Pricing is the part of making that most of us hate. Price too high and nothing sells. Price too low and you are paying to be busy. The fix is not a magic multiplier; it is knowing what each piece really costs you, then adding the profit you want on top.
Step 1: Cost your materials properly
Work out the cost of everything that goes into one piece. For leather, that means the cost of the area you actually use, plus some for waste, not the cost of the whole hide. Add thread, hardware, glue, dye, labels and packaging. Little things add up: a few pence on a label and a box can be the difference between profit and loss on a small item.
Step 2: Pay yourself for your time
Time how long one piece really takes, from cutting to packing, and multiply by an hourly rate. Pick a rate you would be happy to be paid; if you would not do the job for £5 an hour for someone else, do not do it for yourself.
Step 3: Allow for selling fees
Every platform takes a cut. On Etsy in the UK, transaction, payment processing and listing fees together come to roughly 10% of the sale plus a few pence per order, and card readers and PayPal take their own share. Check your own platform’s current fees, because they change.
Step 4: Add your profit
Profit is not the same as your wage. It is what the business keeps for new tools, leather price rises and quiet months. Many makers aim for 20 to 30% of the selling price.
A worked example
Say a candle in a tin costs £3.40 in materials, takes 12 minutes (£2.40 at £12 an hour) and 30p of packaging. That is £6.10 to make. To keep 25% of the price as profit after about 10.5% plus 36p in fees, the price needs to be about £10, so round it up to £10.50. Sell it at £16 and you are doing well. Sell it at £7 and you lose about 20p on every sale once the fees come off.
The mistakes most makers make
- Forgetting their own time, because “I enjoy it anyway”.
- Pricing against mass-produced shop items instead of other handmade sellers.
- Ignoring fees and postage, which quietly eat the profit.
- Never raising prices when materials go up.
Let an app do the sums
Stock & Costing does all of this for you. Add your materials once, build a recipe for each product, and it shows the cost to make, the fees, your profit and a suggested price for your target margin. It also tracks your stock and builds a shopping list when you run low. It is a one-off payment rather than a monthly subscription. If you only need the pricing part, our Maker’s Price & Hide Calculator works out per-item material costs and prices.