Catherine, Thank you!

Veleka, I have often purchased the sort of beads you mentioned – from Etsy sellers.

Consider selling your jewelry in a gallery setting. If you live near a gallery that sells craft pieces, patrons are prepared to pay higher prices. Of course, who knows when galleries will reopen.

Hi Carla, thanks for asking. Yes, no matter what your materials, I recommend using the pricing formula – remembering 2 very important elements:

1.) When you’re selling your handmade jewelry, it’s important to purchase your supplies at the lowest possible price – at wholesale or at bulk discounts as much as possible. This jewelry pricing formula does NOT provide realistic prices if you’re purchasing your supplies at full retail prices from a local craft store or bead store.

2.) You may want to adjust the price up or down based on the overall outcome of the finished piece, how easily you could replace all of the elements in the piece if you wanted to make a similar item, and what you believe people in your target market would be willing to pay.

Hi Joye, thanks for asking. In order to price the finished piece accurately, you need to treat your sterling parts of the design just like all the other elements – in other words, where the jewelry formula pricing says “base price = (cost of materials + packaging) – you will include all the sterling you used in the piece, along with all the other elements you used in this piece. I hope this helps!

Roxanne, my pleasure! I hope this jewelry pricing formula makes your life easier! 🙂

Don, thank you for your feedback on my jewelry pricing formula.

Rio Grande is a great company, and a valuable supplier. That being said, some items are very reasonable and some are quite high. It depends on how good their supplier is! Often their quantity price is much better than the smaller quantity price. Just a thought, have you contacted some of the big refiners? Check out the area in your town where jewelers shop. Ask other crafts people who do not directly compete with you for suggestions.

I think that the pricing formula is spot on.
As an importer of silver jewelry for 33 years, I would point out that you
are in constant competition with imported items in the same category. However, jewelers overseas pay about the same amount as you do for the precious metals, IF you are buying from true wholesale suppliers.
The difference is the cost of labor, which is usually much lower overseas.
Serious buyer of handmade goods put extra value on the
fact that they are uniquely beautiful, as well as the fact that they are locally hand made. It is your job to make them unique and beautiful.The more knowledge you have of what is in the market now and in the past, the better equipped you are as a crafts person to know whether your design qualifies.
It is important to learn where to buy quality materials at a true wholesale price. That may require you to buy quantity. Consider making joint buys with friends who use the same materials.

Marnet, thank you for your lovely comment.

Most businesses of any type require the customer to pay for the shipping of their purchases. Jewelry businesses are no different – generally the customer pays for shipping. However, as an incentive to customers to make more expensive orders, you may want to experiment with offering free shipping for orders over a certain dollar amount.

Thank you, Ernest! 🙂

You the best

Hi Koko, the jewelry pricing formula is just a guideline – a way of assessing the costs involved, and making sure you’re not under-pricing your jewelry. If you feel the payoff of a particular piece of jewelry wouldn’t be worthwhile, you can decide what price would make it worthwhile for you, and simply name that price. You might be surprised to find that the customer is perfectly willing to pay that higher price to have you create the piece. Or, depending on how you feel about doing the project and working with the customer, you might decide that it’s not worth it to make the piece or to work with the customer.

I tried calculating it without charging the material cost (of what they provided themself) and I feel that the pay off of the labor cost and overhead would not be very profitable. Are there any other adjustments you might make in such a case?

Thank you, Koko! Whenever a customer brings me something to make into jewelry, I use the jewelry pricing formula including whatever components I provide, plus my time. The $20 figure is an arbitrary number I used for an example in the formula. It’s up to you to decide your hourly labor rate, depending on your media, your speed, and your skill level. I hope this helps! 🙂

Love your pricing formula (especially for made-to-order items) but how would your formula change if main materials were provided by the client? eg. created pearl and abalone earrings which were provided by the client, while including additional few minor beads that I had?

In addition, if I am new to the business, would you change the formula to lower hourly rate (10dollars instead of 20dollars) or multiplying “Total cost of material” by 2 instead of 4 until I have more experience? Any other advice for a newbie will be greatly appreciated!

Many thanks,
Koko

Linda, thanks for sharing your pricing system. Yes, I always base the time on making just one of the item, not the speed that I have when I create the item in batches.

Similarly, if I get a bargain price on any of the supplies I purchase, I use the regular price of those components, not the bargain price for them, when I calculate the price of the finished piece(s). Because I might not be able to get that bargain price on those components again – so I take it as a bonus for me, for shopping so well.

Thank you, Joyce! I hope you find this formula helpful. 🙂

Sylvia, you’re very welcome! So glad to hear that this is helpful to you! Thanks for letting me know. 🙂

Hi Rena (love your name! 🙂 ) You might look through jewelry supply websites and catalogs to find similar items – then work with the prices you find there.

Katie, thanks for asking! If you want to price out your wire by the inch, I would note down the number of inches in each roll of wire you buy. For example, if you have a 10-foot roll of wire, that would be 120 inches. Then divide the price of the wire roll by the number of inches in the roll – and you’ll arrive at the price per inch.

To more easily calculate the inches of wire in a roll, do a google search for the type of conversion you’re doing. For example, do a google search for “convert feet to inches” (or whatever increments you need) for a handy conversion calculator. Or even convert metric measurements (such as millimeters) into inches – with a google search for “convert millimeters to inches”. Try it! It makes the math so much easier. 🙂

Hi Sarah, try raising your prices – even double or triple them. It may sound crazy, but if the price isn’t high enough, people assume it isn’t a quality piece. Also be sure you’re selling the right products to the right people, and at venues where people are NOT bargain shopping. See this post and the comments below it:
Repositioning Your Unsold Jewelry. Let us know how it works for you! 🙂

I’ve been making Rosaries for awhile now and I feel like I can’t get a decent price! I put 5-6hrs of work into each rosary, but I don’t add a fee for my time. I really enjoy making them and I want to make a little bit of money in my free time. I Ajay but my beads for cents from China, so a Rosary costs me about $3 to make. I also post how much work goes into one, the beads used, and a warranty.
I’ve listed them on Etsy, Ebay, and several “for sale” facebook pages with no luck! I’ve had many people tell me that they are beautiful and want one, but no one wants to pay my asking $15-$20! This is a lower price than what Etsy sells them for and does not include the labor. I also include a gift box, a 30 money-back guarantee, and a 6 month fix for free with every Rosary. I don’t know what I can do to sell them and I already think my asking price is really low. I really need to sell them so that I have the money to keep making them in my spare time! Advice?

Hi Katheryne, prices at that level are not necessarily unrealistic. It mainly depends on the quality of the craftsmanship, the quality of the materials, where and how the piece is presented – and most importantly, whether a customer falls in love with it.

I had a B in design so I started designing right away. I have just made a really super OAK design to b a cast in sterling.
It will cost about $500 just to cast.

This has always been a problem with hiring out casting …. my pieces are big, and the casting g labor is high.

This would make my retail on this pieces about $2400.00.
But it is sterling. It is a killer design, but can I realisticly ask that much?

A very good friend and I did consignment as a side hobby for three years before I branched out on my own and started a business at the beginning of this year. She had become too ill to continue and has since passed away. 🙁

We were only in one shop, plus I sell to friends a little. I gave away nearly half what I made until going into production mode a few times this year to build up inventory for a new Etsy site and to refresh the shop’s displays. The shop is now moving to a higher traffic location, so that’s exciting, but I need to find additional venues. They do comfortably-sized trunk shows as well.

I look at the cost and time overall for an entire line, then come up with a price that covers my time and materials, but the process is still difficult for me, so I am going to try your formula. It’s hard to know what the market will bear in the new location, but all their prices are going up a bit, so mine will, too, as some have been too low in the past.

I do find that earrings are my best product for many reasons. First, they are easy to do assembly-line style, even if they are involved, which cuts down on time spent. I don’t make most of my components, but am starting to make findings, and that means my earwires are cheaper, yet obviously artisan-made – a win-win. The cost of materials is low because there is less material needed. Yet I can easily sell them for $20-$30 a pair (I get half of that). Because they are less expensive, more people buy them, and that winds up recouping some of the loss I might experience when selling a bracelet or necklace that used more material and took more time to make. I rarely repeat designs, but always make sets within limited lines that have a range of price points. That way, people can buy a small piece of a style they like. I make more earrings than anything else in each line because I know that’s what will sell the most.

Rings are a similar area. I will sell a ring for the same price as a pair of earrings because I make the band myself, but there is again a very small amount of material. It takes me one or two minutes to make a pair of earwires assembly-line style, and about 15 minutes to make a ring shank that way, and I’m only using a small amount of 20g and 24g wire for these.

Still another piece that works well for me is hairpins, at &7.50 each or three for $20. Again, low materials cost, quick to make, and they sell well because they are inexpensive.

Wedding jewelry is a great niche, even though there is a lot of competition. Definitely network with photographers and hairdressers. People will pay well for items for their big day, especially if the quality is good. I did sell several of my veil combs to a high-end bridal shop. You need a range of prices here, too, since not everyone can afford so much. I reproduce some of my designs in all-white and market them for bridal without increasing the price, even though I was encouraged to by some people. I really don’t think that would be fair and would rather be a part of someone’s special day. I have done bridal pieces as my wedding gifts to good friends and relatives and asked them to spread the word.

Pricing research on the internet and on Etsy is all over the map, so not as useful as a newbie would like. But sites with articles like this one are wonderful, so thanks again to all of you!

Hi Alicia! Maybe your intricate netted bead necklaces would become your higher priced line, and you might create an additional related lower priced line of items that take less time / fewer materials. (For example, pendants instead of full necklaces.) If you do make a related lower priced line, it would be a wonderful “gateway” product for people to experience your art and own one of your pieces – leading to sales of your higher priced necklaces later. And if you’re selling your work in the right venues, you might be surprised at how many people wouldn’t hesitate to pay your adjusted higher prices for your necklaces. Also be sure to see my blog post, Profiting from Jewelry That’s Time Consuming to Make.

Thank you so much for this. I make really intricate netted bead necklaces with swarovski crystals etc etc and my pieces take 15+ hours to make. So I was surprised by how much I should mark them up. I fully believe my time and the craftsmanship is true to the price . I’m afraid the sticker price will scare my customers away. Anyone’s thoughts?

Thanks Rena and everyone else for such great advice on pricing! I’m just starting to sell to my friends and family and needed to know how to price my peices. I do have one question though and that is how do you choose an hourly labor rate? Is there a certain way to do it? Any advice would be greatly appreciated I have absolutely no idea how much I should charge for that on my jewelry, which really kind of stalls me. Thanks again and I hope to hear from you guys soon!! 🙂

Amanda

Multiplying x 4 in my jewelry pricing formula sets the retail price high enough so that if you sell your pieces at wholesale or on consignment to a shop, you’ll still make a profit.

And remember, this formula only works when you’re purchasing your supplies at wholesale / bulk prices. 🙂