Deciding how much to sell your crochet for can be one of the most anxiety inducing, mind scrambling things about selling your crochet creations. After all you wan to make some money out of it, but you want your prices to be fair and that don’t scare away potential customers.
But how do you decide what you should charge for your crochet? Do you take a guess? Do you ask random people on Facebook what they would pay? Do you use the same prices as you see other selling their crochet for? Or is there a way to calculate a price? Will you chase away customers if you dare charge more than you see others selling for?
Crocheters are generally really bad at deciding what to charge, as most end up pricing far too low!!! This is mostly from fear of not ever selling anything if they price higher – a completely unfounded fear by the way.
There are some guidelines on how to price and what price range you should be aiming for. But these are just guides, and you can charge what ever you wish to charge for your crochet but I would encourage you to aim for a higher price than what you’re currently thinking of, as most likely you’re aiming too low and are in danger of having an expensive hobby rather than making any money at all on each sale. Lets take a look at what goes into deciding what price you should charge for your crochet.
Price Points
When it comes to pricing anything, there are 3 pricing levels
- budget
- mid range
- luxury
There are different ways of marketing to each price range, so whichever price level you are selling in, you need the look of your marketing to match.
When I say marketing, I mean the way you talk on social media, how you make your crochet creations look on photos, how you talk about what your selling. Marketing is just a big word to describe how you advertise and show what you make. Each price level has a different feel and a different look. Take a look at some common brands and you will soon see what I mean. The luxury brands like Ferrari have a much different look and feel to their marketing than budget brands like Poundland.
But how does knowing this help you decide what to charge for your crochet?
Well first of all, are you selling your crochet to make a bit of extra cash, or do you want to make a living from it and make your crochet your full time income?
If you want your crochet to be your side hustle then you have a few options for pricing. If selling your crochet is to be your sole source of income, then there’s only one pricing option that’s viable.
If you want to turn your crochet into a business and make it pay a salary for you, then you need to price accordingly. What is your hourly wage going to be? You need to make sure that you are paying yourself, otherwise you won’t be able to live on what you make through your sales.
If you just want to make a bit of cash on the side, then are you sure that you are covering all your costs including the cost of your packaging?
Stating The Obvious
This all may sound obvious, but crocheters are notorious for under pricing. It’s all too easy to get caught up with what others are charging – even if they are aiming for a different price points, so you get into thinking that you can’t compete. That unless you lower your prices you won’t make sales – totally untrue.
The truth of the matter is, that unless you cover all your costs and make a profit, then what you really have is an expensive hobby. It’s all too easy for your “crochet business” to actually be “I’m selling a few bits, and someone is giving me money so I can pretend my hobby is a business” type of thing.
Until you actually sit and write down all of your costs, including the time you are pouring into this thing, then you don’t know what your crochet is actually costing you. I’ll warn you in advance, it gets a bit scary once you start working it all out, as that’s when you start to realise that crochet really isn’t cheap.
Crochet takes time, a lot of time with the bigger items. There are only so many hours a day that you can crochet, which means that there are only so many orders that you can accept. How much do you want to be compensated for that time?
You can actually charge whatever you want for your crochet, go as high as you want. It’s then up to you to show your customers why your crochet deserves to sold at that price. You have to sell the unique qualities of your beautiful creations so that your customers understand why you charge what you do – without spelling it out, because that’s just a bit too blunt even for social media. You can find out more how to go about it in this article.
The Pricing Formula
The bare minimum you should charge for your crochet is:
Cost of yarn used + cost of packaging and postage + % profit you want to make
If you want to make crochet your business or sole income, then you also need to add your hourly rate to that calculation otherwise you will never earn enough to pay yourself. If you don’t earn enough to pay yourself, then you are just earning a bit of extra cash and have a side hustle.
The pricing formula is just the first part of deciding what to charge. The rest is down to you and how you value your crochet and your time and your confidence in this value.
Have confidence in the quality of your crochet and don’t let the prices others charge play on your mind. You charge what you need to, and never mind what anyone else says.
About Those Pricing Levels
Back to those pricing levels I mentioned earlier. Once you’ve decide what you are going to charge, you need to decide which pricing level you fit into. Now match your marketing and how it looks and sounds to your customers to your pricing. This is how you sell, no matter what price you choose.
If you’re ready to delve further into how to price and how to match your marketing to your prices, then take a look at my Pricing For Profit Masterclass to gain the confidence to price your crochet to make the profit you deserve
There are 3 other ways that I can help you make money from your crochet
1. sign up to the Crochet Business School newsletter, for weekly tips on growing your crochet business, straight into your inbox.
2. You can also check out the Podcast for biweekly bite sized episodes on issues you should think about to grow your crochet business
3. Come and join our Facebook Community Group to connect with others on the same journey as you as well as regular checking in and tips from me
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