Pottery Pricing Calculator
Pottery loses pieces at every stage — drying, firing, glazing. Enter your clay, glaze, firing and labour, plus a breakage rate, to get a price that covers the pieces that don't survive.
Profitability breakdown
Price ladder
Compare your recommended price across target margins.
| Target margin | Selling price | Profit / unit | Markup | Hourly earnings |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 20% | $77.45 | $15.49 | 25.0% | $7.74 |
| 30% | $88.51 | $26.55 | 42.9% | $13.28 |
| 40% | $103.26 | $41.30 | 66.7% | $20.65 |
| 50% | $123.91 | $61.96 | 100.0% | $30.98 |
Discount floor
Based on your recommended retail price of $88.51.
Any discount below the recommended price reduces your margin below target. Fixed business costs you have not entered here (insurance, software, etc.) are not captured by this calculator.
The formula
Clay and glaze are materials; kiln firing and studio overhead are allocated overhead; labour is your time. The breakage rate is treated as production waste — to sell one good piece you must produce 1 ÷ (1 − breakage %) pieces, so the cost is divided accordingly.
Worked example
Clay $6, glaze $3, firing $4, overhead $2, 2h at $20 = $40.00, packaging $2, breakage 8%. Base cost = $57.00; waste-adjusted = $61.96. With a 6.5% fee and 30% margin, the recommended price = $98.04.
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Frequently asked questions
How do I price handmade pottery?⌄
Cost the clay and glaze, a share of kiln firing and studio overhead, your labour, and packaging — then add a breakage rate for pieces lost through drying, firing or glazing. Breakage is a cost that's easy to overlook.
How do I account for breakage?⌄
Use the breakage percentage. If 8% of pieces are lost, the calculator divides your cost by (1 − 0.08) so the surviving pieces carry the cost of the ones that didn't make it.
What should kiln firing cost be?⌄
An estimate of electricity plus element wear spread across the pieces in a firing. If a firing costs $20 and holds 5 pieces, that's $4 per piece — enter your real number.
How do I price pottery for wholesale?⌄
Set your retail price first, then use the wholesale calculator to build discounted tiers while checking your producer margin stays above your minimum.