Hire a Consultant or Do It Yourself? The Real Time and Cost of Your First Garment

A founder I work with asked me a fair question when he saw my agreement: why is this $5,000?

It's the question every new brand has, usually right before deciding to do it all themselves instead. Sometimes that's the right call. Often it isn't. The honest answer depends on three things: what you need done, how complex the garment is, and how much you've done before.

So we built a calculator that runs those numbers for you: Should I hire a consultant or do it myself? This post explains what's behind it.

Why a consultant quotes what they quote

A quote isn't a number pulled from the air. It's hours, step by step. For one moderately complex style (a hoodie, joggers, a button-up shirt), working at $75 an hour, a rough breakdown looks like this:

• Tech pack: about 8 hours, so around $600
• First pattern: about 8 hours, around $600
• Two rounds of fittings and corrections: about 6 hours, around $450
• Grading to your size range: about 3 hours, around $225

That's roughly $1,875 for one style, before samples. Three styles and you're at about $5,600. Samples are on top, and should be billed at what they actually cost: in a real 2026 US factory quote we've seen, about $250 a sample.

These hours are our working estimates for someone who does this every week, not a price list. Consultants on Runsheet list hourly rates from about $45 to $100, and plenty quote by the project instead. Change the rate in the calculator and the total moves with it.

What it costs to do it yourself

Doing it yourself isn't free. It's paid in time and in samples.

If you've never made a tech pack, drafted a pattern or run a fitting, the same single style is closer to 230 hours by our estimate. Some of that is learning (a first pattern alone can take weeks to learn well enough to try). The rest is doing it slower, which everyone does the first time. And a first try usually needs a couple of extra sample rounds before it's right, each one costing money and about two weeks of waiting on the factory.

Put together, for one style at 10 hours a week:

• Doing it yourself, first time: about 30 weeks to a sample you can approve, and about $1,000 in samples.
• Hiring: about 6 weeks, about $2,400 in fees and samples, and around 4 hours of your time to brief and review.

That's the real trade. Hiring costs more cash. Doing it yourself costs months.

When doing it yourself makes sense

• You've done it before. With industry experience, the same style is about 30 hours of your time and the gap mostly closes. The calculator will tell you so.
• Learning it is the point. If you want to be the person who can fix a fit issue at 11pm, the hours are an investment, not a cost.
• You have more time than money right now. Be honest about the months, though. A slow first collection is a real cost when a season is involved.

When hiring makes sense

• You have a launch date. Months of learning won't fit before a season, a pre-order or a pop-up.
• The garment is complex. Jackets, denim, swim and tailoring punish a first try. Extra sample rounds at $500 each add up fast.
• You're stuck on one step. You don't have to hire for everything. The calculator shows which step costs you the most time, and that's usually the one worth handing over.

How to hire well

1. Hire for the step, not the title. A technical designer writes the tech pack. A pattern maker makes the pattern. A product developer runs the whole thing. Not sure which? Here's what each one does.
2. Get it itemised. Ask for the hours or deliverables behind each part of the quote, the way the breakdown above does it.
3. Agree the rounds. How many fittings are included, and what an extra one costs.
4. Pass-throughs at cost. Samples, fabric and shipping should be billed at what they actually cost, not marked up.
5. Put it in writing. What's included, what costs extra, when you pay, and who owns the files once you've paid.

Run your own numbers

Every founder's answer is different. Pick what you need, how complex the garment is and how much you've done before, and the calculator shows the weeks, the hours and the cost both ways, plus where a consultant's quote comes from.

If hiring wins, every consultant in the Runsheet directory wrote their own profile, with what they do, how they charge and reviews from their clients. Or post a brief and let the right people come to you.