Most buyers only ever see the final version of a factory quote — the number after a round or two of back-and-forth. What they rarely see is what that number is actually made of. That distinction is the whole difference between negotiating a price and understanding a cost.
"A negotiated price tells you what a factory was willing to accept. An open cost sheet tells you what the garment actually costs to make — and where the room to improve really is."
Two Ways to Arrive at a Price
Only one of them builds a supply chain that gets better every season.
FlairSource's Open-Costing Best Practices
Our Experience Vetting Open Cost Sheets
We've reviewed cost sheets across hundreds of styles and factories — enough to know where numbers get inflated, where they get buried, and where a "final price" is quietly hiding a second markup. That experience is what lets us give brands full transparency, not just a promise of it: a line-by-line audit of material, trim, and CMT costs against market rates; flagging hidden markups inside "miscellaneous" or bundled line items; and independent verification before a cost sheet is ever presented to the brand.
Transparency Is Leverage
A factory that shares its true costs has nothing to hide — that openness is a stronger signal of a durable partner than any single quote.
Margin Pressure Backfires
Squeeze a factory's margin below sustainable and it recovers the difference in fabric quality, trims, or corners cut on the line.
Costing Is a Relationship, Not an Event
The best cost sheets get revisited, not just signed once — we keep them living documents as volume and specs evolve.
See What Open Costing Could Save on Your Next Order
Send your product spec and target volume, and we'll build the cost sheet with you — line by line.
Get in Touch — manish@FlairSource.com