Actually I sort of justified my longarm purchase in those terms. I've never sent out a quilt to be quilted, because I really want to do the whole job myself. However, if I were paying for my quilts to be longarmed, I figured that it would be an average of $200/quilt. And if I make an average of 1 quilt a month, that would mean my longarm would have paid for itself in less than 5 years. And that's without using it as a business.