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Buying an embroidery machine with a home business in mind, you want the best machine that you can afford. A quality finish is everything. It’s the most central element of your tangible assets. On the other hand however, you can’t afford to bankrupt the business before it’s even started! (Worry not – it gets more lucrative once it gets going!)
But don’t worry, we’re here to help. We’ve identified what we feel are the top embroidery machines out on the market today, and coming up shortly we have product reviews of our handpicked Top 5.
Following that we’re supplying you with a handy buying guide which outlines some of the things you might like to think about before you buy.
In the interest of brevity we’ve concentrated in this article on standard electronic and computerized sewing machines. If you need a serger or overlocker sewing machine, please look elsewhere on our webpage
In a hurry? This is our winner!
- 138 Built-in designs: Featuring 138 built-in embroidery designs including scrollwork, florals and quilt patterns, the PE800 has numerous options to allow your creativity to flourish
- 11 Built-in fonts: 7 English, 3 Japanese, and 1 Cyrillic font styles are perfect for monogramming and lettering
- USB Port: The PE800's USB port allows you to import your embroidery designs into your machine's built-in memory
- Large color touchscreen: The large 3.2" inch LCD color touchscreen allows you to preview your designs before embroidering
- 5" X 7" Embroidery field: This embroidery-only machine comes with an embroidery foot and a 5" x 7" inch embroidery hoop perfect for stitching larger designs
Best Embroidery Machine for Home Business – Comparison Table
Best Embroidery Machine for Home Business – Reviews
This embroidery machine comes from Brother, a very big brand in both sewing and embroidery. They’ve been established since 1954 and are still dominating the market today.
This particular model is flying off the shelves at Amazon, with well over 500 customers giving it a rating out of 5. And would you believe, after so many customer ratings, the average customer rating comes out at a whopping 4 and a half stars!
Although there are many, many embroidery designs already built in, when you’re ready to use a unique design, whether it’s your own or your clients, there’s a handy USB port, so you can simply import the designs via a USB memory stick.
We love that it features a large embroidery field, measuring 5 inches by 7 inches – perfect for when bigger orders come in.
Once the design is uploaded into the machine, the design work doesn’t have to stop there. You can use the large color preview touchscreen to do any tweaking you want to do, whether it’s rotating it, making a mirror image, or simply increasing or decreasing its size.
It’s very user friendly, very intuitive by design, with step-by-step tutorials right on the LCD display.
It has a couple of other features we love to see in an embroidery machine, such as that all important automatic needle threader, and LED light over the workspace – you can look at your work, and not your shadow!
Brother is super confident in their product, offering a warranty of a staggering 25 years. For more details on the warranty, please see the link on the Amazon page. (The user manual is downloadable from there too.)
- Good, well established brand
- One of Amazon’s best sellers
- Great customer ratings
- Handy USB port
- Large embroidery field, 5 by 7 inches
- Large color preview touchscreen
- Make changes to the design
- Very user friendly
- Automatic needle threader
- LED light over the workspace
- 138 different built in embroidery designs
- 11 built in fonts
- 25 year warranty
- No software included
Here’s another great embroidery machine from that top brand Brother.
This too has been flying off the shelves at Amazon. Over 1000 Amazon customers have rated it, and the average customer rating comes out at an impressive 4 stars out of 5.
You can import any design onto the machine, simply save them to a USB memory stick, and insert the stick when ready.
But you don’t have to rely on the USB stick all of the time – there’s 136 built in embroidery designs, frames, borders and some lovely lettering fonts.
What we really love about it is that it’s iBroidery compatible. You can head over to www.iBroidery.com, and choose from a selection of licensed characters from Nickelodeon, Disney, and Disney▪Pixar. Great selling point for customers.
This machine will work on thicker fabrics like jackets and bags.
The embroidery hoop is nice and big, coming in at 5 inches by 7.
It’s got all your favorite design editing features, like rotating, mirror image, and size edits.
It’s got a bunch of other cool features too, the hugely important automatic needle threader, quick set bobbin, and an automatic thread trimmer – so handy!
We’re going to level with you, the LCD preview touch screen is not the best, it’s not color and isn’t strictly a preview screen. That said it is very easy to navigate and use.
The machine is backed by Brother’s famous 25 year warranty, and you get free technical support over the phone for the product’s entire lifespan.
You get a handful of nice accessories in with the price too, such as a dust cover, seam ripper, needle set, scissors and a few bobbins.
- Comes from a good well established brand
- Excellent feedback from customers
- Import any design using a USB stick
- 136 built in designs,including frames, borders, and fonts
- iBroidery compatible for access to Disney characters and more
- Machine will work on thicker fabrics
- Embroidery hoop is nice and big
- Design editing features, like size edits
- Automatic needle threader
- Quick set bobbin
- Automatic thread trimmer
- LCD touch screen is very easy to use
- 25 year warranty
- Free technical support
- Handful of nice accessories in with the price
- Preview screen is not in color and is small (but is backlit)
- Premium product at a premium price
Here’s another beauty from Brother!
This one is not just an embroidery machine, but it’s a sewing machine too. We think this could be potentially super handy for your embroidery business, in the event that client’s garments need any repair or alteration.
The embroidery hoop is nice and big, coming in at 5 inches by 7.
It features that all important USB flash drive port to use any design with the machine.
Besides that you’ve also got a whole load of built in designs you can use, a whopping 138 altogether, including some nice fonts.
It’s called a Grand Slam package, because of just how many accessories you get in with the price. This includes 3 CD ROMS of embroidery designs, and packs of various colors of bobbins.
Of course being a sewing machine as well as an embroidery machine, the accessories include several different feet, including that all important buttonhole one.
If there’s a certain stitch you use a lot, the machine can remember it for you, so you can really automate the production process.
We love that it has a color screen so you get an accurate picture of your image before the machine gets to work.
It’s also got those super handy features like an Automatic Needle Threader and a Quick-Set Top Drop-In Bobbin System and Thread Trimming Button.
It’s had great feedback from users – a full five stars out of 5 at the time of writing!
- From the leading brand in embroidery machines
- Great customer feedback, 5 out of 5
- Sewing machine as well as embroidery machine
- Large embroidery hoop, 5 by 7 inches
- USB flash drive port to use any design
- 138 built in embroidery designs, including several fonts
- Full color preview screen
- LOADS of embroidery accessories
- LOADS of sewing accessories, including numerous feet
- Built in memory for custom stitches
- Automatic Needle Threader
- Quick-Set Top Drop-In Bobbin System
- Thread Trimming Button
- The bobbin winder could be better
Every seamstress has heard of Singer – and with this machine they’ve turned their hand to embroidery.
This particular model comes with 2 embroidery hoops, the largest being 10.25 inches by 6 inches – much larger than the 4 by 4 inches models you see everywhere.
It comes with it’s own deluxe professional design software, which offers Advanced Editing, Digitizing, True-Type font lettering, and a library of 220 embroidery designs, including 6 different lettering fonts. Nice to have some examples or prototypes to show (potential) clients.
There are 250 built in stitches, that’s about 100 more than you get with a standard Brother counterpart.
When you’ve been assigned a design to use, simply upload via the USB flash drive port.
There’s a handy little LCD touch screen, where you can view the image before you start, and with it’s easy to use interface, you can tweak and edit designs as you please.
We love that you get a free Singer owner’s class included in the price. Great way to ensure you know your tools before you take things to the next level with your own business.
And as if all that wasn’t enough – you can use it as a sewing machine too! So handy when a customer needs a repair job! You get 10 snap on feet, including that all important buttonhole foot. And it has an Automatic Needle Threader.
- Well established brand
- Comes with it’s own professional design software
- A whopping 250 built in stitches
- Upload designs via the USB flash drive port
- LCD touch screen allows you to edit designs
- Free Singer owner’s class!
- Use it as a sewing machine too!
- 10 different sewing feet
- Automatic Needle Threader
- The customer feedback isn’t as positive as the Brother embroidery machine counterparts
Janome is another big name in embroidery machines. They may be better known for their overlocking machines, but they’ve done a fantastic job on this embroidery machine.
First of all, it comes with 4 embroidery hoops, and the largest of which is much larger than many of those Brother alternatives, it measures a whopping 7.9 inches by 11 inches.
But better yet, at this price it’s an absolute steal! This is because it comes from Amazon Renewed, which means it has been owned by someone else previously, but Amazon have had it back and have checked that it is as good as new and can be resold at a far cheaper price than a brand new model.
Designs are easily imported through a USB and edited through the machine’s advanced on-screen editing functions.
There are also 160 built-in embroidery designs including 6 different fonts.
We love the full color touchscreen and just how much it allows you to do. It’s not merely enlarge and reduce, but also drag and drop, rotate, flip, arc (so handy), combine, grouping, corner layout, and zoom.
And to top that off, it’s also got an Advanced Needle Threader and an Automatic Thread Cutter.
It has a 25 year warranty on the internal metal cast, 2 years on electrical and 1 year on parts and labor.
- Well established brand
- Absolute bargain price
- Import designs via USB
- Large color preview screen
- Loads of editing options
- 160 built-in designs
- Advanced Needle Threader
- Automatic Thread Cutter
- Really good warranty
- Technically it’s second hand
- Not much customer feedback on the Amazon page
Best Embroidery Machine for Home Business – Buyers Guide
There are a number of different things to ponder to help you decide which machine is right for you, and we’ll touch on each now.
Hoop Size
You must ensure that you get a machine with a good hoop size. Even if most of your embroidery is a simple 4 by 4 inch monogram, you may well one day be asked to embroider something larger, such as a large design on the back of a shirt, rather than a small emblem on the front.
Our recommendation is that you don’t settle for anything less than a 5 by 7 inch hoop. You can always do smaller designs with a larger hoop but unfortunately not vice versa.
Materials Being Embroidered On
Any embroidery machine can embroider many thinner fabrics, but when it comes to heavier fabrics such as towels or denim, you need a machine that’s up to the task. If you expect to be embroidering thick garments such as these, then we would recommend that you get our Number 2 product, the Brother Embroidery Machine, PE770.
With any luck, most of the materials you’ll be asked to embroider on will be ones that you can lay flat. But there are sometimes one or two things that won’t, such as baseball caps.
Connectivity
You will need to hook up your embroidery machine to your PC one way or the other. Most models come with a USB lead that you can use, or failing that an SD card socket. Some machines may even let you connect via Bluetooth.
LCD Screen Size and Resolution
When it comes to screen size, it’s a case of the bigger the better. We would strongly recommend that you go for a machine that is at least 3 by 3 inches, and is in color.
Granted, a machine that has a smaller screen size will be cheaper, however it’s effectively a preview screen for the finished product, and you want to ensure that you get it right.
How Fast it Helps You Complete Orders
In the world of business, time is money, and you want a machine that will help you fulfill your orders within a good time frame.
This can be affected by the number of needles, the number of stitches it can do per minute, and whether the machine will change to a new color thread on it’s own.
Once the production line is underway, you can then concentrate on working on the business rather than in the business so to speak.
Remember you can always slow down the speed of a machine, but you can’t however speed up a slower machine.
After Sales Service
You should always go for a machine with a good warranty, this way you can be confident that the machine will last and work well for the duration of the warranty.
You should also examine the customer reviews, as this will tell you a lot about the Brand’s after sales service and technical support.
If you don’t have an embroidery machine repair shop in your local town, or if you don’t want to be without your machine for a length of time, then it might be worth looking for a repair service whereby the technician comes to your home or workplace.
Sewing Machine Capability
Many embroidery machines are simply just embroidery machines. But there are some fabulous machines out there on the market today that can function as sewing machines as well.
Many of your customers, rightly or wrongly, are likely to assume that in addition to embroidery, you can also do sewing repairs for them too. This would be an ideal extra add on to your home embroidery business. And having the two functions in just one machine is a huge money saver.
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