Here is the answer up front: "free alterations" almost never means free alterations. I read what fourteen suit brands actually publish on their own websites -- price lists, help-centre articles, rental agreements, terms -- and in every case the free tier turned out to be one of four narrow things: one specific hem, a re-do of a seam you already paid for, a capped receipt reimbursement below the market price of a single seam, or a replacement garment instead of a tailor.
I am Jay. I spent about ten years in the US -- Pennsylvania, New York, Houston -- buying suits off racks and then paying somebody else to make them fit. About a year ago I came to Hoi An as a customer of Nathan Tailors and liked the place so much I ended up a partner in it. Linda, born here and twenty-five years at the cutting table, runs the craft side; I run the numbers side. This is a numbers piece. Every figure below is from the brand's own page, footnoted to the exact URL, checked as of September 2026.
The four shapes of "free"
Read fourteen of these policies back to back and the marketing word stops meaning anything. Four actual shapes appear underneath it.
- One named hem. Hugo Boss offers "Free Basic Alterations to HUGO BOSS Full Price Products," then defines basic as "hem on non-finished trousers OR sleeve hems on suit jackets and sport coats."11 That OR is doing enormous work -- it is one free category per garment, not both, and "A fee shall apply for all other alterations," with no price published for any of them. Gates on top: full-price only, HUGO BOSS EXPERIENCE membership, non-outlet stores only, so a Macy's or Saks concession does not count.11 Details on Hugo Boss alterations.
- A re-do of a seam you already paid for. Jos. A. Bank: "Once you have been charged for a seam, we will re-alter that seam within the constraints of the garment for FREE," plus free lifetime pressing.1 Men's Wearhouse says the same in near-identical words.2 A genuinely good policy -- but the first bill is a real bill.
- A capped receipt reimbursement. You pay a tailor, send an itemized receipt, get some of it back. Indochino, Proper Cloth, The Black Tux and Hockerty all work this way, each with a deadline, and two of them pay in store credit rather than cash.
- A replacement garment instead of a tailor. The Black Tux: "If anything doesn't fit, you can get minor tailoring (we'll help), or we'll send you an exchange garment free of charge," arriving at least ten days before the event.15 Generation Tux is the same shape.16 The free lever is logistics, not needlework.
The identical price list: Jos. A. Bank and Men's Wearhouse
Start here, because it is the most useful published document in American menswear and almost nobody reads it. Both brands are Tailored Brands companies, and they publish the same alteration price list, line for line, same dollar figures. Men's Wearhouse's version carries a stated publication date of February 5, 2026.2 Each list has two columns: one price if you bought the garment there, a higher one for an "Outside Retailer" garment.
| Alteration | Bought there | Bought elsewhere |
|---|---|---|
| Jacket -- shorten or lengthen sleeves | $35 | $45 |
| Jacket -- taper both sleeves | $40 | $50 |
| Jacket -- take in both sides | $35 | $45 |
| Jacket -- both sides through blades | $45 | $55 |
| Jacket -- shorten coat | $60 | $70 |
| Pants -- hem, plain or cuff | $20 | $30 |
| Pants -- waist and seat | $25 | $35 |
| Pants -- taper leg | $32 | $42 |
| Pants -- re-cut | $110 | $130 |
| Dress shirt -- shorten sleeves | $25 | $35 |
| Vest -- both sides | $20 | $30 |
Figures as published on the brands' own alterations pages, seen September 2026.12 Rush work is extra: coats $25 for one day or $15 for three, slacks $25 for one day or $10 for three.1 Full breakdowns at Jos. A. Bank alterations and Men's Wearhouse alterations.
Worth knowing before you drive over: the two Men's Wearhouse pages disagree with each other. The price list has an outside-retailer column, which reads as a yes. But the brand's own tailoring explainer says "Tailoring services are typically reserved for items purchased from Men's Wearhouse."3 The honest reading is that the list is the price if the store takes your job, and the explainer is the store's licence to decline it. Call first.
Nordstrom publishes the real thing
Nordstrom is the most transparent operator in this set, and it is not close: an actual two-column PDF price list on its own CDN, column one regular-price merchandise, column two sale, Rack and non-Nordstrom.9 On regular-price merchandise a striking amount is genuinely complimentary: pant and jean hems on open or pre-hemmed bottoms, waist in or out with a split waistband, thigh in or out, suit and sport coat sleeves plain, jacket sides plain non-vented, centre seam in or out, and moving the coat front buttons.9 The same jobs on sale, Rack or outside merchandise are priced: $24 for a pant hem, $40 for jacket sleeves, $40 for jacket sides, $30 for a centre seam, $8 per button moved, $42 for a plain skirt or dress hem.9 Leg tapering is $28 even on regular-price goods.9
They will take garments you bought elsewhere at the higher column, with one condition: "Waiver must be signed by customer for all non-Nordstrom alterations."9 Nordstrom also publishes the clearest turnaround numbers anywhere in this research: express alterations at $25 for same or next day, $15 for two to four days, and $10 either way on a basic pant hem.910 One caveat I will state against my own convenience: the PDF's own published date is 2022-12-06, so treat those as the list Nordstrom currently links to rather than freshly repriced 2026 numbers. More at Nordstrom alterations.
The reimbursement caps, and what they actually buy
This is where the marketing and the arithmetic part company hardest.
Indochino gives free in-store alterations if you can get to a showroom for a booked "Final Look" appointment with the swing tags still on.4 If there is no showroom near you, you pay your own tailor and claim it back, against published caps: $75 for a two-piece suit, $100 for a three-piece, $50 for a jacket or blazer, $25 for pants, $25 for a shirt.5 Three constraints sit on top: fit claims must be raised within 14 days of receiving the order, after which "claims cannot be accepted";4 claims are accepted only in Canada, the US and Australia; and if the tailor quotes more than the cap you are told to stop -- "please do not proceed with alterations."5 Receipts must be itemized with a business name, address and date; handwritten ones are refused.6 And there is no return path behind it -- "we do not accept returns nor offer refunds" on made-to-measure, with no remake published as a stated entitlement.7 See Indochino alterations.
Proper Cloth has the most generous and most precisely documented policy I read, and I will say so plainly even though they compete with us. On tailored clothing you pick one of three routes: a local-tailor credit, a Proper Cloth alteration or remake, or a full refund.17 The credits are "Up to $125 for a suit (jacket and pant pair)", $75 for a jacket and $50 for dress pants, with a $300 lifetime maximum, a 60-day window, and payment as store credit rather than cash.18 Remakes are counted -- two per custom product category.19 The catch is the fork in the road: "items that have been tailored are not eligible for complimentary remakes, returns for store credit, or returns for refund."19 Credit or remake or refund -- never two. See Proper Cloth alterations.
The Black Tux authorizes exactly two adjustments on a rental -- "minor adjustments to the jacket sleeve length and/or pant length" -- and reimburses "up to $15 per garment (jacket and pant only)," with receipt photos due within 30 days of the event.14 Go beyond those two seams and it is billable.14 One Trustpilot reviewer in June 2026 priced that cap in the wild better than I can: after a badly done leg hem, "they did offer me a $15 credit for a $700 suit."28 Details at The Black Tux alterations.
Hockerty promises the outcome without the number: any local tailor, "with costs covered by us according to after-sales conditions," and "on the rare occasion that a garment can't be altered to fit, we will remake it for you until it fits perfectly."22 That remake language beats Indochino's. But the cap is never published, so unlike $75 or $125 you have no figure to check before you commit to a tailor. See Hockerty alterations.
What an independent tailor actually charges
Caps only mean something against a real price list. Here are two published ones, a high-cost city and a mid-market town.
Alterations.com's shop in New York, NY 10017 publishes: shorten jacket sleeves $65, take in jacket sides $65, taper arms $65, reduce shoulders $195, shorten jacket length $200. Trousers: hand-finished hem $30, waist in or out $35, taper legs $65. The shop states an average total suit alteration of $165.24 Sew Boise in Idaho, on a list dated January 2022, is the mid-market picture: plain trouser hem $18, coat tapered at the sides or back $40, shirt sleeves $18 to $25 -- plus a $10 minimum invoice, $10 extra per seam set on lined garments, and rush fees of 30% at 72 hours rising to 100% under 24.25 Two aggregate guides agree on the order of magnitude: Airtasker puts a basic sleeve shortening at $30 to $70 (its page is titled for 2026 but its body is dated March 2022), and Thumbtack puts a whole tailoring job nationally at $73 to $232, though those are marketplace jobs rather than per-seam shop rates.2726
Now put the two halves together. A single jacket-sleeve shortening runs $29 in-house at Suitsupply to $65 at that New York shop.824 The Black Tux's $15 sits below the low end of one seam almost anywhere in America. Indochino's $75 suit cap covers roughly 58% of a typical three-seam New York fix -- sleeves $65 plus hem $30 plus waist $35 is $130 -- and even at Men's Wearhouse outside-retailer rates that same trio is $110, still over.124 Proper Cloth's $125 is the only cap here that gets near a real suit alteration bill.
And the alteration you most want on a badly-fitting suit is the one nobody covers. An Indochino customer wrote on Trustpilot in August 2026: "The shoulder seams are 1.5 inches too narrow on either side!"30 Reducing shoulders is $195 on that New York list -- past every cap in this article.24 Shoulders are the part of a jacket a tailor cannot cheaply fix, which is exactly why they have to be right when the cloth is cut.
The whole set, side by side
| Brand | Free tier | Paid tier or cap | Published turnaround | Alters garments bought elsewhere? |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Jos. A. Bank | Re-alter a paid seam; lifetime pressing | Full price list, about +$10 outside | Rush fees only | Yes, higher column |
| Men's Wearhouse | Re-alter a paid seam; lifetime pressing | Identical list to Jos. A. Bank | Basic work within 24 hours | List says yes; explainer says "typically reserved" |
| Nordstrom | Complimentary on regular-price merchandise | $8 to $42 on sale, Rack, non-Nordstrom | $25 same/next day, $15 in 2 to 4 days | Yes, with a signed waiver |
| Suitsupply | None published | $10 to $29 per seam, published list | "30 minutes to 3 days" | Not published |
| Hugo Boss | Trouser hem OR jacket sleeve hem, full price, members | "A fee shall apply for all other alterations", no list | Not published | Not published |
| Indochino | Showroom "Final Look" appointment | $75 two-piece / $100 three-piece / $50 jacket / $25 pants | Not published | n/a |
| Proper Cloth | Two remakes per category; refund at 60 days | $125 suit / $75 jacket / $50 dress pants credit, $300 lifetime | Not published | n/a |
| Hockerty | Remake "until it fits" | Local tailor covered "according to after-sales conditions" -- no figure | Not published | n/a |
| The Black Tux | Free exchange garment | $15 per garment, sleeve and hem only | Arrives 10 days pre-event | n/a |
| Generation Tux | Free replacement, report within 48 hours | Reimbursement figure not confirmed on a readable page | Delivery 2 weeks pre-event | n/a |
| Macy's | None published | No price list published; store by store | Not published | Not published |
| State & Liberty | None | No service; tailoring voids the 30-day return | n/a | n/a |
| Banana Republic | None published | No alterations policy published at all | n/a | n/a |
| Charles Tyrwhitt | None | Paid service, no public USD list found | Not published | Not published |
Three entries deserve their footnote in the open. Suitsupply's list is refreshingly plain -- jacket side seams $29, sleeves $29, trouser shortening $15, waist $15, seat $10, lower-leg taper $19, shirt darts $12 -- with the best turnaround language in the industry: "alterations within 30 minutes to 3 days -- all done by our expert in-store tailors," no appointment, just walk in.8 It is a paid service, honestly labelled as one. Brooks Brothers publishes no alteration price list at all that I could reach; the oldest reference I found is a Styleforum thread in which a Madison Avenue associate confirmed staff had "an entire sheet for alteration prices" they would not read out over the phone.31 That is from 2011 and I offer it as history, not as pricing -- but the shape of it has not changed. Macy's is the same story: no price list, no alterations policy page, only a return-policy line making altered items final sale.12 Third-party guidance says the service exists at selected locations, unpriced online, from around $10 -- which is why every write-up ends with the same advice: call the store first and ask whether it still has a tailor shop.13
Two things almost nobody tells you at the register
Altering the garment usually ends your right to return it. Charles Tyrwhitt's terms are the bluntest: products "made to your specific measurements (including sleeve shortening on shirts, addition of pockets on shirts, trouser alterations, jacket alterations, and shortening of shirt tails) or monogrammed are non-refundable."23 Hugo Boss: "Products altered cannot be returned or exchanged."11 State & Liberty: "Tailored items are non-refundable" -- and since they publish no alterations service and no reimbursement, the moment you visit a tailor your 30-day return simply dies with nothing offered in exchange.20 Banana Republic publishes no alterations policy of any kind; you get 30 days to return, and from dollar one an outside tailor is entirely your bill.21
Turnaround is the least-published number in the industry. Out of fourteen brands, only Suitsupply, Nordstrom and Men's Wearhouse publish anything resembling a standard timeframe.892 Everyone else publishes a rush fee, which tells you a queue exists without telling you how long it is. If you have an event date, that absence is the risk. One UK customer reported paying £114 in alterations on a Suitsupply wedding suit and getting the trousers back "massively too big" four days before the wedding.29 That is one review against a very strong overall score, and I include it only because the number is instructive: an alteration bill can reach roughly a fifth of what the suit cost.
Where a made-to-measure suit changes the arithmetic -- and where it does not
Here is the honest version, including the part that does not flatter us.
A suit cut to your measurements should need very little alteration, because the shoulders, the chest and the jacket length -- the expensive structural corrections on every price list above -- are decided before the cloth is cut rather than chased afterwards. You are not paying $195 to reduce a shoulder because nobody built the wrong shoulder in the first place. At Nathan Tailors a two-piece suit runs $149 to $309, garment-only, half-canvas construction standard, shipping quoted separately by weight and destination. You measure at home with our guided measurement studio, or in the shop in Hoi An if you are passing through.
And the part I want to be straight about: we are not offering you a free alterations counter either. We are eight thousand miles away. What we do instead is build the fix into the garment -- every suit is sewn with generous seam allowances and shipped with spare matching cloth, so if something needs a nudge, a local tailor near you can do it without hunting for fabric. That local alteration is at your cost. On a first remote order a $20 pant hem down the street is a normal outcome, and I would rather tell you that now than discover it with you later.
The real difference is not "free versus paid." It is where the fitting money goes: into correcting a garment cut for an average body, or into the cutting itself. Our custom tailored suits page lays out what the garment includes.
Frequently asked questions
How much do suit alterations cost on average?
Roughly $20 for a pant hem and $35 for jacket sleeves at chain-store rates;1 $30 and $65 at a published New York independent, which states an average total suit alteration of $165.24
Which brand actually gives free alterations?
Nordstrom has the broadest genuinely free tier -- complimentary hems, waist, thigh, sides, sleeves and button moves on regular-price merchandise, per its own published price list.9 Hugo Boss offers one hem category per garment to full-price loyalty members at non-outlet stores.11 Everyone else's "free" is a re-do, a cap, or a replacement garment.
Does altering a suit void the return policy?
Usually yes. Charles Tyrwhitt, Hugo Boss, State & Liberty, Macy's and Proper Cloth all state that altered garments cannot be returned or refunded.2311201219 Decide whether the suit is fundamentally right before you hand it to a tailor, because that hand-off is the point of no return.
The bottom line
Nobody here is lying to you, exactly. They are using one word -- free -- for four different things, three of which involve you paying a tailor. Once you know which shape you are being offered, the decision gets simple. Buying off the rack: budget the alteration as part of the price, and check the outside-retailer column before you assume any store will take the job. Buying made to measure remotely: read the cap and the deadline before you read the marketing, because $75 with a 14-day clock is a different product from $125 with 60 days.
And if you are tired of buying a garment and then buying the fit separately, the third option is to have it cut right the first time. Come see us in Hoi An if you are passing through -- Linda will look you up and down, ask why you are so handsome, and have you measured before you finish your coffee. Or start from wherever you are with the measurement studio, and we will quote you honestly, alterations budget and all.
