I Almost Saved $400. That Was My First Mistake.
In Q2 2024, I was reviewing quotes for a quarterly order of pool table felt. We run a mid-sized service company that maintains tables for bars, clubs, and a few private collectors—about 40 tables in rotation. One vendor pitched a budget option at $180 per roll. Simonis 860 Tournament Blue came in at $240. I’m a procurement manager. My job is to find savings. I almost went with the cheap stuff.
But I’ve learned the hard way: the sticker price is rarely the real price. Over the past 6 years of tracking every invoice, I’ve seen the 'budget' option turn into a $1,200 headache more times than I care to count. So I ran the numbers. And what I found changed how I buy cloth forever.
The Surface Problem: What You Think You’re Buying
It’s tempting to think you can just compare unit prices. $180 vs. $240. Same size roll. Looks like a no-brainer, right? Most table owners and even some dealers fall into this trap. They think the only difference is $60 per table, and that’s a deal-breaker when margins are tight.
But here’s the thing: identical specs on paper don’t mean identical results on the table. I’ve unrolled budget felt that looked fine in the packaging but started showing wear after three months. I’ve seen seams that didn’t line up, colors that faded after a few weeks of play, and cloth that stretched unevenly during installation. These aren’t edge cases—they’re the norm when you’re chasing the lowest price.
The Deeper Cause: Why Cheap Felt Costs More
The assumption is that expensive vendors deliver better quality. Actually, vendors who deliver quality can charge more. The causation runs the other way.
Take Simonis 860. It’s woven from a specific wool-nylon blend that minimizes pilling and maintains consistent speed. Budget cloths? They often cut corners on fiber quality or weave density. That’s why they’re cheaper. But here’s what the price doesn’t capture:
- Installation time. Cheap cloth is harder to stretch evenly. I’ve had a technician take twice as long to install a budget roll because it kept bunching. That’s labor cost you can’t get back.
- Frequent replacements. I tracked three budget installations over 12 months. Two needed re-felting within eight months. That’s double the labor, double the downtime, and double the risk of a customer complaining about a 'worn-out' table.
- Lost revenue. If a table is down for re-felting, it’s not generating income. For a busy bar, that can be $100-200 in lost game revenue per day.
It’s tempting to think that cheap felt is a simple choice. But the 'always get the lowest quote' advice ignores the transaction cost of reliability. I’d argue that when you factor in every variable, Simonis 860 is often the more economical choice.
The Cost of Not Solving It: What I Tracked Over 6 Years
I maintain a cost tracking system for every order we place. When I audited our 2023 spending, I found a pattern: the tables we used cheap felt on averaged 1.8 service calls per year. Tables with Simonis 860 averaged 0.4 service calls per year. That’s a 350% difference in maintenance costs alone.
But the biggest cost wasn’t in the ledger—it was in customer perception. I’ve lost two contracts because a bar owner felt the tables played 'off.' Both times, the root cause was cheap felt that had inconsistent speed. The $60 I saved per table cost me thousands in recurring revenue. That’s the kind of math that keeps me up at night.
Take this with a grain of salt, because every environment is different. But in my experience, the choice between a premium cloth and a budget one is less about saving money and more about preserving your brand’s reputation.
The Solution (Short Version)
So what do I actually do now? I buy Simonis 860 for every table that sees regular play. It’s not the cheapest option, but it’s the one with the lowest total cost of ownership. I’ve seen the numbers—compiling costs from 10+ vendors over 3 years—and Simonis consistently wins on longevity and installation ease.
If you’re on the fence, here’s my rule of thumb: if a table generates revenue or represents a customer’s pride and joy, use Simonis 860. For a backyard table that gets used twice a year? Maybe a budget option works. But for commercial use, the premium pays for itself within 18 months.
Bottom line? When I switched our primary stock to Simonis, service calls dropped, customer complaints went down, and my total spend actually decreased over two years. The ’cheap’ option was more expensive all along.