Pricing Handmade Knits for a Small Craft Stall

What a Fair Price Actually Means

There is a moment at every craft stall when a customer picks up a pair of hand-knitted mittens, turns them over, and asks why they are £26. You know the answer — the wool cost £7, they took five hours, and you paid £35 for the table — but in the moment it can be hard to say so without sounding apologetic.

The fix is to stop pricing by instinct and start pricing by arithmetic. A simple sum — materials, hours, stall costs, a modest margin — gives you a number you can defend calmly, and a number that is almost always higher than the figure you would have plucked out of the air.

Count Every Ball, Not Just the Ones You Used

Material costs are the easiest thing to underestimate. A jumper that uses five and a half balls of DK should be costed at six, because the leftover half is rarely useful for anything you can sell, and you may need it later for a repair.

• Keep every yarn receipt in a small folder or a note on your phone, including postage if you ordered online.
• Add the trimmings: buttons, zips, lining, ribbon, toy stuffing, safety eyes, elastic, poppers, leather labels.
• Budget for waste. Tension swatches, split yarn, dye-lot mismatches and frogging can easily eat 10 per cent of a ball.
• Include small consumables — sewing thread, pins you keep losing, stitch markers, blocking mats spread across their lifespan.

If a hat uses one ball of a £4.50 wool and 50p of ribbon, your material cost is £5, not "about £4". Multiply that error across a stall of thirty items and you have quietly given away £30.

Your Hours Are a Cost, Not a Hobby

This is where most makers lose money. Time your work honestly for a few projects — set a timer, finish the piece completely, and note the total. Then include the unglamorous part: seaming, weaving in ends, blocking, sewing on buttons, labelling and photographing. Finishing often adds a fifth to a third on top of the knitting itself.

A plain DK hat at three hours, with £5 of materials and an hourly rate of £10, is £35 before you have paid for anything else. That number can feel shocking, but it is simply what the work costs. Set your hourly rate at something you would accept from an employer — the National Living Wage is a sensible floor — and remember that speed is not a virtue to be punished. If you are quick, your prices come down naturally; if your work is intricate and slow, it should cost more.

The Hidden Cost of Turning Up

A stall is not free, and the fixed costs of a day are ruthless. Divide them by the number of items you realistically sell and add that figure to every price.

• Table fee: £15–£40 for a village hall or church fair, £50–£120 for a town market, sometimes plus 10–20 per cent commission on sales.
• Insurance: public liability cover typically runs to £50–£80 a year, which is around £1–£2 per event if you do a dozen.
• Card payments: card readers usually take between 1.5 and 2.75 per cent of each sale, so a £60 jumper gives up roughly £1.50.
• Packaging: paper bags, tissue, swing tags and a branded label can be 40–80p per item.
• Display and travel: table covering, stands, gazebo weights, parking, fuel and a float of change.

Then there is your day. A 9am to 4pm market is a ten-hour commitment by the time you have loaded the car. If a £60 pitch fee is shared across twenty sales, that is £3 on every item before a single stitch is counted.

Add a Modest Margin, Then Round It

Once costs are covered, add 10–20 per cent profit. This is not greed — it is the money that buys your next batch of yarn and replaces the needles you snapped.

Take a chunky scarf: two balls at £6 each is £12, four hours at £10 is £40, and a £3 share of stall costs gives £55. Add 15 per cent and you reach £63.25. Round to £65. If a shop wanted to stock it, they would need to buy at roughly half that — £32 — which is still comfortably above your £55 cost base, so the price holds up from both directions.

A quick sanity check is materials multiplied by three for simple accessories. It is rough, but it flags anything priced far too low.

Presenting Prices Without Flinching

Confident pricing is presentation as much as maths. Round to £5 or £2 increments so cash handling is easy and the number looks deliberate rather than calculated. Label items with the fibre and the fact they were made locally — "hand-knitted in Shropshire, 100 per cent British wool" does more for perceived value than any discount.

Offer a range: £8 coasters and keyrings, £20–£35 hats and mittens, £60–£120 blankets and jumpers. The higher pieces make the middle look reasonable. If someone pushes for money off, offer a bundle instead — "two for £50" — and keep one polite line ready: "That price covers the wool, my time and my pitch fee, so I'm afraid it's fixed."

Finally, keep a costing sheet in a notebook and update it whenever yarn prices move. Review it after every season, and raise your prices when your costs do. Fair to you, fair to them, and a stall you can run for years.