Handmade Pricing Calculator
Most handmade goods are underpriced for one reason: the maker counts the materials and forgets the hours. Enter what goes into one item — materials, the minutes it takes, what your time is worth, a share of your overheads — and the profit you want on top. The calculator gives a price that covers all of it, raised to absorb marketplace fees if you sell online. The second tool runs the check the other way and shows what your current price pays you per hour. For goods you buy in and resell, the plain markup calculator is all you need. For the reasoning behind each field, read how to price handmade items.
When to use this calculator
Use this when you are pricing a new piece, before you open an online shop or book a craft fair, or when you suspect a best-seller is not actually paying you. It suits anything made by hand in small numbers: jewellery, candles, soap, ceramics, knitwear, prints, woodwork, baked goods.
Materials include packaging. Selling fees are the share of the price a marketplace or card processor keeps — the price is raised so you still receive the full amount.
Price to Charge
Cost to Make
Profit per Item
Results are instant — nothing is stored and no account is needed.
What Does My Current Price Pay Me per Hour?
If you already sell something, this is the quickest way to find out whether the price works. Enter what you charge, what the materials and overheads come to, and how long one takes to make. You get the amount left after costs and fees, and what that means as an hourly wage. A $24 item with $7.50 of costs, 45 minutes of work and 10% in fees pays $18.80 an hour — before any profit for the business.
Left After Costs and Fees
What You Earn per Hour
Related Calculators
How to Calculate
- Add up the materials in one item, including packaging. For a batch, divide the batch total by the number of items.
- Multiply the time one item takes by your hourly rate to get the labour cost.
- Add a share of your overheads: monthly running costs divided by items sold per month.
- Add your profit markup to that total cost.
- If a marketplace takes a percentage, divide by (1 − fee) so the fee comes out of the customer's price, not your profit.
Formula
With $6 of materials, 45 minutes at $20 an hour ($15) and $1.50 of overheads, the cost is $22.50. A 40% markup makes $31.50. Dividing by 0.90 for a 10% fee gives $35.00: the marketplace keeps $3.50 and you receive the full $31.50.
Examples
$6 materials, 45 min at $20, $1.50 overheads, 40% markup, 10% fees
$35.00
$3 materials, 15 min at $18, $0.50 overheads, 50% markup, no fees
$12.00
$40 materials, 5 hrs at $25, $5 overheads, 30% markup, 6.5% fees
$236.36
Use Cases
- Pricing a new handmade product before listing it
- Checking whether a best-seller really pays for your time
- Setting prices for a craft fair or market stall
- Quoting a custom order or commission
- Deciding which products to drop from your range
FAQ
What hourly rate should I pay myself?
Start from what you would have to pay someone else to do the making, and never from zero. The legal minimum wage where you live is the floor; skilled or slow-to-learn work justifies more. If the price that comes out looks too high, the answer is to make the item faster or change the product, not to pretend your time is free.
Does the "materials times three" rule work?
Only for things that are quick to make. It ignores time completely. A keyring with $4 of materials that takes ten minutes is fine at $12. A knitted hat with $4 of yarn that takes three hours is not: at $12 you would earn under $3 an hour. Price from materials plus time and use the rule only as a sanity check. The guide to pricing handmade items compares it with two other common formulas on the same product.
My calculated price is higher than similar items sell for. What now?
First check you are comparing like with like — mass-produced goods are not your competition. Then look at the inputs: can you buy materials in bulk, batch the work to cut minutes per item, or simplify the design? If the gap remains, either position the piece as premium with better photos and story, or accept that this product does not pay and make something else.
Do I charge for time spent on photos, listings and packing orders?
Yes, through overheads. Add up a month of non-making costs and time — photography, listing, messages, trips to the post office, tools, studio rent — and divide by the number of items you sell in a month. If that comes to $90 a month across 60 items, each item carries $1.50.
Should I use the same price on Etsy, my own website and at craft fairs?
Keep one price. Customers notice differences, and shops that stock you will too. Because fees vary by channel, base the price on your most expensive one; where fees are lower you simply keep a little more.
How do I price a custom order or commission?
Add the time a standard piece does not need: the back-and-forth with the customer, design or sketching, sourcing special materials, and at least one round of changes. Time it once, put those minutes through the calculator like any other labour, and take a deposit that pays for the materials before you start.
Advanced Scenarios
Making in batches
Time per item usually falls when you make several at once. One candle poured alone might take 25 minutes including set-up and clean-up; a batch of 24 that takes three hours works out at 7.5 minutes each. Enter the batch figure divided by the batch size, and price on how you really work.
Leaving room for wholesale
A shop will expect to pay about half the retail price. If the price from this calculator is your retail price, check that half of it still covers your cost. When it does not, the product is direct-only unless you can cut the making time. The wholesale price calculator shows both prices together.
Craft fairs and stall fees
A stall fee is a fixed cost for the day, not part of each item. A $120 pitch selling items that leave you $9 each needs 14 sales before the day has paid for itself — and that is before travel. Use the break-even calculator to decide whether a fair is worth booking.
Running a sale
The profit markup is the only part of the price you can give away. On the $35.00 example, the $9.00 profit is about a quarter of the price, so a 25% discount leaves barely more than your wages, and anything deeper comes out of your own pay. Test it in the seller section of the discount calculator first.
Labour Cost by Making Time
What your time adds to one item at three hourly rates.
| Time per item | At $15/hour | At $20/hour | At $25/hour |
|---|---|---|---|
| 15 min | $3.75 | $5.00 | $6.25 |
| 30 min | $7.50 | $10.00 | $12.50 |
| 45 min | $11.25 | $15.00 | $18.75 |
| 1 hour | $15.00 | $20.00 | $25.00 |
| 1.5 hours | $22.50 | $30.00 | $37.50 |
| 2 hours | $30.00 | $40.00 | $50.00 |