How to Compare Two Knitwear Factory Quotes Without Missing Hidden Costs

Most brands who come to us for a knitwear quote are already holding one or two other quotes from competing factories. That is normal, and we welcome it. What we usually find, though, is that the buyer is comparing them on the wrong axis. They are comparing unit price. They are not comparing what each unit price is actually buying.

A sweater quote is not just a number. It is the result of dozens of small assumptions a factory has made on your behalf, often without you seeing them: yarn count, garment weight, gauge, machine type, finishing process, label sourcing, packing standard, sample policy. If those assumptions are different, the unit prices are not actually comparing the same product. Two quotes with a $4 difference per piece may be quoting two completely different sweaters.

This article is the practical follow-up to our earlier guide on how to read a sweater factory quote. Once you can read one quote properly, the next skill is comparing two. Done well, this single conversation is one of the highest-leverage moments in the entire OEM process — it decides how the next twelve months of your knitwear program will feel.

Why comparing two quotes is harder than reading one

Reading a single quote is mostly an exercise in understanding what the factory has included. Comparing two quotes is an exercise in understanding what each factory has different. That second job is much harder, because each factory writes the same garment in a slightly different language.

Factory A might quote "wool blend, 7G, 380g, 100 pcs, EXW Dongguan." Factory B might quote "wool blend, fine gauge, retail-ready, 100 pcs, FOB Shenzhen." Those two quotes look like the same garment to a beginner. They are not. Different gauge, different weight, different trade term, different packing standard. The same yarn label hides very different yarn quality. The buyer who picks the lower number without translating these differences is buying surprises, not savings.

This is one of the most common reasons orders go wrong, and we wrote about it separately in why knitwear orders go wrong. The pattern is almost always traceable to a quote comparison that was never properly aligned in the first place.

Step 1 — Normalize the assumptions before comparing

The first thing we do when a client shares two quotes is not look at the numbers. We look at the inputs. If the inputs do not match, the outputs cannot be compared. The fastest way to do this is to write five lines on a piece of paper and fill them in for both factories:

• 1
  Fibre composition and yarn grade

  Is it 100% wool, a 70/30 wool-acrylic blend, or a wool-poly mix? Is the merino certified, or only described as merino? Is the cashmere grade A long fibre or a short-fibre blend? Our cashmere grades guide and acrylic vs wool comparison show why this single line can shift cost by 20–40%.

• 2
  Gauge and stitch construction

  7G, 12G, 14G, fully fashioned or cut-and-sew, jacquard or plain stockinette. Gauge is one of the most under-noticed quote variables. If you are not fully confident, our gauge numbers explained guide covers the basics in three minutes.

• 3
  Garment weight in grams

  This is the single most reliable signal for whether two factories are quoting the same garment. A 380g pullover and a 320g pullover are different products even if the silhouette photo looks the same. Always ask both factories for the target weight per size M.

• 4
  Order quantity and MOQ logic

  Is the MOQ per style, per colour or per size? A "100 pcs MOQ" quote from one factory and a "100 pcs per colour" quote from another are not even close to the same commercial offer. Our small MOQ knitwear guide covers why this matters so much.

• 5
  Trade term, packing and label standard

  EXW, FOB, CIF, retail-ready or basic polybag. These small letters at the bottom of the quote can mean a difference of $0.80–$2.00 per piece once you include freight, packing and labels.

Once these five lines are filled in for both quotes, you will often discover the factories are not really quoting the same garment. Before you go back to either of them, write down what your own answer should be for each line. Then ask both factories to requote against that fixed brief. This single step removes most of the ambiguity that makes price comparison meaningless. If you do not have a tech pack yet, the same logic applies — our knitwear tech pack guide explains exactly what a factory needs from you before a quote can be reliable.

Step 2 — Build a like-for-like comparison sheet

Once both factories have requoted against the same brief, lay the numbers out in a single table. Do not let the comparison live in two separate emails or PDFs. The act of putting both quotes in one column-by-column sheet forces gaps to become visible.

The reason this works is that the table forces the brain to stop fixating on the unit price line. In the example above, Factory B looks $2.40 per piece cheaper. But once you add a heavier yarn, more colour units, separate labels, more packing and the freight difference between EXW and FOB, the gap often closes to zero or reverses. The real cost has not changed — only the visibility has.

Step 3 — Count what is missing from each quote

The lines that are not on a quote are usually more revealing than the lines that are. Factories that quote in a hurry, or that want to win on a headline number, often leave out the parts buyers do not know to ask about. Then those parts come back as "additional charges" later — usually after a deposit has been paid.

When comparing two quotes, look for these absences in particular:

• Yarn count and weight in grams. If a factory cannot tell you both, the rest of the price is a guess.
• Care label, size label and hang tag cost. A typical missing $0.30–$0.90 per piece if these are not in the quote.
• Steaming or washing process. Especially important for wool, cashmere and merino. Cheaper finishing changes the handfeel.
• Sample revision policy. Is the second sample charged? Third? Real lead time after revision?
• Bulk shipping packing standard. Polybag thickness, folding method, master carton specification.
• Payment terms beyond deposit. Balance before or after shipment? Inspection rights? Documents released against what?

Most of these become important again at the deposit stage, which is exactly why we wrote what to confirm before paying a knitwear deposit. The buyer who has clarified these items during the quote comparison phase rarely has problems at deposit. The buyer who has not, usually does.

Step 4 — Read the factory signals behind the numbers

A factory's quoting behaviour is itself a signal. After many years of comparing competing quotations across hundreds of OEM clients, we can almost always tell which factory will deliver well by reading how they quote, not just what they quote. Some things to watch for during the comparison stage:

• How specific the yarn description is. A real knitwear factory will discuss fibre, count, twist and brand options. A trading company will say "wool blend, similar to your photo."
• Whether they ask about gauge before pricing. A skipped gauge question is a guessing factory.
• How they handle MOQ. A factory used to working with small brands will explain the per-colour reality clearly. A factory that always works with big retailers may quote a low MOQ headline but quietly assume something else.
• How quickly the price is sent. Same-day quotes for complex styles usually mean assumptions were made silently. Two or three days with follow-up questions is often a better sign.
• Whether they mention sample turnaround honestly. Our article on why sweater sampling takes longer than expected explains why an overly optimistic sample timeline is itself a warning sign.

The factory you can actually talk to is usually the factory you can actually work with. A great quote from a supplier who never answers detailed questions is a worse quote than a clear quote from a supplier who does. This is also the difference our trading company vs real knitwear factory guide talks about — middlemen often look more polished on email, but cannot answer the technical questions you will need answered in week 3.

Step 5 — Compare the production reality, not only the price

The unit price is only one of several inputs that determine whether the program is actually profitable. A landed-cost view is much more honest. We usually encourage clients to mentally redraw the comparison around four numbers, not one:

When you add these four together, the cheaper-headline quote frequently turns out to be the more expensive overall program. We have seen brands save 8% on unit price and lose 18% on returns, defects and missed peak sell-through. Our manufacturing cost guide explains this trade-off in more detail.

Common mistakes buyers make when comparing two quotes

After comparing thousands of competing quotes with clients, the same handful of mistakes keep appearing. Most of them are not about price at all — they are about how the comparison was framed.

The last one deserves an extra note. We understand that buyers sometimes use a second quote as leverage. There is nothing wrong with that in principle. But if you push a real factory below a sustainable margin, the cost has to come out somewhere — usually in yarn quality, finishing or QC effort. A respectful, transparent comparison usually produces better results than a competitive auction.

A real comparison example (anonymised)

Recently a US-based womenswear startup brand sent us a quote they had received from another factory together with our own quote, and asked for our reading. Both quotes were for 200 pcs of a wool blend pullover. The other factory's headline unit price was 11% lower than ours. The buyer was about to switch.

We rebuilt the comparison line by line. Their lower number was based on 320g garment weight, a 70/30 acrylic-wool blend, no woven label, basic polybag packing, EXW Dongguan, and no second-sample policy. Our higher number was based on 360g, 70/30 wool-acrylic (note the inversion of dominant fibre), printed care label, woven brand label, retail polybag plus shoulder reinforcement, FOB Shenzhen, and unlimited revision sampling within the first sample fee.

Adding back the missing items at market rates, the real ex-factory difference came out at about 2%, and after freight harmonisation the two quotes were within $0.10 of each other. The buyer chose to stay with us, not because we are always the cheapest, but because once aligned, the price was honest and the production behaviour was predictable. That predictability is most of what a knitwear program needs.

How we approach quote comparisons at Lin Sweater Factory

At Lin Sweater Factory, we encourage clients to send us competing quotes openly. We do not feel threatened by them. In our experience, a properly aligned comparison rarely costs us the order — and when it does, it usually means the other factory was a genuinely better fit for that particular brief. We would rather lose that order than win it and then disappoint the brand mid-production.

When you send us a competing quote, we will usually do three things: rebuild the line-by-line sheet, point out where the other factory's assumptions are silently different, and tell you honestly whether their quote is realistic for that specification or not. If the other quote is genuinely lower for the same product, we will say so. If it is hiding something, we will show you exactly where.

If you want to get to that stage, our how we work page explains the path from first inquiry to bulk delivery, and our contact page is the best place to start the conversation. A short message describing your style, target quantity and the other quote is all we need to begin.