Alteration Pricing Guide

Alterations are priced on time at the machine first, then on how awkward the fabric is, then on whatever the tailor has to buy. A tailor setting rates and a customer checking a quote are both really after the same two numbers: how long the job takes, and what an hour of that shop’s time costs.

Formula: Alteration Cost = Hourly Rate × Bench Hours + Materials and Finishing

What each variable means:

• Hourly rate: what the shop charges for its time, usually $20–$80 depending on the city and the tailor.
• Bench hours: how long the job takes at the machine. This is the durable half of the equation. A pants hem took about 25 minutes in 1985 and it takes about 25 minutes now.
• Materials and finishing: thread, a zipper, buttons, interfacing or lining, plus a press if the shop bills that separately (commonly $5–$15).

Bench time and typical price by job:

Run those hours against a $40 shop and every single one lands inside its own price range, which is a reasonable sanity check on both columns. The dollar figures are United States, current for 2026, and they move a long way with city and with fabric. The hours barely move at all, which is why the calculator asks for your rate instead of guessing at prices.

Worked example: Jacket sleeves shortened with the buttons moved is 1.5 hours of bench time. At a $40 an hour shop that is $60 of labour. Add $6 for thread, buttons and a final press and the ticket comes to $66, comfortably inside the $45–$90 that shops usually quote for the job.

The calculator does one job at a time. For a jacket that also needs the sides taken in, run it again at 1.3 hours for another $52 and add the two.

Pricing note for tailors: the common mistake is charging by the job rather than by the clock, and then never noticing that jacket sleeves pay half what pants hems do per hour. Time yourself on every job type for a month. The jobs you quietly dread are almost always the ones you underpriced.