Most of what a crochet piece costs is your time. A blanket might use $30 of yarn and take 20 hours. This crochet pricing calculator puts both on the table, along with Etsy's fees, and shows whether the price you charge now actually pays you. It works the same way for knitting.
How to price crochet items
Start with the yarn: yards used, the price per skein and the yards in a skein. Patterns list yardage, so working by the yard is easier than guessing in skeins. Add a waste percentage for swatches, tails, color changes and leftovers too short to use. Then add notions and labels, like safety eyes, stuffing, buttons and tags.
Then put in how many minutes the piece takes you from start to finish. That includes weaving in ends, blocking, seaming and any assembly. Time a few real pieces rather than estimating from the pattern, because two projects with the same yarn cost can take wildly different hours.
Add packaging, the hourly rate you want to pay yourself, and a small failure allowance for pieces you have to frog or can't sell. Pick a sales channel, a target margin and any shipping you charge. Then the useful part: type the price you charge today in the optional price field. The calculator shows what that price really earns, even if it's below the suggested one.
Etsy fees apply to the item and to the shipping you charge. If you sell at markets instead, the card fees are lower, but booth fees and your time at the table aren't free, so count those separately before deciding markets pay better.
Worked example
Enter 220 yards of yarn used, a $6.49 skein with 315 yards, and 8% waste. Add $0.40 for notions and labels, 120 minutes to make the item, and $0.35 for packaging and other costs. Set labor to $15 per hour, the failure allowance to 2%, sales channel to Etsy, target profit margin to 20%, and shipping charged to the buyer to $0. Enter $38 as your optional selling price.
Yarn is 220 divided by 315 times $6.49, plus 8% waste, which comes to about $4.90. With notions and labels, material cost shows as $5.30. The calculator shows $0.00 for machine use and electricity, $30.00 for two hours of labor, $0.35 for packaging and $0.71 for failures. Total cost is $36.36.
The suggested price is $52.49, but you entered $38.00. At $38.00, Etsy fees are $4.06, profit is negative $2.42, margin is negative 6% and hourly pay is $13.79. All of those use the $38 you actually charge, not the suggested price. Lines are rounded, so a hand calculation can differ by a cent.
So a piece that feels fairly priced at $38 pays $13.79 an hour, below the $15 you were aiming for. It isn't losing money on materials. It's losing it on time and fees.
What's easy to undercount
- Swatches, yarn tails and color changes, all of which use yarn you paid for
- Weaving in ends, seaming, blocking and photographing the piece
- Buttons, stuffing, tags and gift packaging
- Custom sizes or stitch patterns that add hours without much more yarn
- Fixing a mistake, which can turn a paying order into an unpaid one
- Etsy's fees on the shipping you charge
Your real hourly pay
Hourly pay is profit plus labor pay, divided by working hours. In the example, negative $2.42 profit plus $30.00 of labor pay over two hours gives the $13.79 per hour shown. That's under the $15 labor rate you entered because the $38 sale doesn't cover all the costs and fees. It's worth checking before you agree to make the same item again on order.
FAQ
How much should I charge for a crochet item?
Add yarn, notions, your time, packaging, expected failures and selling fees, then choose a target margin. With the example inputs, the calculator suggests $52.49. Your own item will move with its yarn and hours.
How do I price a crochet blanket that takes many hours?
Track the yarn for every color and your real working hours, including joining and finishing. Multiply the hours by the rate you want, then add packaging, failures and selling fees. Buying the yarn on sale doesn't make the hours cheaper.
Does the same calculator work for knitting?
Yes. Enter the yarn and time for a knitted piece the same way you would for crochet, and include swatching, blocking, seaming and notions. Time yourself, since the pattern size alone won't tell you the labor.
Why does my $38 price show a loss?
The example's $36.36 cost includes $30.00 for two hours of labor, and Etsy fees add $4.06. Together those are more than $38.00, so profit is negative $2.42. What you do about it is up to you. You could raise the price, pick a faster pattern, accept a lower hourly rate, or keep the price because you enjoy making it. The calculator just shows what each choice pays.
The full Tidy Margin crochet and knitting workbook shows your real hourly pay for up to 60 items at the prices you charge now, next to the price that would pay your rate.