Pottery Pricing Calculator: How to Price Your Handmade Pottery

How the pottery pricing calculator works

The pottery pricing calculator uses the cost-plus method most pricing guides for makers describe. First it adds your materials: the clay in the piece at your price per kilogram, plus glaze and other materials, plus firing. Then it adds labour, your time multiplied by your hourly rate. Overheads go on top as a percentage, and that total is what the piece costs you to make.

With the defaults, a 500 g mug uses $1.30 of clay at $2.59 a kilogram, plus $1 of glaze and $1 of firing, so materials come to $3.30. Forty-five minutes at $30 an hour is $22.50 of labour. A 10% overhead adds $2.58, giving a cost of about $28.37.

The wholesale price adds your profit margin: at 20%, the cost is divided by 0.8 to give $35.47, so a fifth of the wholesale price is profit. Retail is wholesale times your multiplier, here 2, which gives $70.94. The tool also suggests a tidy shelf price, rounded up to $75, because $70.94 looks odd on a price tag.

How do you price pottery?

You price pottery by covering every cost, including your time, and then adding profit. The simplest reliable formula is materials plus labour plus overheads equals cost, cost plus profit equals wholesale, and wholesale times two equals retail. Ceramic Arts Network’s worked example uses the same structure with a 10% overhead allowance, which is our default.

The step most potters skip is paying themselves. If you leave labour out, your price only covers clay and glaze, and every sale quietly loses money against the hours you put in. Counting your time, even at a modest rate, is what turns a hobby price into a sustainable one.

Your market still has the final say. If the calculator suggests $75 for a mug and similar handmade mugs at your local market sell for $45, you’ll need to make faster, use less clay, or find buyers who value the extra work. The calculator tells you what a piece needs to sell for; only selling tells you what people will pay.

Wholesale, retail and keystone pricing explained

Wholesale is what a shop pays you, and retail is what the shop’s customer pays. Keystone pricing means retail is double wholesale, so the shop’s mark-up is 100% of what it paid, which is a 50% margin on the retail price. Many shops expect keystone, and some multiply by 2.5 to 3 when the market bears it.

The key rule is that your retail price when you sell direct should match what a shop would charge. If you sell a mug for $45 at your own stall but wholesale it to a shop that has to charge $71, the shop can’t compete with you, and wholesale accounts don’t last. Price retail first, then make sure the wholesale price still covers your cost and profit.

That’s why the calculator builds wholesale from your costs and retail from wholesale. If the retail figure feels too high for your market, the fix is usually on the cost side, faster making or cheaper materials, rather than cutting the wholesale margin to nothing.

Selling through galleries and shops: commission

Galleries and shops that sell on consignment take a commission when your piece sells, typically 25 to 60% in Australia according to Ceramic Arts Queensland’s guide to doing the sums. At 40%, a $70.94 mug returns $42.56 to you, which leaves $14.19 profit after the $28.37 cost.

Set the commission box to the rate you’ve been offered. If your take-home falls below the cost to make, the calculator flags it, because selling at that price loses money on every piece. Higher commissions usually come with more for your money, such as a well-placed shop, marketing, staff and an established buyer list, so it’s worth weighing both.

For pieces you sell both directly and on consignment, keep the retail price the same in both places. The gallery’s commission comes out of your share, not out of the buyer’s pocket.

What hourly rate should you pay yourself?

Choose an hourly rate you’d be content to earn for skilled work, then test it against your market. The sensitivity table in the tool shows how the retail price moves if your rate goes $10 up or down, or a piece takes a quarter more or less time, so you can see which matters more.

With the defaults, the mug’s retail price ranges from $40 at $20 an hour and 34 minutes, up to $112.19 at $40 an hour and 56 minutes. Time is often the lever with the most room: throwing in batches, trimming several pieces at once and glazing by dipping instead of brushing all cut the time per piece without cutting your rate.

Count all the time, not just the wheel. Wedging, trimming, attaching handles, waxing, glazing, loading the kiln, photographing, packing and selling all belong in the time per piece, spread across a batch.

A simple way to find your real time is to time a whole batch. Note when you start wedging for a dozen mugs and add up every session until they’re packed and priced, then divide by twelve. Most potters are surprised by the answer, and it’s nearly always longer than the time spent at the wheel. Once you have that figure for your common pieces, the calculator does the rest in seconds.

Common pottery pricing mistakes

The most common mistake is pricing by what feels comfortable rather than by cost, which usually means pricing too low. The second is forgetting losses: some pieces crack, warp or come out of the glaze firing wrong, and the good ones have to pay for them. Raise the overhead percentage to cover your typical loss rate.

The third is leaving out selling costs, such as market stall fees, card payment fees, packaging and postage. And the last is never revisiting prices. Clay, electricity and firing costs rise, and so does your skill, so rerun your numbers every year. The kiln electricity cost calculator and clay weight calculator help you pin down the material side.