💰 Minimum Viable Price Calculator

Add up every real cost that goes into one unit — materials, your labor time, an overhead allocation, and the profit you want — to find the minimum price you should charge.

Materials cost ($)

Labor hours

Labor rate ($/hr)

Overhead allocation ($)

Desired profit per unit ($)

Cost-plus, one unit at a time

Three costs are stacked, then the profit you want goes on top:

labour     = hours × hourly rate
total cost = materials + labour + overhead
price      = total cost + desired profit
margin     = profit / price × 100

The defaults give $10 of materials, $40 of labour (2 hours at $20) and $5 of overhead: $55 of cost. Adding $15 of profit sets the floor at $70, where that $15 is 21.4% - the margin line measures profit against price, not cost.

The inputs people get wrong

The hourly rate is not your wage. Work back from income: on $40,000 a year, 48 weeks of 30 hours with 60% billable, you have 864 chargeable hours - $46.30 before tax. Gross that up for income and self-employment tax, a third say, and the rate to enter is nearer $69. Ignoring unbillable hours and tax is why makers earn pocket money.
Overhead is a share, not a guess. Take the monthly total for rent, insurance, software and studio bills and divide by the units you actually finish: $500 over 100 units is $5, over 50 it is $10.
Selling fees are missing. They scale with price: keeping $70 on a platform taking 10.5% needs a $78.21 listing.

This is a floor, not a price. Cost-plus knows nothing about what buyers will pay: if comparable work sells for $110, charging $70 hands away $40 a unit, and if the going rate is $50, no arrangement of these boxes makes $70 sell. Price against the market, then check it feeds you.

Frequently asked questions

How do I price a handmade item?

Add materials, your time at a real hourly rate and a share of overheads, then the profit you want. Treat it as the lowest price worth accepting and compare it with what similar work sells for.

What hourly rate should I pay myself?

Divide the income you need by the hours you can genuinely bill, not the hours you work, then raise it for tax. Admin, sourcing and packing are real hours nobody pays you for.

Why is my margin lower than the profit I entered?

Margin is profit divided by price; the figure you typed is profit on top of cost. $15 on $55 of cost is a 27.3% markup but a 21.4% margin.