Cost per wear is cost per use applied to clothing, with a twist: clothes often cost money after you buy them. Tailoring, dry cleaning, new soles, a zip repair and shipping fees all add up, and a resale value can bring part of the money back. This calculator puts all of those into one lifetime cost and divides it by the number of times you expect to wear the item.
How the calculation works
In plain words:
Cleaning can be entered in two ways, using the "Cleaning cost applies" setting:
- Per wear. The amount is multiplied by the number of expected wears. Use this for something you clean after most wears.
- Total lifetime. The amount is added once. Use this for something you clean only now and then, such as a coat you dry-clean once a season.
Resale value cannot be higher than the purchase price in this calculator.
The target cost per wear
You can also enter a target cost per wear, a figure you choose yourself. The calculator then shows how many wears it would take to reach that target. It treats the fixed costs (price, alterations, repairs, fees and lifetime cleaning, minus resale) as one sum and any per-wear cleaning as a cost that repeats every time:
Wears to reach target = fixed costs ÷ (target − per-wear cleaning cost), rounded up to a whole wear.
If your target is equal to or lower than the per-wear cleaning cost, no number of wears can reach it, and the calculator shows "No finite target".
Worked examples
Example 1 – a jacket worn often. Price 240, 120 expected wears, alterations 20, cleaning 2 per wear, repairs 15, fees 10, resale 40, target 3.
Fixed costs = 240 + 20 + 15 + 10 − 40 = 245. Cleaning = 2 × 120 = 240. Net lifetime cost = 485.
Cost per wear = 485 ÷ 120 ≈ 4.04.
Wears to reach the target of 3 = 245 ÷ (3 − 2) = 245 wears.
Here cleaning makes up about half of the lifetime cost, which is easy to miss when you only look at the price tag.
Example 2 – an outfit for occasions. Price 180, 6 expected wears, alterations 30, cleaning 25 in total over its life, no repairs or fees, resale 60, target 20.
Fixed costs = 180 + 30 − 60 = 150. Net lifetime cost = 150 + 25 = 175.
Cost per wear = 175 ÷ 6 ≈ 29.17.
Wears to reach the target = 175 ÷ 20 = 8.75, rounded up to 9 wears.
Example 3 – everyday jeans with a strict target. Price 90, 200 expected wears, cleaning 0.50 per wear, no other costs, target 0.40.
Net lifetime cost = 90 + 0.50 × 200 = 190. Cost per wear = 190 ÷ 200 = 0.95.
Because the target of 0.40 is lower than the 0.50 cleaning cost per wear, the result is "No finite target". Every extra wear costs more than the target on its own.
Your target, not ours
CostsPerDay does not label a cost per wear as good or bad. What counts as reasonable depends on your budget, what the garment is for and how much you value it. The "Purchase vs lifetime" line simply puts the price tag next to the net lifetime cost, so you can see how much the extras changed the picture.
An observation
The garment with the cheapest price is not always the one with the cheapest wear, and the reverse is true too. The examples above show two quieter effects: frequent cleaning can matter as much as the price, and a realistic resale value can matter more than a small discount at the till. The calculator does not decide which garment to buy. It just makes those effects visible.