their own minimum. Woven labels are sold by the mill in minimum lots, and that minimum is routinely several times larger than a first order. Custom zipper pulls, branded buttons, printed hangtags and even custom polybags work the same way.

So a 200-piece order that wants a woven main label pays for the mill minimum, not for 200 labels. The excess either sits in the factory's trim store for the next run, gets billed to you as a one-off, or gets written off into the unit price where it inflates a number that looks inexplicable for such a small item.

There are three ways out, and they're worth knowing before you brief.

• Use a stock label for the first run and move to custom once volume justifies it

• Accept the mill minimum and plan a reorder that consumes it

• Pay the surcharge knowingly, treating it as a cost of looking established at low volume

Cheap-looking labels on a first drop are a real cost. So is paying for two thousand of them. Which one you pick depends on whether there will be a second order.

4. Printing, Embroidery, and Wash Treatments

These are priced by the processor, not by the sewing line, and each one carries its own logic.

Screen printing is priced per colour per position, and each colour is a separate screen. A four-colour chest print costs meaningfully more than a one-colour print of the same artwork, and the setup is a fixed cost that behaves exactly like the trim minimum above. Digital printing has no screen cost, which is why it suits small runs and short design cycles, while screen wins on larger quantities and on hand feel for certain effects. We went through that trade-off properly in reactive versus digital printing.

Embroidery is priced on stitch count. A small motif is cheap, a large dense one is not, and dense embroidery on a lightweight knit pulls the fabric unless the construction accounts for it.

Garment washing is the one buyers forget to budget. An enzyme wash or a softener finish is a per-piece process cost at the laundry, plus freight between the line and the laundry. It's also a risk line, because washing has a reject rate. A percentage of garments come back unusable, and someone pays for those.

Process	Priced by	Fixed cost before the first piece	Suits
Screen printing	Colour and position	Screens, one per colour	Larger runs, specific hand feel
Digital printing	Print area	None	Small runs, artwork that changes often
Embroidery	Stitch count	Digitizing the design file	Small motifs, abrasion resistance
Garment washing	Per garment	Laundry setup, plus freight each way	Softer hand, controlled after-wash shrinkage

Two rules hold across all four. Price them as separate lines, and ask whether the quote includes the reject allowance. A print price with no waste built in will move.

5. Testing and Certification Fees, Itemized

This is the line that most often explains why a small order's unit price looks disproportionate.

Testing is a fixed cost for the order. The lab charges by test, not by garment. Pick a round number, six hundred dollars of testing across the order. Spread over fifty thousand units, it disappears into rounding. Spread over two hundred units, it adds three dollars to every single garment before anyone threads a needle.

Nothing about the garment changed. Only the denominator did.

Children's products carry more tests than adult ones, which is why this bites harder in our category than in most. CPSIA-driven testing in the US, EN 71 and REACH work in Europe, plus whatever the buyer's own manual requires. In kids clothing the test scope also scales with materials and colourways, because a lab tests by material and by colour, so three colourways can mean three times certain tests.

Testing isn't the only line that behaves this way, and seeing them together explains most of the small-order penalty.

Cost line	Behaviour	At 200 pieces
Fabric	Per piece	Scales normally
Trims	Per piece, behind supplier minimums	Pay the minimum or use stock
Cut and make	Per piece, efficiency climbs with run length	Higher per unit
Print screens and setup	Fixed per order	Spread across very few units
Sampling and development	Fixed per order	Carries every style you sampled, including the ones you dropped
Testing and certification	Fixed per order	The largest per-unit distortion on the sheet
Master cartons	Fixed per shipment	A half-full carton costs the same as a full one

Two practical consequences.

Ask for the testing line itemized, as an order-level figure rather than buried in the unit price. It's the only way to see what you're paying and what you'd save at a higher quantity.

And decide early which certifications you actually need. Testing to a standard nobody in your target channel asks for is money spent on a certificate that sits in a folder.

6. Packaging: Where Hidden Cost Sits

Packaging is a collection of small items that nobody lists and everybody pays for.

The polybag, the hangtag, the size sticker, the barcode label, the silica sachet, the inner box if you asked for one, and the master carton. Each is a separate line with its own supplier and its own minimum.

Cartons deserve a mention because they're priced by the box. A 100-piece order that only half fills a carton still pays for the carton, and if the carton size was chosen for a larger shipment the freight efficiency gets worse too.

Retail-ready packaging changes the picture again. Individually folded and pinned garments, or anything requiring a specific fold standard, add labour minutes at the packing station rather than material cost.

The reason this line hides is that it's rarely itemized. Ask for it and you'll usually find it's larger than expected and easier to trim than the fabric line. Downgrading a hangtag saves more per unit than most buyers assume, and nobody returns a garment because the hangtag was simpler.

7. Labor Minutes and Line Efficiency

Sewing cost comes from time. The standard approach is a standard minute value, or SMV, which is how many minutes the style takes to assemble based on its operations.

The cut-and-make cost works out roughly as the SMV multiplied by the cost per minute, divided by the efficiency the line is expected to hit.

CM = SMV × cost per minute ÷ efficiency

That efficiency term is where order size quietly sets your price. A line does not run at full speed on a short order. The operators spend the first part of the run relearning the style, the feeder is balancing, and the first pieces go slower than the last. On a fifty thousand piece order that ramp is noise. On a two hundred piece order it's a meaningful share of the whole run.

So the same style genuinely costs more per unit at 200 pieces than at 2,000, and a factory quoting both at one price has either averaged them or mispriced the small one.

Construction complexity lands here too. A crotch placket on a romper, a set-in sleeve instead of a raglan, a lined hood, a pocket with a flap. Each adds minutes. This is also why a romper can carry more labour cost than the separate top and bottom it replaces, even though it uses less fabric.

8. What This Means for How You Compare Suppliers

Put two quotes side by side and most of the apparent difference is scope, not price.

Every children's clothing manufacturer quoting you is estimating a process that hasn't run yet. That is why two honest numbers diverge on assumptions far more often than they diverge on margin.

Before comparing anything, get them onto the same basis.

• Same Incoterm. An EXW price and an FOB price differ by inland freight, documentation and port handling. Compare FOB to FOB or EXW to EXW, and say which you're asking for.

• Same quantity. Unit price moves with quantity because fixed costs and efficiency both move with it.

• Same fabric, stated as content, weight and width. A quote for 200 gsm bamboo jersey and one for 180 gsm are not the same garment.

• Same testing scope. One quote includes testing and the other doesn't, the second is not cheaper.

• Same currency and validity window. Fabric prices move, and a quote without a validity date is a quote you can't hold anyone to.

Then look at what each factory chose to show you. A supplier who breaks out consumption, allowance, trim lines, testing and labour is telling you how the number was built. One that returns a single figure is asking to be trusted, which is a bigger ask than it looks.

The lowest quote is often the one with the most left out. That's not dishonesty, it's just incomplete, and you find out which parts were missing when the invoice arrives.

FAQ

Why did my quote go up after the sample was approved?

Because the first number was an estimate and the sample changed it. Fit revisions alter pattern pieces, which alters consumption. A fabric swap during sampling changes the fabric line. Adding a trim or changing a closure changes both material and labour minutes. Ask for a re-quote against the approved sample rather than treating the original as a commitment, and the increase usually has a specific line attached to it rather than appearing across the board.

Is testing usually included in the unit price?

Sometimes included, sometimes billed separately, and the two are not equivalent. Ask which. A unit price with testing inside it is easier to budget but harder to audit, and it hides how much you'd save on a bigger order. We itemize it.

How much does certification add per unit?

It depends on the quantity far more than on the garment. Testing is an order-level cost, so per-unit impact is that total divided by how many units you ordered. Two brands making the same sleepsuit can pay very different amounts per piece for identical testing purely because of order size. Ask for the figure at your quantity and at a hypothetical larger one, then decide whether the larger run is worth it.

Can I lower unit cost without raising MOQ?

Yes, in four places. Simplify construction to cut labour minutes. Use stock trims instead of custom for the first run. Reduce colourway count, since each one is a separate dye lot with its own minimum. And loosen a specification you don't actually need, such as an unnecessarily tight shrinkage tolerance. What you can't do much about is the fixed-cost denominator. Small orders carry more testing and setup per unit, and no amount of negotiation removes that.

How do I compare quotes from two factories fairly?

Normalize them first. Same Incoterm, same quantity, same fabric specification, same testing scope, same currency and validity. Then compare line by line rather than total to total. If one factory won't break the number out, that's information in itself.

About Muhong Apparel

Muhong Apparel is a baby clothing manufacturer and kids clothing manufacturer in Humen, Dongguan, with 19 years in children's wear. We run OEM and ODM programs across sleepwear, rompers, bodysuits and everyday basics, mostly in bamboo and organic cotton.

Minimums start at 100 pieces per style. Sampling runs about seven days, bulk production 25 to 30 days after sample approval, and inspections are carried out to AQL 2.5. We support CPSIA and CPC documentation for the US through testing at CPSC-accepted laboratories, and work to REACH and EN 71 for EU and UK orders.

If you're holding a quote you can't read, send it over with your tech pack. We'll tell you which lines look normal and which ones we'd question, whether or not you end up working with us.

Related reading Kids Sleepwear Flammability: A Sourcing Guide · Building a Kids Pajama Line · Baby Rompers and Bodysuits