As many of you know, I sell a lot of my quilts as well as take a lot of custom orders. Also, probably all of you out there, love to support handmade and probably create handmade yourself.
If any of you sell your handmade goods, you have experienced this. If any of you buy handmade, you have experienced this as well. If you buy handmade and have never made anything yourself, that’s awesome! But you have probably seen the prices of handmade items and thought, “Really?! You want how much for that?!”
Some people are completely unaware of what goes into making something, and that’s ok. I’m here to explain my view on pricing handmade.
There’s a popular business pricing model that is widely used across the board, for all sorts of items: handmade and things you would buy in the big box stores.
It is pretty self explanatory.
Materials: Anything you need to create, package and ship the item.
Time: How long it takes to make the item.
Profit: How much do you want to get paid for selling the item
All of these together equal your WHOLESALE price, as in what you would sell your product for if sold in larger quantities. To figure how to sell each item, multiply your wholesale by 2. That is the price that you should be selling at.
However, I don’t follow this model.
Although, I wish I could! I tell my customers that I charge materials + time. But really that’s a lie. If I actually charged all of my time that I put into making a quilt, from start to finish, it would be absurd. I can’t do that to my customers. So really, you all are getting a great deal!
Let’s take one of my recent finishes for example.
This is a large quilt, heavily quilted.
First materials: A large quilt (aprox. 60-90 inches) there is around $100-$150 of materials. Price can vary depending on fabrics used, sales etc. I personally don’t take into consideration the prices of shipping materials, although I should.
For this quilt, materials cost $125
Time: HA! It took 2 hours to cut and trim, 18 hours to piece, 26 hours to quilt, 45 min to back and baste, 3 hours to bind. For a grand total of 46 hours and 45 minutes of solid work time.
Profit: Say I wanted to make $15 an hour. I would need to multiply my time by 15. This would make it $701.25
SO, $125+$701.25= $826.25
And that should be my WHOLESALE PRICE. Retail (what I should be selling at) would make it $1,652.20
See, that’s why I (and most other handmade sellers) don’t use the pricing model the rest of the world can use!
For a quilt this size and this detailed with the quilting, I would charge around $375. That’s me making not even $5 an hour, not even close to minimum wage.
But it’s also a tricky thing, because you don’t want to under price yourself, and not charge what your art is worth. There has to be a balance, and each person needs to find their own balance…but please, don’t sell something that should be valued at $300 for $30. It doesn’t do much for your art!
So next time you are browsing on ETSY, think about all of the hard work the artist put into their work. Handmade sellers aren’t out there to make a fortune, they aren’t trying to get rich off of you, they do it because it is something they love and are sharing a little piece of their lives with you (and hopefully being able to pay a bill or two!)
**I am in NO way an expert on any of this. These are just my thoughts and views and what I have found works for me. Every one is different and different things work for different people! Thank you.**
YES!! Thank you for posting this!! It’s so hard to explain to people! I always look at paying myself that little amount an hour as “ok” since I’d technically be sewing anyways so it’s more than I’d be making sewing for myself!
Well stated! Thank you! I don’t follow that model either! I usually charge around 50% more than cost of material. Like you said, it’s for the love of it!
Great article! Once my grandmother said she could probably get the local firehall to auction one of my quilts and it might bring in $60-75! I said, “The fabric cost more than that!”
I think to even look at making a profit, we’d have to buy fabric at wholesale prices (in bulk) and focus on making quilts from an efficient pattern that didn’t vary much artistically from time to time. Beyond that, it’s very much for the love!
I couldnt agree with you more, and all too often i’m underpricing myself because its my craft and I enjoy it — thankfully my parents typically buy local and handmade so they give me their impressions and help with my pricing but most of the people in my area have NO IDEA, and it almost makes me feel bad presenting a price, when in reality, they should feel badly for freaking out about it..
Very good explanation!
Pricing is the boon to my existence! I usually do something like cost of all materials x3 (so $100 worth of materials I’d charge $300 for the quilt), but that doesn’t work for every quilt is the same, so I’ve started taking the square inches and multiplying that by a certain amount. Like a simple quilt I might charge 5-7 cents/square inch, and more intricate might be 10-15 cents.
Very well said! Thanks for the post.
Your post is perfectly timed — I just got my first custom quilt order and have been mulling over what to charge. You are so right about finding a balance between time & cost and what is realistic to charge. I’ve recently sold several consigned baby quilts and my profit came out to about $5 an hour (at best) but it’s the joy of making these quilts that has the most value for me. Thanks so much for posting this, I appreciate your perspective.