Embroidery Digitizing Pricing: one big question

I just did the best quote I've ever done. After fees and per/1000 charges, the invoice come to about $3 less than the quote. Perfect! The embroiderer sees two things:
1: I know a bit about what goes into a design, enough to quote accurately.
2: The perceived value stays high because I didn't undercut my self too much, and the customer pays a touch less than they expected, which is always a good transaction for the embroiderer.
I've experimented with different pricing set-ups a lot. I want to be competitive on a per/1000 stitches basis, while making a decent per/hour wage. My final solution is to use two methods, both a set-up fee and a very low per/1000 stitches price. This keeps my minimum charge high enough to cover sales+admin time, while "flattening" pricing for the embroiderer. You see, the problem is a steep pricing graph. With high per/1000 prices, the cost of digitizing is prohibitive for the small-businesses that populate our industry. Bigger designs cannot cost so much that the embroiderer cannot charge reasonable prices to a small or medium sized end-buyers.
One other "flattening" method I've seen is variable per/1000 pricing. One very good example (with, by the way, a great SEO'd website!)is 123Digitizing. http://www.123digitizing.com/
Their model is to drop the per/1000 price by $1 every 5000 stitches. Simple, steady, and flatter than other options. Not flatter than mine, yet, but pretty interesting. (In fact, a 9900 stitch design costs more than a 10500 stitch design because of the price break at 10,000 stitches. Weird, to be sure, but better than no price break at all.)see below for correction!

UPDATE
I was contacted with a correction in regards to the pricing for 123Digitizing. They round up the stitch count to the nearest 1000, eliminating any weird pricing breaks. Also, some questioned my own pricing. Well, generally I charge a $35 set-up fee, plus $1.50 per thousand stitches. So far I have found this works well.