I wish I could say there is a magic formula, or a set of firm guidelines to help with pricing, but there is not. You can set your own guidelines once you have some
Miniature Cardinal Earrings
experience and learn what is a fair price in the market you are dealing with. It can be difficult to get paid for your time so setting an hourly rate can be difficult to use in determining a price for your carvings. The small painted birds I make into earnings take me about 2 hours per bird at $15 per hour plus supplies would cost out at at almost $70 for a pair. An outrageous amount that no one will pay. I carve because I enjoy it so getting $20 for the earnings is a bonus to me and pays for supplies and gives me a little for my effort.
So many factors go into price setting. Your time, material cost, quality of your work, product popularity and, of course, the market all have a huge bearing on pricing. I was once told if items fly off the shelf you are priced too low – raise them. I have been making hand carved magic wands and right now wands are popular with Harry Potter fans. If the fad wanes so will the demand so my efforts will go into something else. I will still make wands and price them the same because I enjoy making them but I will be making fewer of them. Carving is labour intensive so you can only produce so many items. You need to price them so they sell but you don’t want to be working day and night to keep up. I think they call this the breaking point and I mean your breaking point not the the one used in business analysis. If it is not fun, then you are past your breaking point. Set a fair price that sells a volume you can keep pace with and still have fun. It is a balancing act.