What Embroidery Thread Company Should I Use?

Embroidery Tread

I just started an embroidery business, what thread should I use?

When we start an embroidery business, most people don’t realize one of the most costly decisions they make is one they do not even know they are making or is being made for them. What embroidery thread company should you use for your machines?  

The delivery – Embroidery Machine

The big day comes when you see the delivery on the back of a flatbed or in a container. You are excited seeing one of your biggest ventures is being unloaded like a classic car.  As the machine is being unloaded and assembled, you are now responsible to load the embroidery machine with thread spools prior to the mechanic showing up and getting the embroidery machine up and running.

The Set up – Embroidery Machine

Embroidery machine suppliers range differently when a machine is bought. This means that some of them will supply a full spool, others will supply mini cones but the majority are now supplying no thread. The ones that do supply the thread might have deals with embroidery thread manufacturers and know once you start using them it’s hard to go try another thread company.

Embroidery Thread Company

When you start, you will have to make a choice that will most likely sticks with you during your entire duration in the embroidery business. What embroidery thread should you use? The most popular choices is Madeira. Please note that it’s been known that they work closely with the bigger embroidery machines company so embroidery machines suppliers have a closer relationship with Madeira.

Maderia is one of the industry’s standard threads that the majority company uses. Most bigger contracts that do call out colors will use Madeira thread as their guidelines. In some ways, it has become a Pantone color baseline for colors for embroidery. If Madeira has become the standard thread, why not use it?

Maderia is a great thread company with a great range of color shades but it’s expensive and if you are not working bigger contracts, there might not be a reason to use them. 

Just because Maderia is the widely use thread use does not mean it’s the best. There are several other threads that can be exceptional but at a lower cost.

Embroidery Factors

One factor that some embroidery people use is what causes the less thread break? If a machine can run smoothly with one thread compare to another, it causes less issue which also means higher productivity and higher profits. A machine can be tweak enough to reduce the number of thread breaks.

Another is ship time. Do you want to wait for 3-4 days for your thread delivery? Trust me, the last thing you want to worry about is running out the white thread and realizing it’s going to take 3-4 extra days to get there for you. Why keep too much stock because they are not local? That shouldn’t be your issue. Try finding who the local guys are and see what they offer. 

Thread manufacturer know that once you start using them, changing to another company is a timely costly thing to do.

Our recommendations

We also recommend for you to call all the embroidery thread guys and let them know that you have an embroidery machine and ask them what they can do for you. Some will fight harder for your business than others. Compare pricing, delivery time and some will provide thread books out or sell them at certain cost. Please note placing thread books in lobbies for your customers usually have a knack of growing feet and not coming back. (I speak from personal experience).

Here is a list  of some of the top embroidery thread suppliers



Robison Anton