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An hourly rate that feels high to say out loud is usually the honest one, because it has to cover more than your time. This builds a rate from the ground up: the pay you actually want, the overhead the shop eats, and the hard truth that you can only bill a fraction of the hours you work. The result is a floor to price above, not a number to flinch at.
Your rate is not your wage
It is tempting to pick an hourly rate the way a job pays a wage, but a shop rate has to carry the whole business, not just your time at the bench. It pays you, and it pays the rent, the tools, the consumables, the power, the software and the insurance. If you charge what you would like to earn per hour and stop there, every one of those costs comes straight back out of your pay. The rate has to cover them first, then pay you.
Billable hours are the quiet killer
Here is the number that sinks most shops: you do not sell every hour you work. For every hour making, there is time spent quoting, buying materials, listing and photographing, answering email, cleaning and bookkeeping, none of which a customer pays for directly. If half your week is unbillable and you divide your costs by the full week, you have underpriced by half. Divide by the hours you can truly bill, and the rate jumps to where it needs to be.
Overhead adds up quietly
Overhead is easy to underweight because it arrives in small pieces: a box of bits here, a software renewal there, a bag of shipping supplies, the heat in winter. Totalled across a year it is real money, and it has to be in the rate. Add up everything the shop costs you in a year that is not your own pay, put it in, and the rate reflects what the work actually costs to produce. Leaving it out is how a busy shop still runs at a loss.
This is a floor, and it is before tax
The rate here is the minimum that pays you and keeps the lights on, with whatever profit you add on top for the business and a cushion. Charge below it and you are subsidising your customers. You can and often should charge more, for skill, speed, demand or a hard job. And remember this is before tax: set aside a share of every payment for that separately, because the taxman is not in these numbers. Price at this floor or above, never under.
More MakerKiln tools
- pricingHandmade Pricing CalculatorPrice a handmade item from materials, time, overhead and the margin you want.→
- markup / marginMarkup and Margin CalculatorPrice from a margin or a markup, and see what a price really gives you.→
- print quote3D Print QuoteA customer-ready quote for a print job, with your rates and margin.→
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