A garment costing sheet breaks down every cost between your design and your warehouse: fabric, CMT (Cut, Make, Trim), trims, packaging, freight, duties, agent fees and Greige's coordination fee if you're using one. Without it, brands routinely plan on the factory's FOB quote and forget duties, freight and everything else, then get surprised when the real landed cost lands well above what they budgeted.
At Greige, the garment sourcing platform, we cost every style before committing a brand to a purchase order. Here's the structure we use. Fill it with live quotes for your own style, fabric and order size, every one of these numbers moves with the garment.
The garment costing sheet: row by row
Use this structure for every style. Columns: Cost element | What it covers | Notes.
| Cost element | What it covers | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Fabric (per unit) | Fabric cost × consumption per garment | Driven by GSM, fibre content, knit vs woven and mill pricing. Get a direct quote per style, do not assume. Heavier fabrics and structured wovens cost more per unit than light single jersey. |
| CMT (per unit) | The factory's labour to cut, make and trim | Lower per unit at higher quantities, higher on small runs. A simple knit tee is cheaper than a woven shirt, which is cheaper than a structured hoodie. Ask for this as a separate line. |
| Trims (per unit) | Thread, labels, care tags, buttons, zips | Higher for structured garments with multiple hardware components. |
| Packaging (per unit) | Polybag plus carton allocation | Custom hangtags and branded packaging add to this. |
| Local freight to port (per unit) | Factory to port of loading | Usually included in FOB quotes from most factories. Confirm before signing. |
| Subtotal: FOB | Sum of above | This is the figure your factory quotes. Everything below is your responsibility. |
| Sea or air freight (per unit) | Ocean or air carriage to your destination | Air costs several times more than sea. Per-unit cost falls as order quantity rises. Get a current quote from a forwarder. |
| Freight forwarder fee (per unit) | Booking, documentation, customs handling | Typically a flat fee per shipment, so it dilutes hard at low volume and barely registers at high volume. |
| Import duty (per unit) | Duty rate × FOB price | Rate depends on your product's HTS code, fabric content and construction. Look up every code at usitc.gov, items in the same shipment can carry different rates. |
| QC inspection (per unit) | Pre-shipment inspection | Usually a day rate spread across the order, so the per-unit cost falls as quantity rises. Local agencies cost less than the large international firms (QIMA, Intertek, Bureau Veritas, SGS). |
| Greige coordination fee (if using Greige) | Factory work, not freight or duties | Applied to production and QC only. Covers factory identification, tech pack management, sample coordination and production oversight. |
| Total landed cost | Sum of all above | This is your true cost per unit. Compare to retail price, not FOB. |
Why FOB is the starting line, not the finish line
The single most expensive mistake is pricing a product off the FOB quote alone. The factory number is real, but it stops at the port. Freight, the forwarder fee, duty and QC all sit on top, and at low volumes the fixed costs (forwarder fee, QC day rate) can add a meaningful amount per unit before anything ever reaches your warehouse.
Model the full landed cost, then compare it to your planned retail price. If a garment looks fine at FOB but the margin collapses once duty and freight go in, the answer is usually to reprice or change the design spec, not to chase a cheaper factory.
The most common costing mistakes
Mistake 1: Planning on FOB and forgetting everything after the ship The factory quote is real. It's just not the full picture. Add freight, forwarder fee, duty and QC before you call it your cost.
Mistake 2: Using the wrong duty rate Duty is driven by the HTS code, not a single blanket number. A jersey T-shirt and a woven jacket in the same shipment can face different rates. India's tariff treatment has generally been more favorable than China's for US importers, but do not cost off a rule of thumb, look up every HTS code at usitc.gov before you finalise your numbers.
Mistake 3: Not separating fabric cost from CMT When a factory gives you a single "unit price," ask them to break it down: fabric, CMT, trims, packaging. A factory quoting one all-in number for a tee may be using cheap fabric you'd reject on sight, and you won't know until you get a sample. Line-item costing lets you renegotiate components, not just the total.
Mistake 4: Ignoring forwarder fees at low volumes A flat forwarder fee spread across 100 units hits your per-unit cost far harder than the same fee across 500 units. The fee is fixed, your volume isn't. Brands that don't model this at their actual order size misread their margin.
Mistake 5: Missing the QC cost Pre-shipment QC is usually a day rate spread across the order. Skip it to save a little per unit, and you can spend many times that reworking or discarding a failed shipment.
How to use the template
Step 1: Get a line-item FOB quote Request a broken-out FOB quote from your factory (or Greige manages this for you). Confirm it covers fabric, CMT, trims, packaging and local freight to port.
Step 2: Look up your HTS code Every garment category has a Harmonized Tariff Schedule code that determines your import duty rate. Look it up at usitc.gov.
Step 3: Get a freight estimate Contact a freight forwarder for a current rate to your destination, and ask for both sea and air. Air carriage costs several times more than sea.
Step 4: Fill in the sheet and multiply Total landed cost per unit × order quantity = total landed cost of the shipment. Divide your landed cost by your planned retail price to see your gross margin. If it's too thin at your target volume, the product or the sourcing needs to change.
Step 5: Model three scenarios Fill the sheet at low, medium and high quantities. The forwarder fee and QC cost dilute differently at each volume. Most brands are surprised how much better the margin looks at a larger run, this is why factories push back on tiny orders.
The FOB price your factory quotes is the starting line, not the finish line. Build the full landed cost sheet before you sign anything. See the India production timeline if you also need to map your delivery window, costing and timing need to work together.
FAQ
What should a garment costing sheet include? Fabric cost per unit, CMT (Cut, Make, Trim), trims, packaging, local freight to port (giving you FOB), then sea or air freight, import duty (verify at usitc.gov), freight forwarder fee and any agent or coordination fee. The total is your landed cost per unit, the real number to compare against retail price.
What is CMT in garment costing? CMT stands for Cut, Make and Trim, the factory's labour cost for turning your fabric into a finished garment. It excludes fabric and trims. The rate per unit is lower on larger runs and on simpler garments, and higher on small runs and structured styles.
How do I calculate landed cost for garments made in India? Landed cost = FOB price + sea or air freight + import duty (FOB × duty rate) + freight forwarder fee + QC inspection cost spread across units. Duty depends on your specific HTS code, so verify it at usitc.gov rather than using a single blanket rate. Greige breaks this down line by line before every purchase order.
What is a typical garment FOB price from India? It depends on the garment, the fabric and the order size, so there is no single number. A basic knit tee sits at the low end, a structured hoodie or a woven shirt higher, and the per-unit price drops as quantity rises. Always cost off a live, line-item factory quote for your own style.
How much does it cost to manufacture clothing in India? There's no fixed answer, it moves with fabric, garment complexity and order quantity. Small runs carry higher per-unit costs because fixed costs like the forwarder fee and QC day rate spread across fewer units. Build the full landed cost sheet at your actual quantity to get a real number.
The costing sheet is the first thing we build before any production run at Greige. If the landed margin doesn't work on paper, it won't work in the warehouse.
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