What curtains cost in Pakenham, 2026.
Made-to-measure curtains around here run from about $280 for a modest sheer up to $900 for a lined pinch-pleat blockout across a wide window. A typical 3 to 4 bedroom estate home in sheers throughout with blockouts in the bedrooms lands between $4,500 and $11,000 fitted. Below is where each of those dollars actually goes.
Every figure on this page is a fitted price in 2026 Australian dollars, GST included, and covers the fabric, the making, the heading, the lining where one is used, and the installation. Tracks and rods are listed separately because they are genuinely a separate decision, and because a sound existing track can often be reused. Nothing here is a headline price with conditions attached: the ranges are wide because curtains are priced on the fabric they consume, and a 3 metre window honestly does cost roughly twice a 1.5 metre one in the same cloth.
2026 price bands, supplied and installed
Per window unless noted. Your exact number depends on track length, drop height, fabric and heading, all confirmed at the free measure.
| What we are hanging | Typical range (AU 2026) | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Sheer curtains, S-fold on a track | $280 - $700 | Daytime privacy, keeps the light and the garden view. |
| Blockout curtains, pinch pleat, lined | $350 - $900 | Face fabric plus a separate lining. Best drape and warmth. |
| Triple-weave blockout (no separate lining) | $300 - $750 | Block built into the weave. Cheaper, easier care, flatter drape. |
| S-fold heading premium over pinch pleat | +10% - 20% | Extra fullness plus a compatible wave track. |
| Curtain track, standard | $90 - $220 | Straight runs up to about 2.4m, wall or ceiling fixed. |
| Curtain track, heavy-duty or bay-bent | $220 - $600 | Wide sliders, heavy lined curtains, bay and corner bends. |
| Motorised track | $700 - $1,800 | Per window. Battery or hardwired, app and remote control. |
| Decorative rod and finials | $120 - $450 | Pinch pleat, eyelet or tab top only. Not compatible with S-fold. |
| Alteration: re-hem (per curtain) | $80 - $180 | New floors, or curtains that moved house with you. |
| Alteration: re-heading (per curtain) | $120 - $300 | Pencil pleat to pinch pleat, or eyelet onto a track. |
| Alteration: adding lining (per pair) | $150 - $400 | Turns a decorative curtain into a thermal one. |
| Whole house, 3 to 4 bedrooms | $4,500 - $11,000 | Sheers throughout plus blockouts in the bedrooms. |
Indicative for Pakenham and the Cardinia Shire in 2026, GST included. Lead time 3 to 5 weeks from approval. Exact figures come from the free in-home measure.
What actually drives the price
Curtains are not priced like blinds. A blind is a manufactured unit sized to an opening. A curtain is a quantity of cloth, cut, joined and finished by hand, so the quote follows the fabric. These five things move a number inside, and sometimes outside, the bands above.
1. Track length, not window width
Curtains are quoted off the track, and the track is nearly always longer than the window. Running it 150mm to 250mm past each side lets the curtain stack off the glass when open, which stops it eating your light and your view. Add a return at each end so the fabric turns back to the wall and seals the edge, and a 2.4 metre window can easily need a 3 metre track. That is 25 percent more fabric before anything else is decided. It is worth it: a curtain stacked over the glass makes a room feel smaller and darker all day.
2. Fullness
Fullness is the multiplier applied to the track length to get the flat fabric width. Pinch pleat is typically made at 2 to 2.5 times, S-fold at 2.2 to 2.5 times. On a 3 metre track that is 6 to 7.5 metres of cloth. Drop below about 2 times and the folds go shallow and the curtain reads as cheap no matter how good the fabric is, which is exactly what has gone wrong with most ready-made curtains. This is also the honest reason S-fold costs more than pinch pleat in the same fabric.
3. Fabric width and pattern repeat
Curtain fabric comes in two forms. Standard-width fabric, around 137cm, is railroaded or joined into drops, so a tall ceiling means more drops and more joins. Wide-width fabric, around 280cm to 300cm, can be turned on its side so the full drop comes from one cut with no seams, which is why most sheers are made this way and why they often price better than you expect. Then there is the pattern repeat. A plain or textured fabric wastes almost nothing. A printed fabric with a 64cm repeat forces every drop to be cut long enough to line the motif up across the joins, and the offcuts are dead cost. Two fabrics at the same metre rate can differ by 20 percent once the repeat is allowed for.
4. Lining
Unlined is cheapest and suits sheers, where you want the light through. A standard cotton and polyester lining adds body, protects the face fabric from our harsh northerly and westerly summer sun, and improves the hang. A blockout or coated thermal lining adds the light block and the real insulation. Interlining, a soft bump layer between face fabric and lining, is the most expensive option and gives the deepest, heaviest drape and the best winter performance. In a Pakenham winter the lining is doing more for your comfort than the fabric on the front, and in a newer double-brick estate home it also affects how condensation behaves against the glass, so it is worth a proper conversation rather than a default.
5. Heading type
Pencil pleat is the cheapest to make. Pinch pleat, double or triple, is the classic and works on both tracks and decorative rods. Eyelet is casual and rod-only. S-fold needs a compatible wave track and more fabric, which is where the 10 to 20 percent premium comes from. Tab top is inexpensive but does not draw smoothly, so we rarely recommend it for a curtain you will open and close every day.
A worked example: 4-bedroom home in Cardinia Lakes
A recent-handover 4 bedroom, 2 living estate home with 2.55 metre ceilings, standard for the newer Cardinia Lakes and Arena streets. Nothing was included at handover, so every window was bare glass. The brief was soft light and privacy through the living areas, proper darkness in the bedrooms, and a budget that did not run away. Mid-range fabrics throughout.
| Window | What we hung | Fitted |
|---|---|---|
| Family room slider, 3.0m | S-fold sheer, wide-width fabric, 3.6m heavy-duty track, floor to ceiling with returns | $690 |
| Dining, 1.8m | S-fold sheer, matching fabric | $450 |
| Meals and kitchen, 1.5m | S-fold sheer, matching fabric | $390 |
| Second living, 2.1m | S-fold sheer, matching fabric | $500 |
| Entry and hall, 0.9m | S-fold sheer, matching fabric | $300 |
| Master bedroom, 2.4m | Sheer at $500 plus lined pinch-pleat blockout at $750, both on a twin track | $1,250 |
| Bedroom 2, 1.5m | Triple-weave blockout, pinch pleat | $430 |
| Bedroom 3, 1.5m | Triple-weave blockout, pinch pleat | $430 |
| Bedroom 4 and study, 1.5m | Triple-weave blockout, pinch pleat | $430 |
| Total, supplied and installed | 9 windows, tracks included | $4,870 |
That sits at the lower end of the $4,500 to $11,000 whole-house band, and it gets there by making sensible trade-offs rather than by cutting corners. The sheers use a wide-width fabric with no pattern repeat, so almost nothing is wasted. The three secondary bedrooms use triple-weave blockout instead of a lined make, which saves roughly $250 a window and is more than good enough for a room that is dark by 8pm anyway. The money that was saved went into the master, which got the full sheer plus lined blockout treatment on a twin track because that is the room where the layering is used every single day.
The same house pushes toward $9,000 to $11,000 if you go designer fabric in the living areas, lined and interlined blockouts in all four bedrooms, and a motorised track on the family room slider. That last item alone is $700 to $1,800. It is a genuinely nice thing to have on a 3 metre curtain you open twice a day, and a complete waste on a bedroom window. We will tell you which is which.
Where a cheap curtain quote gets its savings
If a quote you have been given is well under these bands, the money has come out of somewhere. Usually one of these. Worth asking before you sign.
- Fullness cut to 1.5 times. The most common one, and invisible on paper. Ask what fullness the quote is made at, in writing.
- No returns and no pelmet. Saves a little fabric and a bracket, and costs you most of the winter warmth benefit, because the convection loop just runs over the top.
- Curtains finishing at the windowsill. Cheaper in cloth, but a curtain that stops at the sill leaves the cold air a clear path into the room.
- A light-duty track on a wide slider. It will sag and bind within a year under a lined curtain, and replacing it later means taking the curtains down again.
- Unlined fabric sold as blockout. Hold it up to a lamp. If you can see the filament, it is not a blockout, and it will fade badly in a north or west-facing Pakenham room.
Common questions on price
Are prices per window or per pair?
Why do two curtains in the same fabric cost different amounts?
Is it cheaper to buy ready-made?
Do you charge for the measure?
Get an exact number for your windows.
Free in-home measure across Pakenham, Officer, Beaconsfield, Koo Wee Rup, Bunyip and Garfield.
More detail on each product: sheer curtains, blockout curtains, S-fold curtains, tracks and rods and alterations and re-hems. Suburbs we cover are listed on the service areas page.