Enter your materials, hours and hourly rate and this gives your true cost per piece, then wholesale and retail prices from it. It adds overhead most makers forget and grosses the price up for marketplace fees, because a 9.5% fee on a $40 item means listing at $44.20 — not $43.80. Pricing your own time at zero is the most common reason a craft business looks profitable and is not.

How to use it

  1. Materials for one piece, not the cost of the whole skein or sheet. Work out what one finished item actually consumes.
  2. Your hours, honestly — including the fiddly finishing that always takes longer than the making.
  3. An hourly rate you would accept from someone else. This is the number people set too low.
  4. Overhead at ten to twenty per cent, then pick the platform you sell on.

A worked example

A crocheted animal: $8 of yarn and safety eyes, $1.50 of packaging, three hours at $20. Labour is $60, base is $69.50, and 15% overhead makes the true cost $79.93. Wholesale at 2× is $159.85 and retail is $319.70 — which tells you something important: at three hours a piece this product does not work at craft-fair prices. Either the make time comes down, or it is sold as a pattern instead of a finished object. That is the calculation that turns a hobby into a business.

Where the numbers usually go wrong

Mistake What it does
Charging nothing for your time Every sale feels fine and the business never grows. You are buying yourself a job at £0 an hour.
Adding the platform fee instead of dividing Leaves you short on every order, by more as the price rises.
Ignoring overhead Tools, electricity and failed pieces come out of your profit invisibly.
Pricing from what competitors charge Copies someone else’s mistake and hides whether yours is viable.
Forgetting the second pour, the reject, the reprint Waste is a real cost of production. Build it into materials.

Frequently asked questions

How do I price a handmade item?
Add materials, packaging and your own time at a real hourly rate, add overhead, then multiply. Cost × 2 is your wholesale price and wholesale × 2 is retail. If retail feels too high, the fix is a faster make or cheaper materials — not unpaid hours.
Why multiply by two twice?
Wholesale has to cover cost and leave you a profit. Retail has to leave room for a shop to double it, so your own retail price does not undercut the stockists you want. Even if you never wholesale, that structure keeps the option open.
What should my hourly rate be?
Start at your local minimum wage as an absolute floor and raise it as your work gets better. Skilled craft work at fifteen to thirty an hour is normal. Pricing your time at zero is not a discount, it is a hidden loss.
What counts as overhead?
Electricity, tool replacement, needles and blades wearing out, failed pieces, photography, listing time, website costs and packaging you buy in bulk. Ten to twenty per cent of your base cost covers it for most makers.
How do I handle Etsy fees in my price?
Divide rather than add. A fee of 9.5% on a $40 item is not $40 + 9.5% — to keep $40 you must list at $44.20. Adding the percentage leaves you short every time.

Related free tools

Yarn yardage calculator — material cost per piece · Soy wax calculator — wax cost per candle · All free craft tools

If the maths says a finished object does not pay, selling the pattern often does — it is made once and sold indefinitely. Every pattern we publish carries a small-business licence so you can sell what you make from it.