your wages question...

[CrudeThings]

like everyone i have a hard time pricing my creations. i sometimes set a price for some things like sewing. for most things i get $25/hr. but when things take a real long time to make i go down to $10/$15 an hr

i just found this article about etsy pricing:
http://www.handmadeology.com/how-much-are-those-earrings-pricing-tips-for-etsy-sellers/

it says to price like this:

Cost Price (Labor + Materials Cost) x 2 = Your Wholesale Price
Wholesale Price x 2 = Retail Price

my hourly pay is all over the place, what is the best way to say how much you should get paid?

i went for $25/hr a while back because if i went get say pants hemmed it is usually about $7 & takes like 15 mins... i did a few hem jobs for people & it always equaled out to be $25/hr..... but creating patterns, shopping for supplies, sewing new things can get really time consuming....

any ideas/thoughts on this?

:)
lana

[CrudeThings]

anyone?

[Former_Member]

I was wondering this myself. It takes me about 4 hours to make a baby blanket and costs me about $15-20 in materials. I charge $40-50, so as little as $5 an hour. If I charged $25 an hour it would be $115 for a baby blanket that my competitors are charging $40 for. I've also seen baby quilts in more complex patterns selling for $60-80 that would take me a month to make. I think I just need to get faster!! When I price my items I have to price them competitively and just try to get more efficient at making them I guess...but your items are more like one of a kind "artwork", mine are just simple quilts you can get from any number of shops on etsy, so you would probably price things differently than i would. hope you get a better answer from someone! ;)

[Former_Member]

Well I am lost in this topic of wages, but a very useful tool for me are softwares that track time. The one I use is grindstone 2. Its free software and has useful tools to calculate rates. I calculate $10/h for me it depends the item, I guess that when I upload more items and If i get more sales I will change that rate.
Hope it helps
: )

[Former_Member]

I sometimes price things too low for my own taste just to keep product moving. But on the whole I try to work out how much my materials cost and then how many hours I worked on it and I usually give myself $10. an hour. I'd be curious to hear more thoughts on this though.