Pricing crochet is uncomfortable for a lot of makers. The yarn might cost $18, and asking $150 for the finished piece can feel outrageous — until you remember it took six hours. Most underpriced crochet comes from pricing the materials and forgetting the maker. This guide gives you a simple formula that pays for your time, walks through an example, and shows how to check the result against what your market will pay.
How do you price crochet items?
Add your materials (yarn plus stuffing, eyes, buttons and any other supplies), your time multiplied by an hourly rate, packaging and a little overhead. That's your true cost. Then add a profit margin. For a piece using $22 of materials and six hours of work at $15 an hour, that comes to about $149.
The formula:
Price = (materials + hours × hourly rate + packaging + overhead) ÷ (1 − profit margin)
What should you include in each part?
| Part | What to include |
|---|---|
| Materials | Yarn (skeins × price per skein), stuffing, safety eyes, buttons, zippers, pattern cost |
| Time | Making, finishing, weaving in ends, blocking, photographing |
| Packaging | Bags, tags, tissue, labels |
| Overhead | A small percentage for hooks, tools, stitch markers, craft-fair or selling costs |
| Profit | The business's share, on top of your wage |
Partial skeins count — if a project uses two and a half skeins, use 2.5.
What does a worked example look like?
A medium-sized piece using 3 skeins at $6, $4 of other materials, and taking 6 hours:
| Cost | Amount |
|---|---|
| Yarn: 3 × $6 | $18.00 |
| Other materials | $4.00 |
| Your time: 6 hours × $15 | $90.00 |
| Packaging and tags | $1.50 |
| Overhead: 5% | $5.68 |
| True cost | $119.18 |
With a 20% profit margin, the price is $119.18 ÷ 0.8 = $148.97, which leaves about $29.79 of profit after paying yourself $90.
Compare that with the popular "3× the cost of materials" rule: 3 × $22 = $66. At $66, after materials and packaging, you'd be paid about $7.08 an hour for those six hours. We look at that rule in detail in why the 3× materials rule underpays crochet.
How do you choose an hourly rate?
Pick a rate you'd genuinely accept for the work. Many makers start near their local minimum wage and raise it as they get faster and more in demand. If your hourly rate is low because you feel guilty charging for a hobby, remember that underpricing also affects other makers — it trains buyers to expect handmade work for less than it costs.
What if the price is higher than people will pay?
That's common, especially for large, time-consuming pieces. It doesn't mean your formula is wrong — it means that particular product may not work at a price your market accepts. You have options:
- Choose faster projects — chunkier yarn, simpler stitches or smaller items.
- Batch-produce — making several of the same item is faster per piece than one-offs.
- Sell custom work as commissions at the full price, with a deposit.
- Sell patterns alongside finished items for income that doesn't depend on hours.
What you shouldn't do is quietly lower your hourly rate until the numbers work — that just hides the problem.
A related guide covers pricing crochet for Etsy vs craft fairs.
