Are You Paying Yourself? How to Cost Your Time as a Maker

Ask a maker what their product costs and they'll add up materials to the penny — and leave out the hours of their own work. It's the most expensive ingredient in anything handmade, and the one almost everyone forgets. Leave your time out and you're not running a business; you're subsidizing a hobby.

Your time is a real cost

Whether or not you write yourself a paycheck, the hours you spend making, finishing, and packing have a value. If you didn't spend them on this product, you'd spend them earning elsewhere — or resting. Pricing that ignores your labor only "works" because you're absorbing the cost personally.

Pick an hourly rate you'd actually accept

Decide what your time is worth per hour — a rate you'd be willing to pay someone to do the same work, or to be paid yourself. It doesn't have to be perfect; it has to exist. Most makers, the first time they do this, realize they've been earning far below minimum wage once materials are covered.

If you don't put your time in your costs, the only person paying for it is you.

Build it into every product

1. 1Estimate the minutes one unit takes — making, finishing, packing.
2. 2Multiply by your hourly rate to get the labor cost per unit.
3. 3Add that to materials and overhead — that's your true cost.
4. 4Price above it, with margin, so your time is paid and the business still profits.

Watch your real hourly wage

Once your time is in the numbers, you can see your true earnings per hour on each product — and it's the most honest gut-check there is. Some products will pay you well; others will reveal that, after materials and hours, you're barely clearing minimum wage. That's your cue to raise the price, speed up the process, or retire the product.

Hivara lets you add your time per product and turns it into labor cost and your true earnings per hour — so paying yourself stops being an afterthought and becomes part of every price.