It seems like we get this question and have lots of answers at least twice a month. I was a handquilter for hire until the longarmers put me out of business. I used to charge $.10 a square inch to handquilt plus the cost of the materials I supplied like the batting and backing. I also charged $15 for marking the quilting lines and another $15 or more for the binding. The only tops I have made for a customer were T shirt quilts. Those were machine assembled and each shirt had to be prepareded with fusiable stabilizer. They ended up costing the customer between $400 and $500 dollars because of the prep and aggrevation envolved. On the handquilting I charged more when the quilting was closer or more difficult. I am a fast handquilter. I was able to quilt a doublebed size quilt, including the binding, that was later raffled off by our Linus Chapter in about 6 weeks. That was working on it maybe 5-6 hours a day while watching TV or listening to talk radio. If it had been a wholecloth I could have shaved a week or so off of that time.