Charge for Specialty Threads

[EarlsEmbroidery]

What do you charge for specialty threads? Customer would like a special metallic thread. should i charge for the spool? or an extra amount for the particular job? or nothing because as an emb. biz I should have all colors?
thanks

[signman]

Never, ever think that as an embroidery (or screenprinting) business that you 'should' have all colors. Look at any specialty advertising/contract printing company catalog-99% of them will ONLY have 'stock' colors-red,black, navy, royal, green, etc. and they DO charge for any other color-and even to 'color match' a pantone or pms color. I bet most of us use the same 10 spools of thread all the time-and have a few 'favorites' for light shades, etc.
Metallic thread-cost you more money. Have to use a different needle. Have to run slower. More aggravation....so YES, you should charge more!
I make tons of signs and banners-using vinyl-and even though I have more than a half dozen 'stock' colors-I CHARGE extra for 'special colors'. Doesn't matter if I already have it in stock-they pay extra. And no one argues about it. If they want something 'custom'-they expect to pay for it.
So never hesitate to charge for having to buy the spool-and charge EVERY TIME you use it. Even if it is only $5 or $10-always charge it. Your TIME is what you are charging for-not the thread. Look at how many gazillion stitches each roll will sew-you definitely don't get paid for using the thread. It is how LONG it takes you to sew that design-at $40 or $50 per hour-that your cost is figured on. Go ahead-get a calculator. Lets say a shirt logo is 15,000 stitches. You should be getting $1.00 per thousand or making almost that-plus profit on the shirt. It sews an average of 900 stitches per minute-even when set to 1200-watch it sometime. So that is about 17 minutes. Allow a couple minutes to hoop-you can do 3 shirts an hour. $15 x 3= surprise-$45 for an hours work. Yet you used what, 50¢ worth of thread? It is your TIME that you charge for. Throw metallic in that design-now it may take 25 minutes to do the same design.
So charge for it!