Handmade pricing calculator
Enter what one item costs you in materials, how long it takes and what your time is worth. You get a base cost, a wholesale price and a retail price, then a check of what you actually keep at that retail price after platform fees.
Edit fee rates
Get the Seller Profit Sheet, $14 one-time. Launch price: 50% off with FIRST10, first 10 buyers.
Fee defaults are US rates as of October 2026: Etsy 6.5% transaction + 3% + $0.25 processing + $0.20 listing per item sold; Shopify Basic 2.9% + $0.30 with Shopify Payments (plus the $39 monthly plan, not included here). Fees are on the item price only; shipping and sales tax are left out. Edit any rate above.
That's one product. Which of yours lose money?
The Seller Profit Sheet does this math for every product at once. Paste your Etsy or Shopify sales export (or type in Amazon and eBay sales) and it shows net profit per product after fees, labels, discounts, returns and ad spend, with a red LOSING MONEY flag on anything underwater. Excel and Google Sheets, one-time $14, no subscription.
Get the Seller Profit SheetPrices sorted? The next fix is getting found: I rewrite Etsy titles, 13 tags and descriptions on Fiverr, from $5. See the offer on Fiverr
How the formula works
Handmade pricing starts from your base cost: everything one item uses up, including your time. Materials are the obvious part. Labor is minutes times an hourly rate you would actually accept. Overhead is the monthly stuff that isn't in any one item (tools, software, studio rent, the craft fair table) divided by how many items you make in a month.
Base cost = materials + (minutes / 60 x hourly rate) + overhead per item
Wholesale = base cost x 2 | Retail = wholesale x 2
The first doubling is your profit as a business, separate from your wage. The second doubling is the shop's margin when a store buys from you wholesale. If you sell direct, that second half pays for the selling: platform fees, photos, customer messages and the items that don't sell.
A worked example
A set of handmade soap dishes uses $6 of clay and glaze and takes 30 minutes. At $20 an hour, your time is $10.00. Add $1.50 of overhead and the base cost is $17.50. Double it for a wholesale price of $35.00 ($17.50 profit per piece to a shop). Double again for retail: $70.00.
Sold on Etsy at $70.00, the fees are $7.10, so you keep $62.90. After your $17.50 base cost, $45.40 is profit on top of your wage. On Shopify Basic the per-sale fee is $2.33 and the profit is $50.17, but the monthly plan fee comes out of that, so it only wins once you have enough sales.
When the numbers look too high
If the retail price feels steep, don't cut your hourly rate first. Look at the time instead: batching steps, making in larger runs and simplifying the design all lower the base cost without paying yourself less. If you will never sell wholesale, you can price retail lower than 4x cost, but keep the gap. The fees, the free shipping you build into the price and the occasional sale all come out of it.
For the time you actually earn per hour across all your orders, use the Etsy hourly wage calculator.
Questions
How do you calculate the price of a handmade item?
Add materials, your time at an hourly rate and a share of overhead to get the base cost. Double it for wholesale and double again for retail. With $6 materials, 30 minutes at $20 an hour and $1.50 overhead, that is $17.50, then $35.00 wholesale and $70.00 retail.
Should I include my labor in the cost?
Yes. If your time is not in the base cost, the profit you see is really your wage, and you can't tell whether a product is worth making. Pay yourself in the cost, then the multiplier is profit on top.
How do I work out overhead per item?
Add up the monthly costs that aren't in any one product (tools, software, rent, booth fees) and divide by how many items you make in a month. $60 a month over 40 items is $1.50 per item.
Do I need a wholesale price if I only sell on Etsy?
It helps. Pricing retail at twice wholesale means a shop can stock you later without you underpricing yourself, and it leaves room for Etsy's fees, which take $7.10 of a $70.00 sale.