Jewelry Pricing Calculator
Materials, labour, overhead, wholesale and retail.
Price handmade jewellery from materials, hours and an hourly rate, with overhead, wholesale and retail multipliers and the resulting margins.
Retail price
$529
wholesale $265 · cost $132
The second doubling is the one makers skip, and skipping it closes off wholesale forever: if retail is only one multiple above cost, a shop taking 50% leaves you selling below cost. Price for the route to market you might want later, not only the one you have now.
How the Jewelry Pricing Calculator works
The standard formula is materials plus labour plus overhead, doubled for wholesale and doubled again for retail. That second doubling is the one makers skip, and skipping it is why so many find they cannot sell to a shop later: the retail price has to leave room for a stockist's margin, or there is no route to market beyond selling direct forever.
Also known as: handmade jewellery pricing calculator · jewellery price formula
Why the formula doubles twice
The standard is materials plus labour plus overhead, multiplied by two for wholesale and by two again for retail. The first doubling is the maker's margin; the second is the retailer's.
Skipping the second is the mistake that closes off wholesale permanently. If your retail price is only one multiple above cost, a shop that wants the usual 50% leaves you selling below what the piece cost to make — so you can never stock anywhere, and direct selling is the only channel you will ever have.
Overhead is the other commonly omitted line: tools and their replacement, studio costs, consumables, insurance, photography, listing fees, packaging. Ten to twenty percent of materials plus labour is a workable allowance.
A worked example
Forty pounds of materials, three hours at twenty-five pounds an hour, fifteen percent overhead. Labour is £75, overhead is £17.25 on the £115 of materials and labour, so the cost is £132.25.
Wholesale at two times is £264.50 and retail at two times that is £529. A maker pricing at £265 retail because it 'feels right' is selling at their wholesale price, with no margin left for a stockist and none for themselves beyond the hourly rate.
Where the answer misleads
The hourly rate is doing most of the work in this formula and it is the number makers set lowest. Costing your time at nothing produces a price that cannot survive you ever wanting to pay someone else to do the work, which is the ceiling every growing maker hits.
The multipliers are conventions, not laws. Very high material cost relative to labour — a piece that is mostly gold and stones — usually prices at a lower multiple, because doubling the metal cost twice produces a number the market will not pay. Keystone works best where labour dominates.
Finally, this prices a piece, not a business. Pricing every item correctly and selling three a month is still not a living, and the gap between the two is a volume and marketing problem the arithmetic cannot see.
Frequently asked questions
How do I price handmade jewellery?
Add materials, your hours at a real hourly rate, and an overhead allowance for tools, studio and consumables. Double it for wholesale and double that for retail. A piece costing £132 to make is £265 wholesale and £529 retail.
What hourly rate should I use?
Whatever you would accept for skilled work from an employer, as a floor. Costing your time at nothing produces a price that cannot survive you ever wanting to pay someone else to do it, which is the ceiling every maker eventually hits.
Why double twice?
The first doubling is your own margin at wholesale. The second is the retailer's. If you price retail at only one doubling, a shop that wants 50% leaves you selling below cost, so you can never stock anywhere.
What counts as overhead?
Tools and their replacement, studio rent or a share of household costs, consumables like solder and polish, insurance, photography, listing fees and packaging. Ten to twenty percent of materials plus labour is a workable starting allowance.