We sell the same fibre in three forms and they suit completely different people. Buying the wrong one is the most common way to be disappointed by a fibre purchase, so here is the plain comparison.
Raw fleece
$40 a 1kg bag. Skirted, unwashed, exactly as it came off the animal.
You do everything. Sort it, wash it, dry it, pick it, card or comb it, then spin. That is several evenings of work before you touch a wheel.
Buy it if you enjoy preparation as much as spinning, you want complete control over how the fibre is prepared, or you want the cheapest fibre per kilo by a wide margin.
Do not buy it if your spinning time is short and precious. There is no shame in that. Plenty of very good spinners never wash a fleece.
Carded bump
$36 for 200g. Scoured and carded at a mill, ready to spin.
All the preparation is done. You open the bag, pull the roving from the centre and start. A 200g bump spun to 8 ply gives roughly 400 to 500 metres, which is a beanie and a pair of mitts with a little over, or a decent scarf.
Buy it if you want to spin rather than prepare, or you are new to spinning and want to learn drafting without also learning scouring.
Worth knowing: carding gives an airy, woollen style preparation with loft and bloom. If you want a sleek worsted yarn you would comb rather than card, and for that you want raw fleece.
Mill spun yarn
$36 for a 100g skein in 8 ply, $40 in 4 ply. Spun and ready to knit.
No spinning at all. Our 4 ply runs around 390 metres to a 100g skein, which goes further than most people expect. The 8 ply is the useful all rounder for beanies, mitts, scarves and relaxed jumpers.
Buy it if you knit or crochet and do not spin, or you want a consistent yarn across a whole garment without the variation that comes from hand spinning.
The cost comparison, honestly
Per kilo, raw fleece is by far the cheapest and yarn is by far the dearest. That is not a markup, it is the processing. A carded bump has been through a mill, and mill work is charged on incoming weight, which is why 200 grams of carded fibre costs what it does.
What you are really choosing between is money and time. Raw fleece is cheap fibre and expensive hours. Yarn is the reverse.
The colours
All of it is undyed and all of it comes off our own animals at Mulgoa in western Sydney. Natural black, brown, fawn and white in raw fleece. Black and brown in carded bumps and in yarn.
Black is the one most spinners tell us they struggle to find undyed anywhere, which is a consequence of how our herd is bred rather than an accident.
A note on blending
Pure alpaca has less elastic recovery than sheep's wool. It is superb where drape and softness matter, and it is not the best choice on its own for fitted ribbing, sock cuffs or anything that needs to snap back into shape. If you are making a structured garment, consider blending with a crimpy wool at anywhere from 20 to 50 percent. Raw fleece and carded bumps both blend easily on hand cards or a drum carder. Mill spun yarn obviously does not.
Raw fleece by the kilo · Yarn and carded bumps
See also: how to wash raw alpaca fleece and how much yarn a kilo makes.