Behind every factory price sits a costing sheet, a one-page calculation the industry guards like a trade secret for no particular reason. Ours is below, opened up with a worked example. A buyer who can read one negotiates better and is very hard to fool.
The sheet, line by line, a 180 gsm combed-cotton tee
| Line | How it’s calculated | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Fabric | Consumption 0.22 kg × fabric price $6.20/kg (incl. dyeing) | $1.36 |
| Trims | Thread, neck tape, labels, tags | $0.22 |
| CMT labour | Cut + sew + finish minutes × line rate | $0.75 |
| Packing | Polybag, carton share | $0.10 |
| Overhead | Factory running costs allocated per piece | $0.30 |
| Margin | The factory’s profit | $0.35–0.55 |
| Ex-factory price | ≈ $3.10–3.30 |
Two things jump out. First, fabric dominates — which is why GSM, yarn choice, and wastage assumptions move your price more than any negotiation over margin. Second, the margin is smaller than buyers imagine: squeezing a factory below its sheet doesn’t create savings, it creates substitutions you’ll discover at inspection.
The levers that genuinely move cost
- <strong>GSM:</strong> 180 → 240 gsm adds ~33% to the fabric line, the honest cost of “heavyweight”.
- <strong>Yarn:</strong> combed ring-spun over carded open-end adds cents that buy visible quality. <a href="/blog/ring-spun-vs-open-end-cotton/">The yarn guide.</a>
- <strong>Consumption:</strong> oversized fits and printed-panel matching raise fabric use per piece; good marker planning claws some back.
- <strong>Quantity:</strong> sampling and setup amortise, the 1,000 → 3,000 step matters more than 3,000 → 5,000.
- <strong>Colour count:</strong> every colour is its own fabric minimum and dye lot, consolidating colours is the cheapest saving nobody takes.
How to use this as a buyer
Sanity-check every quote bottom-up: consumption × plausible fabric price sets a floor no real garment can beat. A “$2.20 hoodie” fails that test instantly — the hoodie version of this maths is here, and the t-shirt overview here. And ask your factory for the breakdown: the ones who’ll show you their sheet are the ones with nothing hidden in it. We quote line-by-line as standard — send a spec and see.