Free craft pricing calculator
Craft pricing calculator
Price your handmade work up from what it really costs, not down from someone else’s shelf. Enter your materials, labor, packaging, and overhead, choose the margin you want to protect, and read the price that clears it. It runs in your browser — nothing to install, no sign-up.
Loaded cost per item
$12
Materials + labor + packaging + overhead.
Suggested price at 40%
$20
A 40% margin is a 66.7% markup on cost.
The formula
price = loaded cost ÷ (1 − margin)
Margin is a share of the price, so you divide — that’s why a 40% margin isn’t the same as adding 40%.
The same cost at three margins
| Margin | 30% | 40% | 50% |
|---|---|---|---|
| Price | $17.15 | $20 | $24 |
Already have a price? Read its margin
At this price, your margin is40%
Right at your target.
These are planning estimates, not tax or pricing advice. Prices clear the margin you set; your market sets the ceiling. Recost off your own current receipts whenever a material price moves.
How to use it
The calculator loads with a worked example — a small candle: $5.00 of wax and fragrance, 15 minutes of hands-on time at $20 an hour, $1.00 of packaging, and $1.00 of overhead. That is a loaded cost of $12.00, and at a 40% margin it suggests a price of $20.00. Change every field to your own numbers; nothing is saved and nothing leaves your device.
The four cost lines are deliberately separate because they are separate money. Materials is what the item is made of. Labor is your time, priced. Packaging — the box, the label, the tissue — is a real cost that “materials” quietly swallows if you let it. Overhead is the share of your monthly fixed costs each item carries: take your total monthly overhead and divide it by the number of items you make in a month.
Margin is not markup — the calculator shows both
This is the mistake that underprices more makers than any other. Margin is the share of the selling price that is profit. Markup is how much you added on top of cost. They are almost never the same number. Our candle costs $12.00 and sells for $20.00: that is a 40% margin ($8 of the $20 price) but a 67% markup ($8 on the $12 cost). If you “mark up by 40%” instead of pricing to a 40% margin, you would charge $16.80 and quietly keep a 29% margin — a real cut you never chose. The formula on the tool, price = loaded cost ÷ (1 − margin), does the dividing for you so you set the margin and let the price follow.
Labor is not optional
If a field tempts you to leave your labor at zero, that is the moment to stop. An item that looks profitable on materials alone can lose money the instant your time is counted, and your time is always spent whether or not you charge for it. Put an honest hourly rate in and the minutes each piece takes. The suggested price will rise, and that rise is not the calculator being greedy — it is the wage you were paying yourself out of thin air, finally on the books.
The wholesale reality
If shops might ever carry your work, price for it now. Many makers set a wholesale price near half of retail, so a healthy retail margin has to still clear a profit when it is cut in half. Try it: our candle at a 40% retail margin sells for $20.00, but half of that is $10.00 — below the $12.00 it costs to make. A 40% margin cannot survive wholesale. That is why makers who sell to shops usually target a higher retail margin from the start; slide the margin up and watch the price at which half-retail still clears your cost. Better to learn it from a slider than from a purchase order.
This calculator, running on its own from your receipts
A calculator is a snapshot; your costs move. Batchnook keeps this same margin math current for every product you make — snap a photo of a supplier receipt and each item’s loaded cost and margin recompute in front of you, so you are never pricing off a number from three receipts ago. The price decision stays yours; the math just never goes stale.
Want the method in full, with maker examples? Read how to price handmade crafts.
Frequently Asked Questions
- How do you calculate a price for handmade crafts?
- Add up what one finished item costs you to make — materials, your labor (minutes times your hourly rate), packaging, and a share of overhead. That is your loaded cost. Then divide by one minus your target margin: price = loaded cost ÷ (1 − margin). A $12 item at a 40% margin prices at $20.
- What is the difference between margin and markup?
- Margin is the share of the selling price that is profit; markup is how much you added on top of cost. A $12 item sold at $20 is a 40% margin (8 of 20) but a 67% markup (8 of 12) — the same two dollars, two different denominators. This calculator shows both so you never confuse them.
- Should I include my own labor in the price?
- Yes. Labor is the line makers skip most, and skipping it hides a loss. Decide what an hour of your time is worth, estimate the minutes each item takes, and enter both — the calculator folds that cost in before it suggests a price, so your margin is real profit over your wage, not your wage in disguise.
- How do I price for wholesale?
- Many makers set wholesale near half of retail, so put your retail price in and check whether the margin survives being halved. If a 40% retail margin turns negative at half price, your retail margin was too thin to wholesale from — you generally need a healthier retail margin before selling to shops makes sense.
- Is this craft pricing calculator free?
- Yes — it runs entirely in your browser, with nothing to install and no sign-up. It is a planning tool. If you want your real costs kept current automatically as prices change, that is what Batchnook does from a photo of your receipts.