Talky Tuesday | Handmade Pricing Math Ain’t Mathing

[OliviaZzz]

Hello community!
It’s Tuesday again, and today’s topic is one a lot of makers probably understand a little too well.

Pricing handmade things can feel surprisingly difficult. Not just because of materials or numbers, but because handmade work is personal. Time disappears while making something, small details take longer than expected, and at some point you have to decide what all of that is worth.

A lot of people also end up stuck between different thoughts at the same time. You want the price to feel fair. You don’t want to undervalue your work. You also don’t want people to look at the number and immediately disappear

So let’s talk about it:

What’s the hardest part about pricing handmade things for you?
Is there anything you still struggle with when deciding prices?
And has your mindset around pricing changed over time?

No perfect answers here. Just curious to hear everyone’s experiences and thoughts

We’ll randomly pick 3 replies to receive 100 Cheers this week.

See you down there

[OliviaZzz]

Thanks so much to everyone who joined last week’s Crafting Injuries discussion.

Congrats to @Personnia_Rawls, @rinsky, and @redhada. You each received 100 Cheers points.

Hope this brings a tiny bit of comfort after all those crafting battle stories lol

[Personnia_Rawls]

Wow, thanks for the cheers Olivia. If only people realized just how much goes into what we do.

[Personnia_Rawls]

This post hit on some of my biggest obstacles when pricing my work. I honestly feel more often than not I underprice my work. It always seem the pricing calculators/formulas price well above what most of the similar items sell for when I check. Often when I come up with a price if I check around others are selling for so much less.

Sometimes I look at how low their prices are and it’s like how do you even recoup the costs for shipping and materials even if we exclude time it took to make it. I will say after realizing that underpricing your work effects the entire community I’ve made a conscious effort to do better.

[Dorthe]

I don’t make much for selling but when i do i think it is hard to set a price when you see the time you spend on making it and must considering what you are to pay if it is your self so offen i just take what it cost in materials to make as i do love make it.

[Donna_Burbey]

Most of what I do is one-off custom pieces. There is always design time and I feel as though the general public does not understand this is part of getting them what they want. Most of my work is for family, friends or coworkers and I certainly don’t want to give someone on pricing. I figure if I want working on their item, what would I be doing so my time gets factored into the cost but I feel like it’s just a bonus because it’s either I make that money to buy more stuff or I watch something on TV.

[Lovely_Lubin]

The hardest part about pricing handmade items for me has been knowing my worth and not underpricing myself. In the beginning, I struggled to understand what experienced crafters meant when they said to calculate everything. Your blanks, materials, time, and labor. I used to just throw out a number and hope it felt right. It was still under Pricing.
I still sometimes struggle with deciding exactly how much to charge per hour and making sure I’m not pricing from emotion or fear of losing a customer. Pricing can feel personal when you put so much of yourself into handmade work.
My mindset has definitely changed over time though. As I’ve gotten more clients and experience, I’m starting to understand that pricing isn’t just about covering product costs. It’s about valuing my time, creativity, skills, and business. I’m not a master at pricing yet, but I’m way more confident than I used to be, and I’m still learning.

[shirleycobb]

One thing I’ve personally struggled with is pricing my handmade crafts. For the longest time, I felt like I was charging too much. But after talking with so many fellow crafters and small business owners, I realized something important… handmade items should never be compared to mass-produced products from big box stores.

Every item I make takes my time, creativity, effort, and my own money to create. There’s love, patience, and hard work behind every piece. When I really sat down and looked at the cost of supplies and the time I put into each item, I realized that lowering my prices would leave me barely breaking even, or even losing money altogether.

I’m learning that valuing my work isn’t being overpriced, it’s respecting the craft and the effort behind it. Handmade will always be different because it’s made with care, not by machines.

[redhada]

Wow! Thank you for the cheers @OliviaZzz. And congratulations to @Personnia_Rawls and @rinsky

[rinsky]

Thank you so much for the cheers @OliviaZzz! Congratulations to @redhada and @Personnia_Rawls!

[redhada]

For me, finding a balance between material costs, time, and an affordable price is the hardest part. I think about materials and costs a thousand times before choosing and ordering anything. Most of the time, I’m unable to design a product quickly, I need to live with the idea for a while, think, test, and rethink it. I want to enjoy it. Because of that, I tend to work on products that take a long time to develop but can later be produced relatively easily and quickly.

After that, once everything is ready to go, the whole journey has already been walked just to reach a point where I can set a price that allows a certain number of sales to cover the expenses (though not the design time invested) while still feeling fair for both sides.

[rinsky]

Research, research, and more research — that’s really the secret sauce. This is where I sit down and do the math for my handmade projects. I’ll hop on Etsy, look around to see if anyone is selling something similar, then break everything down: cost of materials, wear and tear on my machines, and of course the hours I put in. Because let’s be honest… every hour we spend creating is an hour taken from family time, so it has to be valued.

I’ll share an example. I made a couple of tote bags for my sisters‑in‑law and charged them $21/hr based on our local rate. For both bags, they paid a total of $700 — they even added a $100 tip. So each bag came out to $350. And honestly, I loved every minute of it. Sewing bags is my happy place. Every single one turns out a little different, and that’s the magic of handmade.

[Personnia_Rawls]

Thanks and congrats to you too.

[Personnia_Rawls]

I love these.

[Personnia_Rawls]

Thank you and congratulations to you as well.

[Cory_Barger]

This topic hits close to home because pricing handmade items has honestly been one of the hardest things for me to learn as a creator. When you make something by hand, you know every layer, every mistake, every redesign, every material test, and every late night that went into it. Customers usually only see the finished product sitting on the table.

One thing that completely changed my mindset was finally building detailed spreadsheets for my projects. I started tracking everything. Material costs. Paint. Wood. Cardstock. Vinyl. Sublimation paper. Packaging. Even estimated machine usage and wear over time on things like lasers, heat presses, and printers. I also started factoring in failed prints, wasted materials during testing, electricity, booth fees, and all the little hidden costs that quietly add up.

What shocked me was realizing how often I had been underpricing my work without even knowing it.

The hardest part for me now is honestly balancing emotion with reality. I want my products to feel accessible and affordable because I genuinely love creating things for people. But at the same time, I have had to learn that pricing too low does not help anyone in the long run. If creators burn themselves out or lose money, eventually they stop creating altogether.

My mindset has definitely changed over time. Early on I priced based on what I thought people would pay. Now I price based on understanding the actual value, labor, creativity, equipment investment, and experience behind what I create. That does not mean every customer will understand the price and that is okay. The right customers usually do.

I still struggle sometimes with custom work because those projects can become deeply personal and time consuming very quickly. You can spend hours adjusting tiny details because you care about getting it perfect for someone. That emotional investment is hard to quantify on a spreadsheet.

One thing I have learned though is that handmade should never be expected to compete with mass produced factory pricing. Handmade carries a story, skillset, and personal touch that machines alone cannot replicate.

[kimberlyrudy]

I’ve always struggled with putting a value on something that I’ve put a piece of my soul into especially my paintings. I have been known to cry after selling one because it feels like I am selling a child. Sometimes my heart wants things priced so high that I don’t have to give them up. I know, I have issues. I leave our vendor table and let my husband sell quite often.

It seems now like the online sites start bidding wars to see who can sell things the cheapest. I refuse to join in, well, I refuse to sell online because of it;

[Judi_B]

I try to figure out what it cost me to make then add on from their it depends on the item sublimation cups I usually do a dollar a once for pricing.