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A quilt takes weeks to make and sells once, so the questions a lender asks are different from a shop's. How many quilts can one studio finish in a year? What does a longarm machine cost, and does it earn its keep? How do you pay a sewist while the first commissions are still being stitched?
This article walks through a complete sample plan for a quilt studio in Atlanta, Georgia, section by section, ending with the full financials.
What you get from each part:
- The executive summary: see how to state the ask and the four kinds of income on one page
- The market and customer sections: learn how to size a craft market without inventing numbers
- The equipment budget: find out what a longarm, frame and studio fit-out add up to before the first order, and how a reserve is sized to the seasonal low
- Capacity and hiring: check how many quilts and machine hours a team can deliver, so you hire when the work is there
- The year-one month view: spot the slow months before they drain the reserve
- The profit, cash flow and balance sheet: follow how each price and hiring choice reaches the bottom line
- The stress table and downside case: see which input the result depends on most, and have an answer ready for an order book that is 20% short
The studio is fictional. Take the structure, swap in your own prices and local costs.
In this plan
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The Studio at a Glance
Copper Wharf is a quilt studio that opens in a rented workshop on Atlanta's west side on 1 January 2027. It earns from four sources: heirloom and memory quilts made to commission, longarm quilting for other people's finished quilt tops, large art quilts sold through interior designers, and weekend classes. Sally Harper, the founder, owns 70% of the LLC and is its first employee. A local investor with a commercial-interiors background owns the other 30%.
The studio needs $230,000. Sally puts in $70,000 of savings and the investor $80,000. A dealer-backed lender finances $30,000 of the longarm, and a community lender adds a $50,000 term loan. Machines, furnishings and fit-out take $73,000, opening fabric and thread stock $7,500, and permits, legal work, the launch and two months of rent before opening $18,700. A $2,600 lease deposit is held by the landlord. The other $128,200 stays in the bank as a reserve, sized to the seasonal cash low in 2028 and 2029 and not to the first year.
| Year 1 | Year 2 | Year 3 | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Revenue | $171,155 | $295,840 | $403,675 |
| Net income after start-up costs | ($71,344) | ($1,795) | $28,564 |
| Closing cash | $70,835 | $61,278 | $82,160 |
Nine commissions with deposits are on the books before the doors open, and they fill the deliveries of the first quarter. Year 1 loses money for a plain reason: rent and Sally's pay run all year and a production sewist joins in May, while 47% of revenue arrives from September to December. Year 2 ends $1,795 short of break-even after interest and depreciation. The studio is profitable from Year 3 and stays so through Year 5, when revenue reaches $495,310 and net income $42,163.
A second case takes a fifth off every line of revenue. Sally cuts her own pay and marketing and starts the longarm operator a year later than planned. The studio still has cash at every year end, with debt cover under 1.25x in the first two years, and the plan sets out what she would ask the lenders for.
The pitch is narrow. Customers get one maker who designs the quilt with them, a machine that finishes it, and a fixed price agreed before cutting starts.
Copper Wharf and What It Makes
Legal name: Copper Wharf, LLC, a Georgia limited liability company. Owners: Sally Harper, 70%. One local investor, 30%. Workshop: about 1,400 square feet of leased flex space on Atlanta's west side, with a separate room for the longarm. Opening: 1 January 2027. Stage: pre-launch. The lease is in draft, the website is in development, and nine commissions have deposits paid.
What the studio is for
Make quilts that people keep and pass on, priced openly, and finish other quilters' work well enough that they come back.
Where it aims to be by the end of 2028
- 92 commissioned quilts delivered in 2028, up from 64 in 2027.
- A longarm operator trained and working on customer quilts from September 2028.
- Three or more interior designers or art consultants who have bought at least once.
- EBITDA of $15,316 in 2028 and cash above $50,000 at year end.
Four kinds of work
| Work | How it is priced | Year 1 share of revenue |
|---|---|---|
| Heirloom, memory and story quilts | Quoted per quilt, averaging $1,790 | 66.9% |
| Longarm quilting for other quilters | Per quilt, averaging $205 | 19.8% |
| Art quilts for hotels, offices and clinics | Per piece, $7,500 in Year 1 | 8.8% |
| Classes and patterns | $95 a seat | 4.5% |
Licences and tax registrations
The studio needs a City of Atlanta business license, which the city issues as an occupational tax certificate, a Georgia sales tax registration for the finished quilts it sells, and a zoning check that covers customers visiting the studio and Saturday classes of up to eight. It also needs a check on whether longarm service on a customer's own quilt is taxable. Sally confirms each with the city's Office of Revenue and the Georgia Department of Revenue before opening, and fees and rules may change. Sales tax collected from customers is passed on and left out of revenue.
Who Buys a Quilt in Atlanta
A small craft with few new entrants
The Bureau of Labor Statistics reports a median pay of $55,290 for craft and fine artists in May 2025 and 53,400 jobs in 2025, projects employment to fall 1% from 2025 to 2035, and records 58% of them as self-employed. The occupation is small and mostly solo. It is a loose proxy for quilting, and the studio does not rely on market growth. It relies on winning a larger share of local custom work and on selling to more than one kind of buyer.
Where the money is
Three groups spend on quilts in the Atlanta area. Families commission a memory or milestone quilt: a child's clothes, a late parent's shirts, a wedding. Home quilters pay to have their finished tops quilted on a longarm they cannot afford or fit in a house. Designers and facility buyers place art for hospitality, health care and offices. Each group buys on a different calendar, which is why the studio is built on all three.
What else a buyer could choose
| Alternative | What it offers | Why a buyer picks it | Where Copper Wharf differs |
|---|---|---|---|
| Print-on-demand blankets | Photo throws at low prices | Cheap and fast | The quilt is pieced by hand from the family's own cloth |
| Online craft marketplaces | Thousands of quilt sellers | Wide choice | A local maker, a fitting visit and a written design |
| Other local custom quilters | Memory and baby quilts | Established, often cheaper | Longarm finishing in house and a design-trade offer |
| Quilt shops with longarm service | Machine quilting for quilters | Convenient and close to the fabric | Faster turnaround on a dedicated machine |
| Department-store bedding | Mass-made quilts | Price | Not comparable as a keepsake |
The table describes categories, not named businesses, and retail prices are not quoted because they vary widely.
Strengths, weaknesses and the rest
Strengths: a maker with eleven years at the machine, nine paid deposits, a longarm that also earns from other quilters, an investor who knows the design trade, and four revenue lines.
Weaknesses: one person designs everything, so the first year depends on her health and hours, and her hours run past her capacity in March and April 2027. The studio is unknown outside Sally's circle. Nearly half of each year's sales arrive from September to December. A quilt cannot be made faster without cutting what customers pay for.
Opportunities: designers who want one-of-a-kind textiles, quilt guilds with no longarm, and memory quilts as gifts in the autumn.
Threats: low-price photo blankets, a competing longarm service opening nearby, rising fabric prices, and a downturn in gift spending.
Three Kinds of Customer
The family keepsake buyer
Typically a woman between 35 and 70 ordering for a wedding, a graduation, a baby, a retirement or a death in the family. She wants to be consulted, wants to see the design before cutting, and pays half up front. She does not compare prices line by line, but she does want the date promised.
The home quilter
She has pieced twenty quilt tops and has no frame. She drops the top and backing, picks a pattern from a binder and expects the quilt back in two weeks. She returns three or four times a year and tells her guild.
The designer or facility buyer
An interior designer or art consultant looking for a fiber piece for a lobby, patient room or restaurant. The buyer needs a sketch, an answer on flame retardancy where the project requires one, a fixed price and an install date. Designers and consultants keep their own commission, so the studio's price covers it.
Getting Orders
From first message to deposit
A message or form comes in. Sally replies within a day, books a 30-minute design call, sends a sketch and written quote within three days, and takes a 50% deposit to start. The balance is due at delivery. A queen quilt takes 8 to 12 weeks from deposit.
The price card
Prices are set by the quilt, with the equivalent per square inch shown because some quilters quote that way. Small quilts cost more per inch, because design, binding and the label take the same time whatever the size.
| Size | Typical finished size | Price | Per square inch | Making hours | Materials and fees | Share of commissions |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Baby or lap | 40 by 50 inches | $750 | 38 cents | 7 | $100 | 22% |
| Throw | 50 by 65 inches | $1,200 | 37 cents | 12 | $225 | 26% |
| Queen | 90 by 108 inches | $2,350 | 24 cents | 28 | $440 | 38% |
| King | 108 by 108 inches | $3,000 | 26 cents | 34 | $535 | 14% |
| Weighted average | $1,790 | 20.1 | $323 |
The prices, hours and materials are the studio's own planning figures and set against a labor cost of about $35 an hour. Sally sold 38 quilts in the twelve months to September 2026 at an average of about $1,350 from a spare bedroom, so the card is a 33% step up that rests on the studio setting, the fitting visit and the written design.
What a quilt earns
The table uses the studio's figures for Year 1. The $35 an hour is Year 1 payroll with on-costs ($99,007) divided by the 2,845 production hours available, owner pay included.
| Heirloom commission | Longarm quilt for a customer | |
|---|---|---|
| Price | $1,790 | $205 |
| Fabric, batting, thread and card fees | $323 | $21 |
| Labor (20.1 hours and 2.3 hours) | $702 | $81 |
| Left toward rent, marketing, owner time away from the machines and profit | $765 | $103 |
Prices over time
Commission prices rise from $1,790 to $2,020 over five years and longarm prices from $205 to $231, about 3% a year. Customer longarm volume is capped at 460 quilts because the machine is close to full beyond that.
Year 1 yield
| Source | Commissions | Longarm clients |
|---|---|---|
| Referrals and repeat customers | 24 | 10 |
| Website and local search | 16 | 7 |
| Instagram and Pinterest | 12 | 0 |
| Quilt shows and guild talks | 12 | 14 |
| Partner quilt shops | 0 | 10 |
| Total | 64 | 41 |
The 41 longarm clients bring about four quilts each a year, which is the 165 quilts in the model. The studio expects about five design-trade enquiries in 2027 to turn into two installed pieces, in June and November. The 64 commissions are 1.7 times the 38 delivered in the twelve months to September 2026.
Marketing: Shows, Shops and Search
Year 1 marketing is $24,000: $9,000 of launch spending from the start-up capital and $15,000 from the operating budget. Spread over 105 commission and longarm customers, that is about $229 each, or 13% of one average commission. The share of revenue falls from 14% in Year 1 to 4% by Year 5, when it is $22,000. Show booth fees and travel are a separate $4,500 line in the costs.
| Item | Year 1 spend | What it is for |
|---|---|---|
| Portfolio photography and website (launch) | $6,000 | A gallery of finished quilts, a quote form and a page for designers |
| Two quilt show booths (launch) | $3,000 | First introductions to home quilters and gift buyers |
| Local search and Google Business Profile | $2,500 | Searches such as "custom memory quilt Atlanta" and "longarm quilting Atlanta" |
| Instagram and Pinterest | $3,000 | Process posts and short videos that lead to the quote form |
| Guild talks and show entries | $1,500 | Presentations to quilt guilds in the metro area |
| Designer outreach | $3,500 | Swatch books, a sample wall piece and two trade days |
| Referral thank-yous and email | $1,500 | A label and a note after each delivery |
| Partner quilt shop program | $3,000 | A 10% fee on first-year quilting from customers a shop sends (about $800 in Year 1), plus sample quilts and flyer racks for eight shops |
Milestones
- March 2027: the nine booked commissions delivered, first partner shop signed.
- June 2027: first design-trade piece installed.
- November 2027: nine commissions delivered in the month and the second design-trade piece installed.
- December 2027: 64 commissions and 165 customer quilts delivered for the year.
Inside the Studio
The workshop
Rent is $30,800 in Year 1 for about 1,400 square feet, $22 a square foot all in, on a five-year lease with a personal guarantee, rising 3% a year. That is a planning figure to check against listings, and the lease draft will separate base rent from building charges. The longarm needs a clear room of roughly 14 by 20 feet. Cutting tables and a design wall stand in the front room, which doubles as the class space on Saturdays.
Machine hours and capacity
The longarm is the bottleneck and Sally's hours are the early limit. A commission averages 20.1 hours of work, of which 2.65 are at the longarm (1, 1.8, 3.5 and 4.5 hours for the four sizes), a customer quilt 2.3 hours, a design-trade piece about 60 hours, 6 of them at the longarm, plus 30 hours a year of sampling, a class session 5 hours and the pattern line 40 hours a year. Machine-room hours add commissions at 2.65, customer quilts at 2.3 and design-trade pieces at 6. Against that, Sally has 1,400 productive hours in Year 1 and 1,200 afterward, the production sewist 1,700 a year, the operator 1,600 and each seasonal sewist about 78 a month.
| Year 1 | Year 2 | Year 3 | Year 4 | Year 5 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Making hours the work needs | 1,913 | 3,092 | 4,056 | 4,423 | 4,626 |
| Productive hours available | 2,845 | 3,745 | 4,862 | 5,274 | 5,274 |
| Share of available hours used | 67% | 83% | 83% | 84% | 88% |
| Busiest month against that month's hours | 112% (April) | 103% (May, June, August) | 110% (November) | 102% (November) | 107% (November) |
| Machine-room hours | 561 | 1,016 | 1,355 | 1,440 | 1,485 |
| Share of a 1,650-hour year | 34% | 62% | 82% | 87% | 90% |
| Busiest machine month, hours a week | 16 | 29 | 39 | 41 | 43 |
Monthly need follows Year 1's delivery pattern and puts each quilt's hours in the month it is delivered, with 4.33 weeks to a month. That is the stricter reading: work for November deliveries actually starts in September, which lowers the November peak and fills the quieter months, and the nine booked quilts are started in December 2026. Even so, the thin months are clear. In Year 1 the work is 66% of Sally's hours in January, 87% in February, 110% in March and 112% in April, until the sewist starts on 1 May, and she covers March and April with longer weeks. In Year 2 the crew runs at 101% to 103% from May to August until the operator starts in September. From Year 3 November runs 102% to 110%, and hourly staff are paid overtime for it. By Year 5 the single frame is busy 43 hours a week in November, against a planning ceiling of about 45 hours a week for one frame shared by two people. That is why customer longarm volume stops at 460 quilts and no second frame is in the plan.
Wages and hours
Every wage is above the federal minimum of $7.25 an hour. The lowest is the seasonal sewist at about $17.30 an hour. The production sewist and the operator are hourly, so hours over 40 in a week are paid at time and a half under federal rules. Sally is paid a salary of $48,000 as owner and works longer weeks in the thin months without extra pay.
How a quilt moves through
Design call and sketch, a fabric pull and wash, cutting, piecing, pressing, layering, longarm quilting, binding, a label and a photograph. Sally checks every quilt before it leaves. Customer-supplied tops are logged on arrival and photographed so any existing flaw is on record.
Equipment and upkeep
A longarm with a 12-foot frame and a computerized stitch regulator, three piecing stations, a serger and a steam-press station. The longarm is carried at $36,000 including freight, installation and dealer training. Dealer listings in 2026 put a new APQS Millie on a table frame at $26,999 to $27,699 before computerization, and a limited-edition Handi Quilter Amara 20 with a 12-foot frame and the Pro-Stitcher Premium computer at $28,990. The $36,000 sits above those prices to cover computerization, freight, sales tax and setup, and a written dealer quote replaces it. Servicing, needles and blades cost $2,000 in Year 1 and $6,000 by Year 5. Replacement tools come out of operating cash.
Insurance, customers' property and records
Business property and general liability cover, a policy that includes customers' goods in the studio's care, and Georgia workers' compensation once the first employee starts. Insurance is $5,000 in Year 1. Customers sign a written quote with a stated value limit for their own quilts and tops, and the studio keeps photographs of each quilt. Digital patterns for the longarm and published quilt patterns carry license terms, so the studio buys commercial-use licenses before running a design on a customer's quilt, and it does not make quilts for sale from licensed-character or team-logo fabric.
The Maker and the Team
Sally Harper, founder and lead quilt artist
Sally has quilted for eleven years. For the last four she sold commissions from a spare bedroom through word of mouth and a guild she teaches at, finishing 38 quilts in the twelve months to September 2026. Her $70,000 is savings. She is leaving a salaried job in textile design to run the studio full time, and she pays herself $48,000 from the first month, below the $55,290 median pay for craft and fine artists in the Bureau of Labor Statistics figures.
What she has not done
Sally has not run payroll, has not sold to a design firm and has never kept a longarm busy for 1,500 hours a year. Sally covers this with a payroll service, introductions from the investor to design firms, and a check at month 12 on whether the designer pipeline has produced a second order.
Hires
A production sewist in month 5, a seasonal finishing sewist for September to December from month 9, a longarm operator in month 21, a part-time studio coordinator in month 33 and a second seasonal sewist from month 45. Each starts when the hours table shows the existing team running out of room.
Advice and lenders
A bookkeeper reviews the books monthly. A quilt guild friend with a retail background reviews pricing each quarter. The community lender takes a personal guarantee, and the equipment lender holds a lien on the longarm. The investor takes no salary, does not work in the studio and meets Sally each quarter. The $80,000 is equity with no repayment date.
Money plan for the studio
The figures below come from one five-year model: month by month for 2027, then a yearly view. Funding and the working figures come first so each number can be traced to a reason, and a stress table and the questions a lender would still ask follow the statements.
Equipment, stock and funding
| Use of funds | Amount |
|---|---|
| Longarm machine, 12-foot frame, computerized stitch regulator, freight, installation and dealer training | $36,000 |
| Three piecing stations, a serger and a steam-press station | $10,500 |
| Cutting tables, design wall, shelving, class tables and photo lighting | $10,500 |
| Studio fit-out: longarm room partition, lighting, flooring, circuits, counter and display wall | $16,000 |
| Opening stock of cotton, batting, backing and thread | $7,500 |
| City business license, sales-tax registration and zoning check | $900 |
| Legal: LLC, lease review, commission contract and design-trade terms | $3,200 |
| Launch: portfolio photography, website with quote form, first show booths | $9,000 |
| Rent and utilities during the two-month fit-out and machine installation | $5,600 |
| Lease security deposit (one month of rent, held until the lease ends) | $2,600 |
| Cash reserve for the slow first year and the seasonal trough | $128,200 |
| Total uses | $230,000 |
| Source of funds | Amount |
|---|---|
| Sally Harper's savings | $70,000 |
| Longarm equipment loan | $30,000 |
| Local investor with a commercial-interiors background (30% stake) | $80,000 |
| Community-lender working-capital term loan | $50,000 |
| Total sources | $230,000 |
Sally Harper puts in $70,000 of savings. A local investor with a commercial-interiors background pays $80,000 for 30% of the LLC, a post-money value of about $267,000 that reflects Sally's eleven years at the machine, the nine booked commissions and the investor's introductions to design firms. Sally keeps 70%. Equity is $150,000, 65% of the $230,000 total. The other $80,000 is borrowed twice: $30,000 of dealer financing on the longarm, 83% of its cost, repaid over seven years at 9.5%, and a $50,000 term loan from a community lender at 11%, interest-only for six months and repaid over seven years. The second loan is sized to the SBA microloan program, which caps loans at $50,000 and allows terms up to seven years. Both rates are planning figures, not offers. The equipment lender holds a lien on the longarm and the community lender takes a personal guarantee from Sally. Spending is $73,000 for machines, furnishings and fit-out, $7,500 for opening stock, $18,700 for permits, legal work, launch marketing and two months of rent before opening, and a $2,600 lease deposit. The remaining $128,200 is a reserve. Cash figures in this plan include the $2,600 deposit, which the landlord holds until the lease ends, so spendable cash is $2,600 lower.
The reserve is sized to the seasonal cash low in 2028 and 2029 and not to the first year, when the autumn orders refill the account: Year 1 month-end cash in the monthly view bottoms out at about $72,000 in October 2027. Years 2 to 4 are annual columns in the engine, so their lows are estimated outside it. Month-end cash is the prior December balance on the annual statements, plus one-twelfth of that year's net change in cash each month, plus the month's revenue above or below an average month multiplied by the year's gross margin. Revenue follows Year 1's monthly pattern for commissions, customer quilts and classes and is spread evenly for design-trade pieces, and costs, loan payments and working-capital changes are spread evenly. On that basis cash falls to about $36,300 in August 2028 and about $35,900 in April 2029, and stays higher in later years. Three conventions pull in different directions, shown here for the August 2028 and April 2029 lows. Commissions are recorded at delivery, so deposits (half the price, received about two months earlier) are not counted, which understates cash by about $19,900 and $17,500. Seasonal sewists' pay is spread over twelve months though it is paid from September, which understates cash by about $4,600 and $2,400. Fabric is counted when quilts are sold and not when it is bought, which overstates cash by up to about $7,200 and $6,300. Net, the two estimates sit about $17,000 and $13,600 below a timed view. The gross margin in the method is gross profit over revenue in the profit and loss, 81.5%; the margin after the added direct-cost line is 80.6% in Year 2 and 80.3% in Year 3, and using it would lift the two lows by about $300 and $450.
If the studio opens two months late, January and February sales are lost while rent, pay and every hire stay on their dates, and the estimated low falls to about $25,400 in April 2029, which the reserve covers. A slip that took the gift season, September to December sales at 47% of Year 1, would turn the estimate negative and is outside what the reserve is sized for.
Working figures
- Commissions average $1,790 in Year 1 across four sizes: baby or lap quilts at $750, throws at $1,200, queens at $2,350 and kings at $3,000, in a mix of 22%, 26%, 38% and 14%. The price card is in the Getting Orders section. Deliveries run from 64 quilts in Year 1, nine of them already booked with deposits, to 134 in Year 5, and the average price rises about 3% a year to $2,020. Half of a commission is paid at order and half at delivery, and the full price is recorded at delivery.
- A commission averages 20.1 hours of work: design visit and sketch, fabric pull and wash, cutting, piecing, pressing, layering, longarm quilting (2.65 of the hours), binding and label. A customer quilt takes 2.3 hours in the machine room, a design-trade piece about 60 hours plus 30 hours a year of sampling, a class session 5 hours and the pattern line 40 hours a year. These hours set the headcount, and the capacity table in Inside the Studio sets them against the hours on the payroll.
- Longarm work for other quilters averages $205 a quilt in Year 1. Edge-to-edge quilting at 2.5 cents a square inch on a typical 7,000-square-inch top is $175, and extras such as binding, extra-dense designs and minimum-charge top-ups bring the average to $205. A June 2026 pricing guide from a longarm dealer puts basic edge-to-edge between 1 and 3 cents a square inch, with 2 cents the most common, so the studio prices in the upper half of that range and local rates remain to be confirmed. Volume rises from 165 quilts in Year 1, from about 41 clients at four quilts each, to 460 in Year 5 and stops there, because the single frame is at 90% of a 1,650-hour year by then. Fees rise about 3% a year to $231.
- Art quilts for the design trade sell at $7,500 in Year 1 and rise to $8,450 by Year 5. Two pieces are installed in Year 1, in June and November, then 6, 9, 11 and 12 a year. Revenue is recorded when a piece is installed, so the 50% deposit taken at order is not counted until then, and the balance is invoiced net 30, which is part of why receivables are set at seven days of sales. Direct costs on the line are 35%: 18 points for the designer's or consultant's commission, a planning figure that varies by firm, and 17 points for materials, hardware, a flame-retardancy test or treatment where a project requires one, crating and installation.
- Classes seat 8 students at $95. Year 1 runs 12 sessions with 6 students on average ($570 a session, $6,840 in all), and pattern downloads add $930 from May. Year 2 runs 16 sessions at 6.5 students, Year 3 18 sessions at 6.5 and Years 4 and 5 18 sessions at 7, with pattern sales of $2,500, $3,500, $4,300 and $5,000. Direct costs are 32%, for kits, handouts and card fees.
- Direct costs are 18% of commissions, 10% of customer longarm work, 35% of design-trade pieces and 32% of classes and patterns. The engine applies the Year 1 blend, 18.5% of revenue, to every year. Design-trade pieces rise from 8.8% to 20.5% of sales, so a separate line in the profit and loss adds the difference, $2,575 in Year 2 and $8,416 in Year 5, which lifts direct costs to 20.2% of Year 5 revenue. Every case in the stress table uses the same line-by-line rates.
- Stock is the $7,500 opening fill plus 30% of a year's direct costs, $17,022 at the end of Year 1 or about 6.4 months of direct costs. That is heavy because a quilt studio holds thread in every color, batting by the roll and a swatch library. Suppliers are paid in 18 days and receivables are 7 days of sales.
- Payroll on-costs are 27% for full-time staff, covering payroll taxes, Georgia workers' compensation, health cover and a small retirement match, and 12% to 15% for part-time roles. Sally is paid $48,000 from month 1, below the $55,290 median pay the Bureau of Labor Statistics reports for craft and fine artists in May 2025. The production sewist earns $37,000 ($17.79 an hour on 2,080 hours), the longarm operator $41,000 ($19.71), the coordinator $19,000 for 20 hours a week ($18.27) and each seasonal sewist $18,000 at an annual-equivalent rate, which pays about 20 hours a week from September to December, roughly $6,000 a year before on-costs. The Department of Labor's state minimum wage page, updated 1 July 2026, lists Georgia's own minimum at $5.15 an hour and the federal minimum at $7.25 for covered employers, and every wage here is well above both. Hourly staff are paid time and a half for hours over 40 in a week, and the overtime line is $1,000 in Year 2, $1,900 in Year 3, $500 in Year 4 and $1,500 in Year 5. A 3% raise each year is a separate line from Year 2.
- Productive hours set the supply side: 1,400 for Sally in Year 1 and 1,200 afterward (1,350 once the coordinator joins), 1,700 for the production sewist, 1,600 for the operator and about 78 a month for each seasonal sewist. Sally also designs, quotes, sells, photographs and runs the shows, so between a third and two-fifths of her paid hours are away from a machine.
- Rent is $30,800 in Year 1 for about 1,400 square feet of flex space on Atlanta's west side, $22 a square foot all in, with 3% annual increases. That is a planning figure to test against listings, and the lease draft will separate base rent from building charges. The longarm needs a room of about 14 by 20 feet. Two months of rent and utilities before opening ($5,600) are in the start-up costs, and a one-month deposit ($2,600) stays in cash.
- Insurance is $5,000 in Year 1 for a business owner's policy covering equipment, general liability and customers' property in the studio's care; workers' compensation sits in the payroll on-costs. Professional fees of $4,500 pay for a bookkeeper's monthly review, a payroll service and the tax return. Software is $3,600 for accounting, quoting and scheduling, quilt-design software, licensed digital patterns for the longarm and the website. Refunds, re-dos and bad debt run about 0.9% of revenue. All are planning figures for a broker, a bookkeeper and vendors to replace. Georgia sales tax collected from customers is passed on and left out of revenue.
- Income tax is charged at 21% federal (26 U.S.C. 11(b)) plus 5.19% for Georgia, an effective 25.1% combined because the engine deducts Georgia tax before the federal rate. The Georgia rate is the one in the 2025 Georgia corporate return instructions, which say later years may change. An LLC taxed through its owners would be taxed differently, so entity-level rates are a cautious planning figure. The Year 1 and Year 2 losses ($54,439) carry forward. The engine's tax base leaves out the $18,700 of start-up costs, which would shelter about $4,700 of tax if deductible, and the federal 80% limit on using carried-forward losses (26 U.S.C. 172(a)(2)), which would move about $1,400 of tax into Year 3 and take it back out of Years 4 and 5, with no change over five years. Both adjustments are computed outside the engine at the effective 25.1% and are approximate.
- One distribution of $20,000 in Year 5 is 47% of that year's net income ($42,163) and 61% of five-year cumulative net income ($33,048), so cumulative distributions never exceed cumulative net income. Cash after the payout ($129,014) is more than four times the remaining debt ($29,991), and a lender would likely set a minimum cash balance before any payout.
Revenue by line of work
| Revenue stream | Year 1 | Year 2 | Year 3 | Year 4 | Year 5 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Heirloom and memory quilt commissions | $114,560 | $169,740 | $224,200 | $250,880 | $270,680 |
| Longarm quilting for other quilters | $33,825 | $67,520 | $93,310 | $100,800 | $106,260 |
| Art quilts for the design trade | $15,000 | $46,200 | $71,550 | $90,200 | $101,400 |
| Studio classes and patterns | $7,770 | $12,380 | $14,615 | $16,270 | $16,970 |
| Total revenue | $171,155 | $295,840 | $403,675 | $458,150 | $495,310 |
| Growth on prior year | – | 73% | 36% | 13% | 8% |
Commissions are the largest line and the one with the most pricing control: 66.9% of Year 1 revenue and 54.6% of Year 5. Customer longarm work is the steady line that keeps the machine busy between commissions, at 19.8% in Year 1 and 21.5% in Year 5. Design-trade pieces are 8.8% of Year 1 revenue, because the first ones come from introductions made at launch, and 20.5% of Year 5, the fastest-growing line. The 73% rise in Year 2 is mostly Year 1's ramp annualizing. The average month of Year 2 ($24,653) is 40% above the average month of the second half of 2027 ($17,560), a step a lender would test: commission deliveries rise from 6.8 to 7.7 a month, customer quilts from 16 to 26.7 a month (67%, the biggest step in the plan) and design-trade pieces from two in the year to six.
Month by month in Year 1
| Month | Heirloom and memory quilt commissions | Longarm quilting for other quilters | Art quilts for the design trade | Studio classes and patterns | Total revenue | EBITDA |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Jan 2027 | $3,580 | $1,435 | $0 | $0 | $5,015 | ($10,424) |
| Feb 2027 | $5,370 | $1,845 | $0 | $570 | $7,785 | ($8,168) |
| Mar 2027 | $7,160 | $2,460 | $0 | $570 | $10,190 | ($6,209) |
| Apr 2027 | $7,160 | $2,665 | $0 | $570 | $10,395 | ($6,042) |
| May 2027 | $8,950 | $2,870 | $0 | $620 | $12,440 | ($4,376) |
| Jun 2027 | $8,950 | $2,870 | $7,500 | $650 | $19,970 | $1,758 |
| Jul 2027 | $8,950 | $2,665 | $0 | $80 | $11,695 | ($4,983) |
| Aug 2027 | $8,950 | $2,870 | $0 | $670 | $12,490 | ($4,335) |
| Sep 2027 | $12,530 | $3,280 | $0 | $690 | $16,500 | ($1,069) |
| Oct 2027 | $14,320 | $3,690 | $0 | $1,290 | $19,300 | $1,212 |
| Nov 2027 | $16,110 | $4,100 | $7,500 | $1,340 | $29,050 | $9,154 |
| Dec 2027 | $12,530 | $3,075 | $0 | $720 | $16,325 | ($1,211) |
Revenue is lowest in January and builds to a peak in November, when gift quilts are delivered and the second design-trade piece is installed. September to December bring in $81,175, 47% of the year. The lumpy months in the design-trade column are the installs of single pieces. EBITDA is positive in June, October and November and negative in the other nine months. The lowest month-end cash in this monthly view is about $72,000 in October 2027, once seven days of receivables are set aside. The year-end balance of $70,835 on the annual statements is not the same series: the monthly view reaches $82,074 in December because it carries no stock build beyond the opening fill, no receivables and no supplier credit. Cash figures include the $2,600 lease deposit.
Who sews and who quilts
| Role | Annual wage | Starts | Year 1 end | Year 2 end | Year 3 end | Year 4 end | Year 5 end |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Founder and lead quilt artist | $48,000 | Month 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 |
| Production sewist (piecing and binding) | $37,000 | Month 5 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 |
| Seasonal finishing sewist (part time, September to December) | $18,000 | Month 9 | 0.5 | 0.5 | 0.5 | 0.5 | 0.5 |
| Longarm operator | $41,000 | Month 21 | – | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 |
| Studio coordinator (part time, 20 hours a week) | $19,000 | Month 33 | – | – | 0.5 | 0.5 | 0.5 |
| Second seasonal finishing sewist (part time, September to December) | $18,000 | Month 45 | – | – | – | 0.5 | 0.5 |
| Total payroll incl. on-costs | $99,007 | $132,027 | $174,023 | $195,310 | $195,310 |
Sally works alone for the first four months, and her hours are the constraint from March: the capacity table in Inside the Studio puts March and April 2027 at 110% and 112% of her productive hours, which she covers with longer weeks and by starting the nine booked quilts in December 2026. A production sewist joins in month 5 (May 2027), and a seasonal finishing sewist covers September to December from month 9. The longarm operator starts in month 21 (September 2028), which takes customer quilting off Sally's bench before the second gift season; until then May to August 2028 runs at 101% to 103% of available hours. A part-time coordinator who handles quotes, shipping and the class calendar joins in month 33 (September 2029), and a second seasonal sewist in month 45 (September 2030). Seasonal roles are shown at annual-equivalent pay and paid for four months, and they show as 0.5 in December. Sally's $48,000 is in the costs from month 1, so the profit lines are what remains after she is paid.
Profit and loss
| Year 1 | Year 2 | Year 3 | Year 4 | Year 5 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Revenue | $171,155 | $295,840 | $403,675 | $458,150 | $495,310 |
| Direct costs (fabric, batting, thread, design-trade commissions, card fees) | ($31,740) | ($54,862) | ($74,859) | ($84,961) | ($91,852) |
| Gross profit | $139,415 | $240,978 | $328,816 | $373,189 | $403,458 |
| Payroll incl. on-costs | ($99,007) | ($132,027) | ($174,023) | ($195,310) | ($195,310) |
| Rent | ($30,800) | ($31,700) | ($32,650) | ($33,600) | ($34,600) |
| Utilities | ($4,400) | ($4,600) | ($4,750) | ($4,900) | ($5,050) |
| Marketing | ($15,000) | ($19,000) | ($20,000) | ($21,000) | ($22,000) |
| Insurance | ($5,000) | ($5,400) | ($5,800) | ($6,200) | ($6,600) |
| Professional fees | ($4,500) | ($4,800) | ($5,100) | ($5,400) | ($5,700) |
| Software subscriptions | ($3,600) | ($4,200) | ($4,600) | ($4,800) | ($5,000) |
| Quilt show booth fees and travel | ($4,500) | ($6,000) | ($7,000) | ($7,500) | ($8,000) |
| Shipping, packaging and archival boxes | ($2,000) | ($2,800) | ($3,500) | ($3,900) | ($4,200) |
| Machine servicing, needles, blades and replacement tools | ($2,000) | ($3,200) | ($4,200) | ($5,200) | ($6,000) |
| Refunds, re-dos and bad debt allowance | ($1,500) | ($2,500) | ($3,500) | ($4,000) | ($4,400) |
| Business license renewal, county personal property tax on equipment and guild dues | ($1,800) | ($1,900) | ($2,000) | ($2,100) | ($2,200) |
| Overtime for hourly staff in the busiest months | $0 | ($1,000) | ($1,900) | ($500) | ($1,500) |
| Added direct costs as art pieces take a larger share of sales | $0 | ($2,575) | ($4,547) | ($7,054) | ($8,416) |
| Annual pay raises (3% a year) | $0 | ($3,961) | ($10,598) | ($18,111) | ($24,513) |
| EBITDA | ($34,691) | $15,316 | $44,647 | $53,614 | $69,968 |
| Depreciation | ($9,800) | ($9,800) | ($9,800) | ($9,800) | ($9,800) |
| Interest | ($8,153) | ($7,310) | ($6,283) | ($5,142) | ($3,876) |
| Income tax | $0 | $0 | $0 | ($3,212) | ($14,129) |
| Net income before start-up costs | ($52,644) | ($1,795) | $28,564 | $35,460 | $42,163 |
| Start-up costs expensed at opening (permits, legal, launch marketing, pre-opening rent) | ($18,700) | $0 | $0 | $0 | $0 |
| Net income after start-up costs | ($71,344) | ($1,795) | $28,564 | $35,460 | $42,163 |
Year 1 loses $52,644 before start-up costs and $71,344 after them. Rent and Sally's pay run all year and the sewist joins in May, while 47% of revenue arrives from September to December. Year 2 earns EBITDA of $15,316, but depreciation of $9,800 and interest of $7,310 leave a net loss of $1,795. Year 3 is the first profitable year, with net income of $28,564 on EBITDA of $44,647 (11.1% of revenue). Net income is $35,460 in Year 4 and $42,163 in Year 5. Income tax first appears in Year 4 ($3,212), after the losses of Years 1 and 2 ($54,439) have been used, and is $14,129 in Year 5. Direct costs are 18.5% of revenue in the engine and reach 20.2% in Year 5 once the added line for design-trade pieces is included.
Cash movements
| Year 1 | Year 2 | Year 3 | Year 4 | Year 5 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cash from operations | ($80,283) | ($182) | $31,283 | $41,683 | $49,523 |
| Longarm, machines and studio fit-out | ($73,000) | $0 | $0 | $0 | $0 |
| Funding received | $230,000 | $0 | $0 | $0 | $0 |
| Loan principal repaid | ($5,881) | ($9,374) | ($10,402) | ($11,542) | ($12,809) |
| Owner distributions | $0 | $0 | $0 | $0 | ($20,000) |
| Net change in cash | $70,835 | ($9,557) | $20,881 | $30,140 | $16,714 |
| Closing cash | $70,835 | $61,278 | $82,160 | $112,300 | $129,014 |
Operations absorb $80,283 in Year 1, after $18,700 of start-up costs and $17,022 of fabric, batting and thread stock (the $7,500 opening fill and $9,522 more). Year 2 cash from operations is slightly negative, and $9,374 of loan principal takes closing cash from $70,835 to $61,278, the lowest year-end balance. Cash then rises to $82,160 in Year 3 and $112,300 in Year 4, and ends Year 5 at $129,014 after the $20,000 distribution. Year-end figures hide the seasonal swing: on the estimate in the funding note, month-end cash falls to about $36,300 in August 2028 and about $35,900 in April 2029, before the autumn orders refill it. From Year 3 cash is larger than the remaining debt, and prepaying the community loan is an option the model does not use.
Balance sheet
| At year end | Year 1 | Year 2 | Year 3 | Year 4 | Year 5 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cash | $70,835 | $61,278 | $82,160 | $112,300 | $129,014 |
| Accounts receivable | $3,282 | $5,674 | $7,742 | $8,786 | $9,499 |
| Fabric, batting and thread stock | $17,022 | $23,959 | $29,958 | $32,988 | $35,056 |
| Longarm, machines and studio fit-out (net) | $63,200 | $53,400 | $43,600 | $33,800 | $24,000 |
| Total assets | $154,340 | $144,311 | $163,459 | $187,875 | $197,568 |
| Owed to fabric and supply vendors | $1,565 | $2,706 | $3,692 | $4,190 | $4,530 |
| Equipment and term loans | $74,119 | $64,744 | $54,342 | $42,800 | $29,991 |
| Paid-in capital | $150,000 | $150,000 | $150,000 | $150,000 | $150,000 |
| Retained earnings | ($71,344) | ($73,139) | ($44,575) | ($9,115) | $13,048 |
| Total liabilities and equity | $154,340 | $144,311 | $163,459 | $187,875 | $197,568 |
Margins and break-even
| Measure | Year 1 | Year 2 | Year 3 | Year 4 | Year 5 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| EBITDA margin | -20.3% | 5.2% | 11.1% | 11.7% | 14.1% |
| Net margin (before start-up costs) | -30.8% | -0.6% | 7.1% | 7.7% | 8.5% |
| Payroll incl. pay raises as share of revenue | 58% | 46% | 46% | 47% | 44% |
| Revenue per full-time equivalent at year end | $68,462 | $84,526 | $100,919 | $101,811 | $110,069 |
| Average monthly revenue | $14,263 | $24,653 | $33,640 | $38,179 | $41,276 |
| Monthly revenue needed to cover operating costs | $17,812 | $23,086 | $29,072 | $32,694 | $34,118 |
| Debt service cover (EBITDA / interest + principal) | -2.5x | 0.9x | 2.7x | 3.2x | 4.2x |
Year 1 averages $14,263 a month against $17,812 needed, so it loses money. Year 2 averages $24,653 against $23,086, 7% above the line over the year, but on Year 1's pattern the eight months from January to August average about $20,300, below it, which is why cash falls through the summer. Year 3 averages $33,640 against $29,072 and Year 5 $41,276 against $34,118. Debt service cover is negative in Year 1, 0.9x in Year 2, 2.7x in Year 3 and 4.2x in Year 5. Year 2 is below the 1.25x test lenders often set, so the studio would ask for the test to start with the Year 3 figures. Revenue per full-time equivalent is $100,919 in Year 3, and payroll with raises is 46% of revenue in Years 2 and 3.
If orders come in a fifth short
| Year 1 | Year 2 | Year 3 | Year 4 | Year 5 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Revenue | $136,924 | $236,672 | $322,940 | $366,520 | $396,248 |
| Net income before start-up costs | ($67,011) | ($13,180) | $25,499 | $16,267 | $30,782 |
| Net income after start-up costs | ($85,711) | ($13,180) | $25,499 | $16,267 | $30,782 |
| Closing cash | $58,716 | $39,412 | $58,644 | $70,306 | $96,127 |
Every revenue line is 20% lower in every year, from the first month, and Sally responds once the shortfall shows. From month 7 (July 2027) her pay falls 20%, to $38,400. The seasonal sewist is not hired for the autumn of 2027. Marketing is cut 20% from Year 2, because the Year 1 launch and show spending is committed. The longarm operator starts in month 33 (September 2029) instead of month 21, the coordinator and the second seasonal sewist are never hired, and a fixed $3,000 of overtime and temporary help covers May to August 2029, when the crew runs up to 9% over its hours. That sum replaces the base case's overtime line, because the smaller order book fits inside the crew's hours in every other year except November 2031, when it runs about 12 hours over (under $500, left unbudgeted). Shipping, refunds and the added direct-cost line follow sales, and no distribution is paid. Everything else, including rent, utilities, insurance, software, professional fees, show fees, servicing and license costs, stays at plan. On those terms the studio loses $85,711 in Year 1 after start-up costs and $13,180 in Year 2, then earns $25,499, $16,267 and $30,782 in Years 3 to 5. Year-end cash is lowest at $39,412 at the close of Year 2 and below the base case in every year, and the estimated lowest month-end balance, on the base-case method, is about $20,000 in April 2029. Year 1 equity closes at $64,289. Debt service cover is -3.5x, 0.2x, 2.5x, 1.9x and 2.7x in Years 1 to 5, under a likely 1.25x test in Years 1 and 2 only. Sally would ask the lenders to waive the test for 2027 and 2028 and begin it with the 2029 figures, to set a month-end cash floor of $15,000 (which includes the $2,600 lease deposit, so the downside's lowest balance of about $20,000 is about $17,400 of spendable cash), to bar distributions until two test dates in a row are above 1.25x, and to hold a $25,000 standby line that the model leaves undrawn. Without the response, the same shortfall leaves year-end cash $8,640 below zero at the close of Year 2 and the studio loses money in every year.
Stress Tests and Open Questions
Ten cases, one method
The table starts from the base case and alters a single input in every year. Sally takes no corrective action in any row, and no distribution is paid. Shipping, refunds and the added direct-cost line follow revenue. Direct costs are rebuilt line by line at each line's own rate (18% for commissions, 10% for customer longarm work, 35% for design-trade pieces and 32% for classes), so a row that shrinks one line removes that line's sales together with that line's own direct cost, and the blended rate plays no part. Lowest year-end cash is the annual-statement balance. The month-end column is the Years 1 to 4 estimate from the funding note, on the same basis as the base figure. In the opening row, January and February sales are lost while rent, pay and every hire stay on their planned dates and sales-driven costs follow the lower revenue. The last row loses September to December 2027 sales on the same terms.
| Case | Year 1 net income after start-up costs | Year 3 net income | Lowest year-end cash | Approximate lowest month-end cash, Years 1 to 4 | Year 3 debt service cover |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Base case | ($71,344) | $28,564 | $61,278 (Year 2) | $35,899 (April 2029) | 2.7x |
| Revenue 10% under plan | ($84,936) | ($3,162) | $14,068 (Year 4) | ($22,580) (August 2030) | 0.8x |
| Commissions 25% under plan | ($94,243) | ($16,425) | ($35,907) (Year 5) | ($61,610) (August 2030) | 0.0x |
| Customer longarm quilts 30% under plan | ($80,269) | $3,856 | $31,990 (Year 3) | ($1,360) (August 2030) | 1.2x |
| Design-trade pieces halved | ($76,066) | $5,931 | $43,248 (Year 3) | $5,036 (August 2030) | 1.3x |
| Direct costs 3 points higher | ($76,479) | $16,454 | $45,044 (Year 2) | $14,268 (August 2029) | 2.0x |
| Wages 10% higher | ($81,245) | $10,102 | $37,779 (Year 2) | $1,930 (August 2029) | 1.6x |
| Rent 10% higher | ($74,424) | $25,299 | $55,028 (Year 2) | $28,561 (April 2029) | 2.5x |
| Opening two months late | ($81,761) | $28,564 | $50,743 (Year 2) | $25,413 (April 2029) | 2.7x |
| Gift season lost | ($135,539) | $28,564 | ($2,696) (Year 2) | ($28,166) (April 2029) | 2.7x |
Several results here are fragile, and a lender would read them that way. A 10% revenue miss with no response wipes out Year 3 profit and sends the estimated low below zero from August 2029. A 25% miss in commissions alone is worse: losses run through Year 4, year-end cash is negative from Year 3 and debt cover is still 0.9x in Year 5. Wages 10% higher cut Year 3 net income by 65% and direct costs three points higher cut it by 42%, while rent 10% higher takes $3,265. The reserve absorbs the two-month opening slip, leaving an estimated low near $25,400. It does not absorb the loss of the gift season, so the lease start and the opening permits matter far more than a few weeks of rent. The downside case above holds through a 20% shortfall only because Sally acts: a pay cut from July 2027, a later operator hire and less marketing from Year 2.
What a lender would still ask
- Debt cover is negative in Year 1, 0.9x in Year 2 and 2.7x in Year 3. Debt service is $16,685 a year from Year 2, and the reserve carries it until profit does, so the lenders rely on the equity, Sally's guarantee and about $63,000 of net equipment and fit-out that would fetch far less if sold. Would they begin the test with the Year 3 figures?
- Reserve against the low: $128,200 is raised, the estimated base-case low is about $35,900 and the downside low about $20,000. A $25,000 standby line is requested and has not been offered. Customer deposits are not held back as a liability in the model.
- Lease terms: length, the guarantee, whether $22 a square foot covers every charge, renewal rights, any allowance from the landlord (none is counted) and a start date tied to the opening permits.
- The calendar: the city license, the zoning check for classes and visitors, the fit-out and the machine's delivery against a 1 January 2027 opening. The stress table prices a two-month slip at $10,417 of Year 1 net income and a lost gift season at $64,195.
- The longarm: a dealer quote against the $36,000 planning figure, the resale value if the studio closes, the lien, and a $30,000 loan that finances 83% of the cost.
- The price step: quilts sold in the twelve months to September 2026 averaged about $1,350 and the card averages $1,790, on 64 quilts against 38.
- The Year 2 step of 73%, which depends on customer longarm quilts rising from 16 a month to 26.7 as clients double to about 80.
- Capacity: March and April 2027 at 110% and 112% of Sally's hours, the operator not hired until September 2028, and the machine at 90% of a 1,650-hour year by Year 5 with no second frame.
- Customers' property and deposits: the insurance limit on customers' quilts, the contract wording for uncollected quilts, and the deposits held. About $6,600 of deposits for early-2028 deliveries would sit on the balance sheet at the end of Year 1, and none are recorded in the model.
- Design-trade terms: net 30 payments, an 18% commission to designers and consultants, any flame-retardancy testing, and only two installed pieces in Year 1.
- Key-person risk: Sally is the only designer, and no key-person policy is budgeted.
- The equity split: 30% for $80,000 values a studio not yet open at about $267,000, and the investor's return is $6,000 (30% of the single $20,000 distribution in Year 5) with no exit forecast.
- Tax on the owners: the model charges tax at entity level, whereas an LLC taxed through its members would leave Sally and the investor owing tax on profit that never reaches them as cash.
Sources
- Bureau of Labor Statistics, Craft and fine artists, Occupational Outlook Handbook: median pay of $55,290 in May 2025, 53,400 jobs in 2025, employment projected to decline 1% from 2025 to 2035, and 58% self-employed.
- Georgia Department of Revenue, 2025 corporate income tax instruction booklet (IT-611): 5.19% rate for tax years beginning on or after 1 January 2025; the booklet notes the rate for later years may change.
- Cornell Law School Legal Information Institute, 26 U.S.C. 11: the 21% federal corporate rate in subsection (b). 26 U.S.C. 172: the 80% limit on net operating loss deductions in subsection (a)(2).
- U.S. Department of Labor, State minimum wage laws: Georgia's own minimum of $5.15 an hour and the federal minimum of $7.25, as updated on 1 July 2026. Overtime pay: time and a half for hours over 40 in a workweek for covered nonexempt employees.
- U.S. Small Business Administration, Microloans: loans up to $50,000 through nonprofit intermediary lenders, with a maximum repayment term of seven years. The 11% rate in the plan is a planning figure.
- High Country Quilts, Longarm Quilting Pricing: A Complete Cost Guide for 2026, published 28 June 2026: basic edge-to-edge pricing of $0.01 to $0.03 per square inch, with $0.02 the most common.
- Quilted Joy, APQS Millie 26 with a Bliss table frame: a dealer listing of $26,999 to $27,699 for the machine and frame, compatible with computerized systems sold separately. Quality Sewing, limited-edition Handi Quilter Amara 20 with Pro-Stitcher Premium: a dealer listing of $28,990 with a 12-foot frame, one unit. Both are retail listings, not manufacturer prices, and the studio's $36,000 is a planning figure to be replaced by a written quote.
- City of Atlanta business license and Georgia sales tax treatment of quilts and longarm service: not quoted here; confirm with the city's Office of Revenue and the Georgia Department of Revenue.
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