# Home based embroidery business, which machine should I buy?



## ColleenG (Jan 30, 2011)

Hi everyone, 

I have a chance to buy a used Janome MB-4 with the software for a pretty good price but I'm not sure if it would be the right machine for me. The business I want to start is a home based embroidery business specializing in custom embroidered childrens products(Backpacks, lunchbags etc...)So it would definitely be a smaller scale business than what most of you run. 

Do you think the MB-4 would be a good investment for this type of business? If not, what machine would you suggest?

Thanks!!


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## jemmyell (Jan 26, 2010)

Hi,

If you are serious you will outgrow the home machine very quickly. We got only 6 months service from our Singer SES-2000 before we decided that we REALLY needed to step up to a commercial machine. We bought a Toyota Expert ESP9100NET new from DataStitch in texas at the Long Beach ISS show. We also bought the X-Panto accessory which will let us embroider flat goods up to 13.25" x 47.25" - the Brother PR600 machine used would also be a good start but it is limited in size and could not do jacket backs and athletic jackets (REAL $$$).

-James Leonard


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## telmd (Apr 1, 2009)

I agree with jemmyell.... I started off with a singer Futura and after a few months I found a used chinese 12 needle machine on Craigslist for a decent price(2,700). Got it tuned up and took a couple maintenance classes at ISS orlando and havent had any probs with it... Agree that the brother machines are nice but definately limited in the size. I started to buy one solely as a hat and overflow machine but found a Tajima Tmexc 9 needle on craigslist for a decent price(2,000) that will serve the same purpose


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## sitzerlandwyo (Jan 20, 2011)

I have to agree with the others you will outgrow that machine in 3 to 6 months.
We started we a brother 1250 3 months later a used brother pr 600 and just order 2 new melco amaya xts. Starting small and paying cash for everything has been great and the new machines are paid for. We had to turn away alot of work early on because we couldn't handle the order size or quantity. Buy as big of a machine as you can afford if you want to work hard and grow your buisness it will grow if you want to limit what you can do and make then buy a home machine.


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## jean518 (Sep 23, 2009)

Look around on the for sale part of this forum. You will probably outgrow the 4 needle quickly. Just because that is what you do now that does not mean that other opportunities will not come along. The 4 needle is not a business oriented machine. It was designed for the casual/hobbyist and was a joke in the industry since babylock/brother already was producing a 6 needle at a comparable price. There are a lot of used 6 needles available since babylock/brother now have a 10 needle.


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## Riph (Jan 11, 2011)

Having also just started a business at home, I will weigh in here as well.

I badly wanted a commercial machine, but the physical and space constraints of my small house made it impossible. There is nothing that would fit. Also, I live a small town, and the closest commercial supplier is 5 hours away. If I want the machine serviced, it is very expensive to have a tech come here.

Thus, I found myself starting with what I consider to be a machine that is the best of the "home" machines - a Brother PR1000. It has many drawbacks to be sure, but it fits in my house and I can take to the dealer for service myself.

When I get to the point that I can afford to move this business into commercial space, and the repair/maintenance issue is not so onerous, I can upgrade to a commercial machine.

Just my two cents - everyone's situation is different, do what works for you.


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## jean518 (Sep 23, 2009)

I started with a Babylock Ellageo original version. I upgraded to the Babylock 6 needle. I recently bought the Babylock BNT 10 Enterprise 10 needle. A serious chunk of change but well worth it. Love the camera feature and the ease of splitting designs for jacket backs, etc.


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## myfinishingtouch (Nov 21, 2009)

NO, NO, NO

Unless it is very cheap. And you won't kick yourself when you end up buying a commercial machine. Consider it a throwaway. The ease of hooping/use of a commercial machine is so much easier.

This all assumes you want to make it a home based business and not a hobby.

We thought ours was going to be a hobby business and it really is, but without doing anything the business is coming to us and we had over $30K in sales last year. I'm talking no advertising or cold calling or anything. I have no doubt that if we really needed to make a living with this we'd easily exceed the capacity of this machine and have to think about a multihead...

People just hear that we do embroidery and the jobs materialize. But we couldn't have handled that quantity of business unless we had our Barudan...really and the Hoopmaster. When you are faced with hooping 100+ shirts and need to get the placement spot on every time you just can't do it by eye.


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## JAF (Oct 12, 2008)

"Home based business and not a hobby", good statement Dave. I started with a Janome over a decade ago and realized that I couldn't do business with a machine meant for the hobbiest. 
I purchased a full size single head Tajima. I've added a 4 head Barudan. 
You have to be clear on what you want to do with your business and choose a machine accordingly.


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## laz0924 (Jun 25, 2009)

Buy the most that you can afford, I started with a Brother PE770 a home machine, after about a month of that nonsense I bought a happy 1501 the more needles the better off you are. My payments are only 250.00 a month.


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## mikesmith (Feb 4, 2014)

Riph said:


> Having also just started a business at home, I will weigh in here as well.
> 
> I badly wanted a commercial machine, but the physical and space constraints of my small house made it impossible. There is nothing that would fit. Also, I live a small town, and the closest commercial supplier is 5 hours away. If I want the machine serviced, it is very expensive to have a tech come here.
> 
> ...


Now here we are 3 years later and I'm contemplating the same thing you did (pr1000 in my home to start up a small home based business that i hope will grow) I'm here to ask for the wisdom of your experience - how'd it work out?


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## laz0924 (Jun 25, 2009)

Pr1000 is an over priced machine, you would do much better with a Happy Voyager 12 needles weighs 88 lbs and costs thousands less. I still prefer the 1501 over any other single head on the market.
Just my 2 cents


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## sitzerlandwyo (Jan 20, 2011)

Well we have grown fast in the last 2 years. We opened our first store and currently working on store 2. We have added t shirts and lots of other products. We just added dtg and sublimation. The more you can offer a customer the faster you will grow. Machine that fits you requirements is important. We looked at so many machines to start out. We stand by the brother pr series. The built in camera for exact placement is a great feature for the beginner. Also the machine will not hit a hoop and damage itself( unless you use a fast frame). For the beginner it is an excellent choice to start. The built in fonts for quick names and initials as well as resizing on screen are great.

Don't let the number of needles be a huge issue 90 percent of logos are 3 colors or less. The more needles the less time you need to rotating thread. You will get your first 350 hat order and spend days doing it we all have its just part of starting out. 

Don't be afraid to turn work away if you can't do it in a timely manner and don't do something you can't do correctly. One bad job will over ride 50 good jobs in a small town.


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## DKgrafix (Aug 13, 2008)

Start with a single head COMMERCIAL machine. See if you can afford Tajima, Barudan, Toyota,.......... SWF, Happy
Look for used, my second machine was Toyota 8900 that I bought used. Love it. The first I bought was Tajime Neo2. I'm home based too, my biggest (Or smallest) problem is that I can not fit anything bigger that a compact single head in my basement (Accessibility issue)

Go as big as you can


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## tfalk (Apr 3, 2008)

We also have a home based business and were in the same position. You don't 'need' to start with a commercial machine but it's better if you can afford it. We started with a 6 needle PR600, then added a second one as our needs increased and it also helped having a backup. We then added a 15 needle SWF commercial unit because we found we needed a bigger sewing field for the back of jackets. We still have all 3 machines and use them regularly. For left chest logo's with less than 6 colors, ie most of our business, we can crank them out on the 2 smaller machines and use the bigger machine for larger designs, hats, etc.

Personally, I think it's much easier to start with something like the Brother/Babylock machines because they are MUCH more user friendly and you can be up and running much faster. Once you learn how things work, you can always add bigger/faster and keep the smaller machine for one-off's, a backup machine, etc. It's generally also a cheaper way to get started instead of jumping in with a big machine, expensive software, etc..

In the long run, I think the biggest thing you need to consider is what software to start with. We started with PE-Design, then added Sierra Embroidery Office when we bought the SWF. PE-Design will do a lot of things, it doesn't have some of the bells and whistles the higher priced software has. If I had to do it over, I never would have bought Embroidery Office - worst piece of software I've used in 35+ years of working with computers. If I could go back, I'd have started with Wilcom and saved myself time, money and a lot of aggravation. As soon as I put enough money aside, EO is going in the bit bucket and we will be upgrading to Wilcom.

As always, YMMV...


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## Posylane (Mar 3, 2011)

A lot of these folks have advice that may or may not be relevant to you. Will you so quickly outgrow an MB4 that it is a bad purchase? Who here knows how your business will grow?

The MB4 machine itself is solid. There is very little to go wrong. We had three of them in our business for a while. They make sense - at the right price. Who would spend the same on a 4 needle solid machine as a 6 needle solid machine? Nobody, but the MB4 is not (or they weren't at the time) the same price.

We paid about $4k (new) for each of them. The initial $4k and each $4k after was manageable. But then we did grow and eventually moved to a commercial machine (about $11k to get the first one). 

The commercial machine was not 3X faster than the MB4, but it was 2X faster in the same space so that is what moved us to commercial machines, and as business grew we replaced each MB4 with a Melco.

I just sold my last MB4. On the used market they are going for about $2.5k-$2.8k. Don't pay more than that, and decide for yourself that at this price, does an MB4 make more sense or does a used commercial machine at 2-3x this make sense? Or a used Brother for which I don't know what they sell for used.


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## DKgrafix (Aug 13, 2008)

All of the "Start small and grow bigger" suggestions are OK, but it all depends what do you want to do.

I believe that MB4 can not do hats and it has pretty small sewing area.
If you do not have any need for hats or a full backs, then that machine is good for you.

If you have plans to do that, go as big as you can.

I just hate paying twice for stuff


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## mikesmith (Feb 4, 2014)

Does anyone know anything about the Tajima Neo Plus SUMO? Price , performance etc.?


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## Logosinstitches (Oct 22, 2010)

We started out in 1988 with a 2-head Barudan. I would lean toward a commercial machine if you are totally serious about growing your business. Maybe a 1-head Barudan would be better and then you can add another down the road as your business grows. Food for thought!


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## Stitches (Oct 2, 2006)

When we started our business 8 yrs ago we went with a brand new Tajima 4 head commercial embroidery machine. We have never regretted that purchase.


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