Buying curtains and blinds online: five checks before you pay

We make curtains for a living, and we spend a lot of time reading how this industry sells them. Custom-made window furnishings are genuinely hard to compare online. You cannot hold the product, every retailer quotes differently, and the details that decide value sit in the fine print.

None of the five checks below need special knowledge. Each one takes a few minutes, and together they will tell you more about a retailer than any review score.

1. Put the "free" samples in the cart before you trust the word free

Fabric swatches are the single most useful thing you can get before ordering, so almost everyone advertises them. The word to watch is "free".

A common pattern: the samples cost nothing, then a shipping fee appears at the checkout. On one site we checked, the headline said free and the cart added about $5 in shipping. On another, standard post was free but express delivery cost extra, which matters when your painter is booked and you need to pick a colour this week.

We do not begrudge anyone charging for delivery. Postage costs real money, and someone has to pay it. The problem is a headline that wins the comparison before you find the fee.

The check: add samples to the cart and read the delivery line before you enter your details. If you are in a hurry, price the express option specifically. The number that matters is the total cost of swatches in your hands, at the speed you need them.

For the record, our approach is the reverse: the pack costs $5 for up to 10 swatches, express post is free, and a $10 voucher comes off your order when you buy. The checkout adds nothing.

2. Run the millimetre test on any "from" price

A "from $199" price on a custom-made product has to be priced at some size. The question is which size, and what happens one millimetre past it.

Here is a test anyone can run. Open the retailer's customiser, set the width and drop to the advertised minimum, and start adding width 10mm at a time. Note when the price jumps, and by how much. When we ran this on one retailer's customiser, it jumped immediately: the advertised minimum priced at $201, and one millimetre more took the same curtain to $267. That is $66, a rise of almost a third, for one millimetre of fabric.

Banded pricing is normal in custom making. Fabric comes in fixed widths, and the labour grows with the curtain: more folds to form, longer hems and seams, more time on the cutting table. So prices should step up as curtains get bigger. What matters is where the advertised price sits inside those steps. If the from price exists for exactly one size at the very bottom of the range, a size almost no real window matches, it is an anchor built to win a comparison, not a price you will ever pay.

The check: ignore from prices entirely. Measure your actual windows, price those sizes on every retailer you are comparing, and compare the totals. It is the only comparison that means anything. And run the millimetre test on us while you are at it: we price on the fabric and the making, so the next millimetre will never cost you a third more.

3. Read the price guarantee before you rely on it

Best price guarantees are common in this category, including on sites you would not expect. A guarantee is a promise with conditions, and the conditions are where you should look before you count on it.

Three things to look for in the terms:

• A same-manufacturer clause. Some guarantees only apply when both products come from the same manufacturer. For a ready-made product that can be fair: the same factory's blind sold by two stores is easy to compare. Custom curtains are a different story. Many companies sew their own or use their own workroom, so two retailers' curtains will rarely share a manufacturer. In practice, a clause like that rules out most curtain comparisons before they start.
• Specification outs. Fullness, heading style, fabric composition and lining can each be used to rule a comparison "not like for like". Ask which specifications the guarantee compares on, and where each is published.
• Discretion clauses. Wording that lets the retailer decline a match for any reason means the guarantee is a marketing line, not a commitment.

The check: if a guarantee is part of your decision, read its terms and conditions first. Submit your comparison quote in writing, and if the match is refused, ask for the reason in writing too. Then check that reason against the published specifications of the product you quoted. A refusal that misstates the other quote tells you everything you need to know.

4. Search the fabric name

Curtain and blind retailers do not weave fabric. Fabric comes from a small number of mills and wholesale houses, and those suppliers sell to many retailers at once. We are a curtain manufacturer with our own Australian factory, and even we buy our cloth from established mills. Everyone does.

The useful consequence: the same fabric often appears at several retailers under the same range name. That is what makes real comparison possible. You can find the identical cloth elsewhere, compare the making, and compare the price.

Some retailers rename ranges or sell names you will not find anywhere else. There can be honest reasons for that. But an exclusive name removes your ability to compare, and it makes a price guarantee unclaimable by construction, because nothing can ever be like for like with a fabric only one company sells.

The check: search the range name plus the word curtains. If it shows up at other retailers, compare away. If it appears nowhere else, ask three questions before you order: who makes the fabric, what is its composition, and what does it weigh. A retailer who knows their product answers in a sentence. A vague answer about an unfindable fabric is your answer.

5. Ask what the fullness number actually means

Fullness is the amount of extra fabric in a curtain compared with the track it hangs on. At 100% fullness, a curtain carries 2 metres of fabric for every 1 metre of track, and that spare metre is what forms the folds. Around that 2 times mark is the accepted standard for S-fold curtains.

Here is what the marketing rarely explains. Fabric is allocated in whole folds, and window widths rarely land exactly on a fold boundary. So on a properly made S-fold curtain, the true fullness varies with the track width. A single blanket number cannot be exact for every window. It can only honestly be a floor or an average, and those are very different promises.

We publish our own factory cutting schedule in full, and it shows exactly this: our stated spec is 100% fullness as the floor, and the actual figures run from 107.9% to 257% depending on track width. You can read every row in S-fold curtain fullness: the actual manufacturing numbers.

The check: ask whether the quoted fullness is a minimum or an average. Then ask for the fabric quantity on your quote and divide it by your track length. That multiple is your real fullness, and any maker who knows their numbers can give it to you per window.

The five checks in one place

1. Put samples in the cart and read the delivery line before trusting the word free.
2. Ignore from prices. Price your own window sizes everywhere, and run the millimetre test.
3. Read the price guarantee terms. Submit quotes in writing, and get refusals in writing.
4. Search the fabric name. If it exists nowhere else, ask who makes it and what the spec is.
5. Ask whether the fullness number is a floor or an average, then check the fabric quantity on your quote.

A swatch in your hand beats every claim on a website. Order a sample pack, tape it to your window, and judge the fabric in your own light: the pack is $5 for up to 10 swatches, express post is free, and a $10 voucher comes off your order.

Order Samples