Hourly art and craft pricing calculator
For pieces that don't price well by area, such as sculpture, mixed media, digital illustration, candles and resin work: enter your hours, your hourly rate, your materials and a margin.
How to use this calculator
Hourly pricing adds up what a piece costs you to make and then adds a margin: (hours × hourly rate) + materials, then × (1 + margin). Skillshare's guide gives the worked example of an acrylic piece: 5 hours at $25 an hour is $125, plus $50 of materials is $175, and a 30% margin brings it to $227.50, rounded to $230. For digital illustration with no material costs, the same guide uses $40 an hour for 5 hours plus 15%, which is $230.
Count every hour the piece takes: the brief and messages, sketches, making, finishing, photographing and packing. Materials include the parts you use up, such as clay, resin, wax, fragrance oil, wicks, glazes, paint and packaging. The margin covers what the hourly rate doesn't: tools, studio rent, firing, failed pieces, marketing and profit.
For an order of several pieces, such as a set of wedding candles, enter the hours and materials for the whole order; the last row divides the price per piece. If you sell through a marketplace or take card payments, add those fees on top or raise the margin to cover them.
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Questions about this calculator
What hourly rate should an artist charge?
Your rate is your choice. Start from what you need to earn per hour after costs, compare it with what similar work sells for, and adjust. The defaults here are Skillshare's worked example, not a recommendation.
Should I charge for sketches and revisions?
Include a set number of sketch or revision rounds in the price and charge for extra rounds. Write it in the brief so the buyer knows before accepting.