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How to price crochet and knitted items

With crochet and knitting, time is the biggest cost by far, and it's where makers undercharge most. A fair price starts with an honest count of your hours.

1. Materials

Weigh the finished piece and multiply by your yarn's cost per gram, or count skeins used. Add stuffing, safety eyes, buttons, labels, and the pattern license if your pattern requires one for selling finished items. Read your pattern's terms.

2. Labor

Use a timer for a full piece, including finishing, blocking, sewing on parts and weaving in ends. If one blanket takes many hours, a fair wage makes the price high. That's real information. Either you sell to buyers who value handmade, or you focus on designs that are faster to make.

3. Overhead

Hooks, needles, blocking mats, pattern purchases, photography and craft-fair costs. Spread them across your output or use a percentage.

Platform and payment fees

Marketplaces usually take a percentage of each sale plus fixed per-order or per-listing charges, and payment processing is often separate. Fee schedules change, so read your platform's current fee page rather than trusting a number you saw once. Remember that fees are charged on the price the customer pays, so they grow as your price grows. Calculate them on your final price, not on your cost.

Choosing a markup

Once you know your true cost (materials + labor + overhead), multiply it to get a price. A common maker rule of thumb is wholesale at about 2× true cost and retail at about 2× wholesale, but that is a starting point, not a law. Check the result against what comparable products actually sell for, then decide whether your quality, story or speed justifies sitting above or below that range. If the price you need is far above what buyers pay, the fix is usually cost or time, not a smaller margin.

Some makers use a lower hourly rate for very slow, large pieces and a higher one for small, fast items. Whatever you pick, write it down and use it every time so your prices stay consistent.

Worked example

Notice that the profit line comes after you've paid yourself for your time. That's the number that tells you whether this product is a business or a hobby.

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