Leather goods costing: like garments, except the material is not uniform
Costing footwear or leather goods. Line production and SAM work exactly as in apparel, but hides vary in shape and quality, so a theoretical consumption figure is close to meaningless.
Structurally this is close to **garment manufacturing**: line production, cost concentrated in material and line minutes, labor costed through standard minutes. Read that guide first — the SAM calculation and the ten categories both transfer unchanged.
The difference is in the material itself.
A hide is not a rectangle
Fabric arrives as a uniform roll, so a marker gives a stable consumption figure. Hides do not: each one has its own outline, thickness variation, scars and insect marks, and areas usable only for concealed components.
So **consumption is not a fixed number**. It depends on the quality of the batch and on the skill of whoever lays the pattern. The same style, two batches of leather, two different figures.
One hide, several grades of component
Visible components need clean areas; concealed components can use lower grades. So a hide does not have one unit price — the good area is effectively worth more than the rest.
The practical approach that stays honest: enter **one line for leather at the batch's actual average price**, rather than trying to price by zone. The issued-over-delivered ratio already reflects how well you used it.
Synthetic materials behave like fabric again
Coated and synthetic materials come on rolls at fixed width with uniform quality, which puts them straight back into the garment method: marker-based consumption, stable between batches.
If your product uses both, enter two separate lines — their consumption figures come from different methods and averaging them hides both.
The ten categories — two changes from garments
| Category | What changes |
|---|---|
| Material | Leather by area issued over pairs delivered, never theoretical. Components — soles, buckles, thread, adhesive, lining — counted on one sample |
| Tooling | Cutting dies, one set per pattern, divided across the pieces the die produces in its life — same arithmetic as printing dies |
The remaining eight follow the garment guide, including standard minutes and line efficiency — this trade uses exactly that calculation.
Related guides
- Garment costing: the ten categories behind a CM price
How a garment cost is actually built — fabric, trims, cutting, sewing minutes, finishing, packing — and why the CM number quoted to a buyer only makes sense once you know what sits underneath it.
- SAM, cost per minute and line efficiency: the three numbers behind sewing cost
Sewing cost is standard minutes times cost per minute, divided by efficiency. Each of the three is easy to get wrong in a way that makes the garment look cheaper than it is.