How to Price Crochet Items to Sell: A Formula That Pays for Your Hours

How to calculate a price for crochet items: the formula

Add up what the item costs you to make, including your own paid hours, then divide by one minus your margin. Yarn alone is the smallest part of most pieces; the hours are the price.

1. Materials = yarn used + notions (stuffing, safety eyes, buttons, labels).
2. Labour = hours × loaded rate, where loaded rate = the wage you pay yourself × (1 + burden %).
3. Overhead share = hours × (yearly overhead ÷ yearly making hours).
4. Break-even = materials + labour + overhead share.
5. Wholesale floor = break-even ÷ (1 − margin).
6. Retail = wholesale × 2, if you follow the common doubling convention.

I don't crochet for a living; I build pricing math. This page derives a price from inputs you replace, and every figure shows its working.

Assumptions used throughout (replace each one): a $20 hourly wage you pay yourself; a 15.3% burden for self-employment tax; $1,200 of yearly overhead; 480 making hours a year; a 20% target margin. On those inputs the loaded rate is $23.06, overhead is $2.50 per hour, and one hour of crochet breaks even at $25.56 before materials.

Crochet pricing calculator: map your numbers onto the fields

Enter your hours, wage, yarn cost and yearly overhead to see break-even and the wholesale floor. It opens on the beanie example, priced at $71.40.

The calculator was built for any job, so its labels are generic. This is how a maker fills them in:

One field needs care. The calculator counts 8 hours per billable day. Nobody here is assumed to crochet 8 hours a day: the example uses 10 making hours a week for 48 weeks, which is 480 hours, so it enters 60 days (60 × 8 = 480). Divide your own yearly making hours by 8. The same math runs in the free job pricing calculator, with no signup.

Worked example: pricing a crochet beanie

A beanie that takes 2 hours and uses $6 of materials breaks even at $57.12 and prices at $71.40 wholesale at a 20% margin.

Check it: loaded rate $20 × 1.153 = $23.06. Labour 2 × $23.06 = $46.12. Overhead 2 × $2.50 = $5.00. Materials $6.00. Break-even $46.12 + $5.00 + $6.00 = $57.12. Price $57.12 ÷ 0.80 = $71.40, leaving $14.28 of profit.

Where the 15.3% burden comes from

The IRS self-employment tax page states the rate is 15.3%: 12.4% for Social Security and 2.9% for Medicare. It also says you must pay it and file Schedule SE when net earnings from self-employment are $400 or more. The IRS works it out on net profit, not on a wage line, and IRS Topic 554 says the amount subject to the tax is generally 92.35% of net earnings. So 15.3% on your wage is a planning input, not your tax bill, and income tax is separate. The IRS Self-Employed Individuals Tax Center counts a part-time business as self-employment. This is arithmetic, not tax advice; a licensed tax professional can tell you what applies to you.

What the $1,200 of overhead covers

$1,200 ÷ 480 making hours = $2.50 per hour. Sell fewer hours and each one carries more: the same $1,200 over 240 hours would be double that rate.

Crochet price chart: beanie, amigurumi, baby blanket and small stall items

On this page's assumptions, wholesale floors run from $9.24 for a 15-minute scrunchie to $482.30 for a 14-hour baby blanket. Hours and material costs below are assumed; time your own pieces and replace them.

Each row is one computed job from the same math the calculator runs. This is a chart of what each item costs to make at a paid wage. It is not a list of typical selling prices, and I have not surveyed any.

The baby blanket row in full

Long pieces show the method most clearly, because the hours dominate.

Of the $385.84 break-even, yarn is $28. Labour is $322.84 and overhead $35.00.

Wholesale vs retail: when to double the price, and when not to

Treat the computed price as the wholesale floor: the least you can accept from anyone, including a shop buying in bulk. Doubling it for retail is a widely repeated convention, often called keystone pricing, so that a shop can buy at wholesale and still earn its half.

The convention is all over crochet advice. Crochetpreneur's pricing guide describes the most common method it sees as "Supplies + Hourly Wage = Wholesale x 2 = Retail". It is a habit of the trade, not a rule you must follow. On this page's numbers the beanie is $71.40 wholesale and $142.80 retail.

Selling direct: price your selling time instead

If you only sell face to face, no shop takes a half, and what the × 2 would cover is your own selling hours. You can price those hours directly. Assume a 6-hour market day where 20 items sell: that is 0.3 selling hours per item. Enter 2.3 hours for the beanie instead of 2 and the price is $80.99, with overhead per hour held the same.

Percentage marketplace fees

A fee charged as a percentage of the sale grows with the price, so a yearly estimate in overhead is only a rough fit. The exact way is to divide by one minus the fee. At an assumed 10% total fee, the $71.40 beanie becomes $71.40 ÷ 0.90 = $79.33. I have not quoted any marketplace's rates here; read the current fee page for Etsy or whichever platform you use and enter that number.

Does the "yarn cost × 3" formula work? What it pays per hour

Yarn cost × 3 ignores hours, so slow pieces earn very little per hour. On these assumptions it pays $3.50 per hour on the beanie and $1.50 per hour on the baby blanket, before any self-employment tax.

The same Crochetpreneur page lists this rule as the "3x Supplies" method and advises against it. Here is the arithmetic on the beanie: 3 × $6 = $18.00. Take off $6 of materials and $5.00 of overhead and $7.00 is left for 2 hours of work, which is $3.50 an hour. Divide by 1.153 to allow for the 15.3% burden and the wage is $3.04.

The rule pays most where an hour of work uses a lot of yarn. On no row does it come near the $20 wage used here.

What to do when the computed price is above what buyers pay

Change the inputs, not the arithmetic. Hours are the biggest lever: on these assumptions each hour removed cuts the wholesale floor by $31.95, while each extra $1 of yarn adds only $1.25.

Faster patterns, simpler designs, bulkier yarn

Suppose a chunky-yarn beanie takes 1 hour instead of 2, and the thicker yarn costs $8 instead of $6.

The yarn costs more, yet the price falls from $71.40 to $41.95, a drop of $29.45. Fewer colour changes and fewer sewn-on parts work the same way: they remove hours.

Run a price backwards to see the wage it pays

Take the price you think a buyer will pay and solve for the wage. Using $40 as a test figure (your number, not a market price) on the 2-hour beanie: $40 × 0.80 = $32.00 after a 20% margin. Less $6 of materials is $26.00. Divided by 2 hours is $13.00. Less $2.50 of overhead is $10.50, and ÷ 1.153 gives a wage of $9.11 an hour. With no margin at all, the same price pays $12.58. On the 1-hour chunky beanie, $40 pays $18.65 an hour at a 20% margin.

Selling the pattern instead of the item

A pattern is made once and sold many times, so its cost is spread across copies. If designing, writing and testing a pattern takes an assumed 20 hours, the cost is 20 × $25.56 = $511.20. At an assumed $6 a copy, before any platform fee, that is 86 copies to break even. The break-even calculator guide covers that units math.

The common mistakes: markup instead of margin, and unpaid finishing time

Adding 20% to cost keeps 16.67% of the price, not 20%. On the beanie, cost × 1.20 gives $68.54 instead of $71.40, which is $2.86 short on every one sold. The markup vs margin guide has the conversion chart, and the profit margin calculator guide shows how to check the margin on a price you already charge.

The second mistake is timing only the stitching. Weaving in ends, blocking, sewing on parts, tagging and photographing are hours too. If they are not in the hours figure, the wage in the formula is not the wage you earn.

Crochet pricing spreadsheet formulas

Layout: B2 = hours per item, B3 = wage, B4 = burden %, B5 = yarn + notions, B6 = yearly overhead, B7 = yearly making hours, B8 = margin %, B9 = marketplace fee %, B10 = a test selling price. Enter percentages as decimals (0.153, 0.20, 0.10).

Calculator, starter sheet or custom build: what to use, and what to put on your price list

For one item, use the free calculator. For a price list you reuse, use a spreadsheet. There is no ready-made crochet template in the store, so the options are free tools or a custom build.

Put these on your price list:

• Hours per item, timed on a real piece, finishing included.
• Yarn used by weight, and notions per item.
• Wage, burden % and the loaded rate.
• Yearly overhead by line, and the making hours you expect to sell.
• Target margin, applied by division.
• Wholesale floor, retail price and the fee-adjusted price for each place you sell.

For the general version of this method across any kind of work, see how to price a service.

Step-by-step: How to Price Crochet Items to Sell: A Formula That Pays for Your Hours

1. Time one finished item. Log every hour on a real piece: stitching, weaving in ends, blocking, assembly and tagging.
2. Cost the yarn and notions. Weigh the finished item to find the yarn used, price it, and add stuffing, eyes, buttons and labels.
3. Set your loaded rate. Choose the wage you pay yourself and multiply by 1 + burden, such as 1.153 for self-employment tax.
4. Spread your yearly overhead. Divide yearly costs such as patterns, hooks, stall fees and packaging by the making hours you expect to sell.
5. Find break-even. Hours × (loaded rate + overhead per hour) plus materials gives the item's break-even.
6. Apply your margin. Divide break-even by (1 − margin). For 20%, divide by 0.80 rather than multiplying by 1.20. This is the wholesale floor.
7. Set retail and fee-adjusted prices. Double the wholesale floor if you follow the retail convention, and divide by (1 − fee %) where a marketplace takes a percentage.

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