₵Craft Pricing Calculator

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Woodworking pricing calculator — free, no sign-up

Put in your board feet, finish, hardware and shop hours. It gives you a price that covers your materials, pays you properly for your time, and still leaves a margin. No email required to get the number.

Materials

$79.00

Lumber

$

Board feet used, including what you cut off and threw away. Rough-sawn typical: red oak $3.50, maple $4.50, cherry $6, white oak $7.50, walnut $9. Regional, so change it.

$

Oil, poly, wax, glue — what this piece actually consumed.

$

Hinges, screws, magnets, feet.

Sandpaper and consumables

$

Buy a pack, spread it over the projects it lasts for. Counts as $4.00 on this piece.

Your time

$280.00
$

A beginner/side-hustle anchor. Established shops charge $50–75, and $100+ for rush work — this starts low deliberately, because it is easier to talk yourself up than to discover you undercharged.

Overhead and markup

$

Shop rent, electricity, blade sharpening, insurance — the share this piece owes.

×2.0

Doubling your cost is the traditional starting point for handmade furniture. ×2.0 is a 50% profit margin — not 100%, which is the mistake that quietly costs makers money.

Charge at least

$748.00

$374.00 profit · 50% margin

Materials
$79.00
Your time
$280.00
Overhead
$15.00
What it costs you
$374.00

At this price your hours earn $93.43/hour after materials and overhead.

Why this exists

Real comments from people asking this question. Every one links to the thread.

“Materials cost + hourly wage + markup. Start there and hope your customer is a good person rather than a person who loves you bargain.”
u/also_your_mom, r/woodworking
“What I want to be paid per hour is dramatically different from what the market will pay per hour of my work”
u/Has_Two_Cents, r/woodworking
“How long did it take. How much were materials. How much do you value your time.”
u/DocAuch, r/woodworking

What woodworking pricing usually gets wrong

Charging for the wood, not the offcuts

You bought eight board feet to use six. The two you binned are part of the cost of the piece, and the calculator counts what you bought rather than what ended up in the finished item.

Forgetting sandpaper is a consumable

A pack of discs lasts a handful of projects, then it is gone. Spread across the projects it survives, it is small. Ignored entirely, it comes out of your wage.

Doubling your cost and calling it 100% profit

Doubling is a 50% margin, not 100%. The difference matters when you discount: knock 20% off a doubled price and you have given away nearly half your profit.

Paying yourself last

If your hourly rate is whatever is left after the customer's budget, it is not a rate. Set it first, then decide whether the piece is worth making.

Questions

Shouldn't I just multiply my material cost by three?
Sometimes that lands in the same place, and when it does it is a fine shortcut. It breaks in two directions. On a small fast item where your time dwarfs the materials, a multiplier underpays you badly. On an expensive-material piece that was quick to make, it overcharges for the material and undercharges for the skill. The multiplier is really a guess at labour plus overhead plus profit rolled into one number — so put your real hours in here, see what price comes out, and then check what multiple of your materials that turns out to be. If the two agree, use whichever you prefer. If they disagree, the arithmetic is the one telling the truth.
What hourly rate should I use?
Start with what you would accept to do the same work for someone else, and remember you supplied the tools, the shop and the skill. If the resulting price feels too high for the piece, the honest conclusion is usually that the piece is not worth making at that size, not that your time is worth less.
Should I charge for design time?
Yes, on a one-off. Put it in the hours. On a repeat item, spread the original design time across the number you expect to sell rather than charging every customer for it again.
How do I price for a craft fair versus a commission?
Same cost, different markup. A commission carries the risk that it fits nobody else if it falls through, so it usually justifies a higher multiple than something you can sell to the next person who walks past.

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