Is it worth reupholstering, or should I just buy new?

It's the first question almost everyone asks, and the honest answer is: it depends entirely on the frame.

A retro sofa reupholstered in bold floral fabric

Start with the bones

A cover is just a cover. What you're really paying for when you reupholster is the frame underneath — and a good frame is worth an enormous amount.

Furniture built forty or fifty years ago was very often made from solid hardwood, jointed and glued properly, with springs that were tied by hand. That frame will outlive almost anything you can buy today at the same price. Recovering it is not sentimentality; it's a genuinely better piece of furniture at the end.

A lot of contemporary flat-pack and budget lounge furniture, by contrast, is built on softwood, particle board and staples. Once that frame starts to go, no amount of new fabric will save it.

If the frame is solid, reupholstering is almost always the better buy. If the frame is going, the nicest fabric in the world won't fix it.

The three signs it's worth doing

The frame is solid timber and doesn't rack. Push down on one arm. If the whole thing twists or creaks, that's a warning sign. If it's rigid, that's a good frame.
You like the shape. This sounds obvious, but shape is the one thing we can't change cheaply. If you love the lines of it, you're most of the way there.
It's not replaceable. An heirloom, a mid-century piece, something that fits an awkward alcove exactly. You will not find that again for the price of a recover.

The three times we'll tell you to walk away

The frame is particle board or badly broken. We can repair a lot, but we can't rebuild a frame that was never any good.
It's a cheap modern lounge you're indifferent about. The labour to strip, re-web, re-pad and recover a three-seater is real work. On a piece you don't love, that money is better spent on something you do.
Water or mould has got right through it. Common enough after a Brisbane storm season. If it's gone through the timber, it's gone.

What actually drives the cost

Three things, in roughly this order:

Fabric. Often the single biggest line on the quote. A three-seat lounge can take a lot of metres, and the difference between an entry-level fabric and a designer one is substantial.
The condition underneath. If the webbing, springs and foam all need replacing, that's a lot of hours before we even get to the cover.
Detailing. Deep buttoning, fluting, contrast piping and patterned fabric that has to be matched across seams all add time. They also make the finished piece.

The short version

Send us a photo. Take one from the front, one from the side, and one underneath if you can get to it. That's usually enough for us to tell you whether it's worth your money — and we'd genuinely rather say "don't bother" than take on a job that won't make you happy.