How to price crochet items: a worked cost example

Last updated: 27 October 2026 · By Quicksloth

Crochet pricing usually goes wrong in one of three places: the yarn is costed per skein instead of per gram or ounce actually used, the hours are left out or multiplied along with everything else, or the marketplace fees are forgotten until the first payout. Here is one crochet bunny priced from the yarn as you buy it to the price on the tag, with every step written out, and a blanket to show where the same method stops working.

Short version: this 8-inch amigurumi bunny uses $4.55 of materials and 3 hours of work. At $15 an hour and $2 of overhead, its total cost is $51.55. The "cost × 2 × 2" rule would ask $206.20, because it multiplies your hours too. Marking up only the materials gives $56.10 wholesale and $60.65 retail before fees, and at a $60 price the bunny pays about $17.82 an hour before fees. A granny square blanket made the same way pays about $6.45 an hour at $180.

This is a worked example of a calculation, not business or tax advice. The supply prices are example figures; use what you really pay.

Step 1: yarn and supplies as you buy them

Write each supply the way it arrives: the price of the skein, bag or pack and how much is in it. The cost per unit is the price (plus any shipping and tax you paid on it) divided by the weight or the number of pieces. The yardage on the label is optional, but it gives you the cost per yard too.

The trap is mixing grams and ounces. Yarn labels use either, and one ounce is 28.3495 grams, so the 7 oz acrylic skein is about 198 g. At $3.50 it costs about $0.0176 a gram: less than a third of the white cotton, even though its price tag is lower by only $2.90. Pick one weight unit for everything you weigh and convert each label to it once.

Step 2: how much yarn the item used

The most reliable way is to weigh: the finished piece, or each ball before and after. A kitchen scale in grams is precise enough. This bunny used 40 g of white cotton, 15 g of pink and 20 g of fiberfill.

If your pattern only gives yards, divide by the yards per gram (or per ounce) of your yarn: the white cotton has 180 yd in 100 g, which is 1.8 yd per gram, so 72 yd is 40 g. Count the yarn you really use, not the skeins you open: a skein that is only half used on this item is half its cost here, and the rest goes into the next item.

Step 3: materials for one bunny

Buttons, a zipper, a gift bag or a box would go here too, each at its cost per piece.

Step 4: your hours and the overhead

• Labor = hours of work × your hourly pay. Count everything you do for one item: crocheting, sewing on the parts, weaving in the ends, blocking. This bunny takes 3 hours. At $15 an hour, an example figure for what an hour of your time is worth: 3 × $15 = $45.00.
• Overhead = monthly costs that are not in any one item (patterns, hooks, software, website, packing tape) ÷ items made per month. $100 a month over 50 items = $2.00.
• Total cost = materials + labor + overhead = $4.55 + $45.00 + $2.00 = $51.55.

In crochet the hours are almost the whole cost: here $45 of $51.55. That is why the next step matters more than it does for most crafts.

Step 5: wholesale and retail that pay your hours once

The common "2 × 2" rule (wholesale = total cost × 2, retail = wholesale × 2) works for crafts where materials are most of the cost. Here it gives $103.10 wholesale and $206.20 retail for one small bunny, because your hours are multiplied by four along with the yarn.

Two pricing guides for handmade items write the formula with the markup on the materials and the hours added once, at your hourly pay: "(materials x2) + labor + expenses = total price" (Daisy Cottage Designs, updated 7 January 2022), or "(materials cost × markup) + labor + overhead + platform fees + shipping = retail price" (Craftybase, last updated May 2026, whose own examples then apply the markup to the full base cost; both read on 27 October 2026). With a markup of 2 for wholesale and 3 for retail:

• Wholesale = $4.55 × 2 + $45.00 + $2.00 = $56.10
• Retail, before fees = $4.55 × 3 + $45.00 + $2.00 = $60.65

Your hours are paid in full at both prices; the markup is the profit on top, so at retail the profit before fees is 2 × the materials ($9.10). Marketplace fees come on top of the retail price; see the last step.

Margin is not markup

Say the bunny sells for $60, close to the retail price above. The two words get swapped all the time, and the numbers are very different:

• Markup on total cost = price ÷ total cost = $60 ÷ $51.55 = 1.16× (different from the markup on materials used in step 5).
• Margin = profit ÷ price, where profit is price − total cost: $8.45 ÷ $60 = 14.1%.

A 14% margin sounds thin, but your $45 of pay is already inside the cost: the margin is what is left after you have paid yourself. These figures are before marketplace fees; with fees, profit and margin go down (see below).

Your real hourly pay

Your hourly pay in the cost is what you wanted to earn. Your real hourly pay is what the sale actually pays for your time:

Real hourly pay = (price − fees − materials − overhead − shipping you pay) ÷ hours of work

At $60, before any fees: ($60 − $4.55 − $2.00) ÷ 3 = about $17.82 an hour, above the $15 you aimed for. The number falls fast when an item takes longer than you think, so time one piece with a clock, from the first chain to the last end woven in.

One row per size

A child and an adult beanie are two items: different yarn, different hours. The same steps, with a gray wool blend at $8.00 per 100 g ($0.08 a gram), a pom-pom at $2.50 and the same $0.12 label:

One price for both sizes would either undercharge the adult beanie or overcharge the child's.

When the hours don't fit the price: a blanket

A 40 × 50 in granny square blanket: 900 g of the sage acrylic ($15.87), 250 g of a cream wool blend at $0.08 a gram ($20.00) and a gift bag ($0.16), so $36.03 of materials, and 22 hours of work.

• Total cost = $36.03 + 22 × $15 + $2.00 = $368.03.
• Retail before fees = $36.03 × 3 + $330.00 + $2.00 = $440.10.
• If buyers pay $180, the real hourly pay before fees is ($180 − $36.03 − $2.00) ÷ 22 = about $6.45 an hour.

No formula fixes this: the price your buyers expect does not pay 22 hours at $15. The calculation tells you which choice you are making: price it higher for the buyers who will pay, take it only as a custom order, or put your hours into quicker items like the bunny and the beanies.

The lowest price after marketplace fees

Marketplaces usually take a percentage of the sale and a fixed amount per order or listing. The lowest price that still covers your costs, including your own pay, is:

Lowest price = (total cost + shipping you pay + fixed fees per order) ÷ (1 − the percentage fees added together)

The retail price with fees works the same way: (retail before fees + shipping you pay + fixed fees) ÷ (1 − percentages). To show the arithmetic, take made-up round numbers that are not any marketplace's real fees: 10% of the price in percentage fees and $0.50 in fixed fees per order, with free shipping you don't pay for separately.

• Bunny: lowest price = ($51.55 + $0.50) ÷ (1 − 0.10) = $57.83. Retail with fees = ($60.65 + $0.50) ÷ 0.90 = $67.94.
• At $60 the fees are $6.00 + $0.50 = $6.50, profit is $60 − $6.50 − $51.55 = $1.95, and real hourly pay is ($60 − $6.50 − $4.55 − $2.00) ÷ 3 = about $15.65 an hour: still just above the $15 you aimed for.
• Blanket at $180: fees $18.50, real hourly pay about $5.61 an hour; the lowest price that pays $15 an hour would be $409.48. (The calculator's example file uses its own fee values and shows $5.66.)

Divide by (1 − percentages) rather than adding the percentages to the cost: the fees are taken from the final price, so adding 10% to $52.05 ($57.25) would still leave you short. Check your platform's current fee page for the real figures, and remember that some platforms also take their percentage from the shipping you charge, and add fees for currency conversion, payment processing or ads.

What this example assumes

• One item per order. Fixed fees per order are shared when a buyer orders several.
• Weights in grams. In ounces the steps are the same; only the cost per unit changes.
• No shipping or tax on the supplies. If you pay them, add them to the skein or pack price before dividing.
• Markups of 2 for wholesale and 3 for retail, on the materials only. They are a starting point: change them to what your market supports.
• Amounts are shown rounded to the cent and worked out from the unrounded figures, so a hand calculation with rounded numbers can differ by a cent.
• Supply prices, the $15 hourly pay and the $100 monthly overhead are example values.

Try it with your own makes

We are making a crochet and knit pricing calculator that does exactly these steps for up to 100 items: you type your yarn and supplies as you buy them (grams or ounces, with the yards or meters on the label), then one row per item and size with up to 3 yarns, the stuffing, 2 notions and your hours, and it shows the cost, wholesale and retail prices, margin and markup side by side, the lowest price after fees and your real hourly pay, plus a yarn planner that tells you how many skeins and packs to buy. It works in Excel and Google Sheets and is coming soon to our Etsy shop. The items on this page are the ones in the calculator's example file. Its fee cells are yellow and come filled with the marketplace's fees as the file last checked them, not the round 10% + $0.50 used above, so in the file the lowest price, the fees, the profit and the real hourly pay differ a little from this page: the blanket, for example, pays about $5.66 an hour there instead of $5.61.

Pricing candles instead? See how to price handmade candles, the same method with wax, fragrance and jars. More spreadsheets on the templates page.

Not business or tax advice. The calculation shows what an item costs and earns under the assumptions above; it doesn't know your market, your taxes or what your buyers will pay. We used AI tools to help write this article and the calculations; the items and numbers in the example are made up.