The real bill, both ways
How much pottery costs, before anyone sells you a wheel.
Two routes into this. Buy the equipment, or rent a building that already has it. Here is the honest bill for each, with the outside prices read off the retailers’ own pages in September 2026 and nothing rounded in our favor.
The short version: the wheel is not the expensive part. The kiln is, and so is the electrical work nobody mentions until the kiln is already in the garage.
Start here
Three ways in, and what each one really costs.
Most people arrive thinking the question is which wheel to buy. It is not. The question is how the work gets fired, because unfired clay is not pottery. Everything else follows from that.
Route one
Hand building at a kitchen table
$50
A box of clay and a starter tool kit. Around $50 gets somebody making real objects tonight. Then it stops, because none of it can be fired, and a pot that was never fired goes soft in water.
Route two
A membership at a studio
$145/mo
Wheels, kilns, glazes, instructors and a shelf, for a monthly fee. Clay and glaze firing cost extra. Nothing is bought, so nothing is stranded if it turns out not to be your thing.
Route three
A home studio of your own
$4,400+
An entry wheel, the smallest kiln that reaches cone 6, shelves, a vent and an electrician. Open at 2am, answers to nobody, and every decision and repair is yours.
The one sentence worth taking away. You can start pottery for about fifty dollars. You cannot finish pottery for about fifty dollars, and finishing is the part that needs either a kiln or somebody else’s.
Route three, itemized
The home studio bill, with nothing left off.
This is the cheapest honest version. The smallest kiln that reaches cone 6, the least expensive wheel anyone recommends, and the things that have to be bought with them rather than instead of them. If the cone numbers on this page mean nothing to you yet, the cone chart has every Orton cone with its real temperature.
| Item | Price |
|---|---|
| Speedball Artista, tabletop wheelThe cheapest wheel worth owning. Splash pan sold separately. | $664 |
| Splash pan for the ArtistaNot optional in practice. Throwing without one soaks the room. | $65 |
| Skutt KM-614-3, small 120 volt kilnFires to cone 6. The interior is genuinely small. | $1,646 |
| Kiln shelves and postsA kiln arrives empty. Nothing stacks in it until this is in. | $635 |
| Downdraft vent systemSkutt EnviroVent 2. L and L say never fire in an enclosed space. | $633 |
| A dedicated electrical circuitAn estimate from home-services pricing sites, not a quote. | $650 |
| One 25 lb box of mid-fire stonewareLaguna B-Mix, a mid-fire stoneware. About twenty-five mugs of clay. | $25 |
| A beginner tool kitKemper ATPTK9, at a back to school sale price. | $25 |
| Four pints of brush-on glazeAmaco Potter’s Choice, from $23.25 a pint. | $93 |
| Before a single finished pot | $4,436 |
Prices read off Krueger Pottery, The Ceramic Shop, Sheffield Pottery and Clay King in September 2026. Several were sale prices on the day. The electrical figure is an estimate published by home-services pricing sites, which is not the same thing as a quote from an electrician who has seen your panel.
What that total is quietly hiding
- The kiln is small. A 120 volt kiln that plugs into a 20 amp receptacle is a real kiln, and it is about the size of a kitchen bin. A dinner plate is a tight fit. Moving up to a kiln that holds a dinner service means the 240 volt models, which start around $2,084 and run to $3,548 for the size most home studios end up wanting.
- One box of clay is one weekend. Twenty-five pounds sounds like a lot until it is trimmings and failures and the three you were not happy with. Clay is the line item that never stops.
- Four pints of glaze is four colors. Our glaze wall carries 650+ brush-on glazes and 150+ underglazes. Four pints is a starting point, not a palette, and glaze is where the money goes once the equipment is paid for.
- Nobody is standing next to you. The first collapsed cylinder, the first cracked bottom, the first glaze that ran onto the shelf and welded a bowl to it. Every one of those is a lesson or a wasted afternoon depending on whether anyone is there to say what happened. Our forty-five diagnosed pottery faults will tell you what went wrong. They cannot tell you while it is happening.
The part you can argue with
Build the bill yourself.
Every price here was read off a retailer’s own page in September 2026. Turn off the things you would not buy and watch what happens to the number. Turning off the kiln is the interesting one.
- No wheel, hand building onlyPinch, coil and slab work needs no wheel at all.Included
- Speedball Artista, tabletopSits on a table. The splash pan is a separate purchase.$664
- Skutt ProdigyCenters over 75 lb. Splash pan included.$1,495
- Shimpo VL-Whisper100 lb centering capacity. Splash pan included.$1,539
- Brent Model BHandles 150 lb continuously. Splash pan included.$2,125
- No kiln, pay someone else to fireSome suppliers fire work for the public by the piece.Included
- Skutt KM-614-3, small 120VInterior is small. Fires to cone 6.$1,646
- Skutt KM-818, 240V2.6 cubic feet, 17.5 in wide by 18 in deep.$2,084
- Skutt KM-1018, 240V39.4 amps. The size most home studios end up wanting.$3,548
- Kiln shelves and postsA kiln arrives empty. Nothing can be stacked in it until this is in.$635
- Downdraft vent systemSkutt EnviroVent 2. L and L say never fire in an enclosed space.$633
- Dedicated electrical circuitAn estimate, not a quote. See the note under the table.$650
- One 25 lb box of mid-fire stonewareLaguna B-Mix, a mid-fire stoneware. About 25 mugs of clay.$25
- A beginner tool kitKemper ATPTK9, at a back to school sale price.$25
- Four pints of brush-on glazeAmaco Potter's Choice, from $23.25 a pint.$93
Your bill
$4,435.78 Before clay number two.- Equipment$4,293.06
- Clay, tools and glaze$142.72
At $145 a month, that is about 31 months of a Green Level membership.
What the number still leaves out. Floor space that stops being a garage. A surface you do not mind ruining. Shelving for work in progress, which takes more room than anyone plans for. Water and a way to keep clay out of the drain. And the hours, which are the same hours either way.
Route two, itemized
What renting the building costs instead.
The Clay Hole is nearly 10,000 square feet in Draper, Utah, with 29 wheels, four kilns and 650+ brush-on glazes. Four Levels, month to month, no contract.
Bring your own basic tool set. Our basic glazes, and half of a divided shelf with your name on it.
Hundreds of studio tools, dozens of premium glazes, a taller half-shelf, and money off every bag of clay.
Hundreds more glazes and underglazes, thousands of tools, six of the seven dipping buckets, and a private shelf.
Everything in the building, the highest end glazes we own, and the biggest private shelf. Capped at twenty members.
What the monthly fee does not cover
Saying this plainly is cheaper for everyone than letting somebody find out at the register.
- Clay. Bags start at $28 for the all-purpose clay before your Level’s discount, and the specialty clays cost more. All clay comes from us, and outside clay is never allowed, because the wrong clay can destroy a kiln, the shelves and every other member’s work sitting in it.
- Glaze firing. 5 cents a cubic inch, with a $4.80 flat charge on anything under 125 cubic inches. Bisque firing is free.
- A Green Level tool set. Green Level Members bring their own basic tools. Every Level above it opens the studio’s tools instead.
- What it does cover, and a home studio does not. Instructed classes with four instructors in the room. Kilns somebody else loads, fires, unloads and repairs. A glaze wall nobody could afford to build at home. Slab molds, slab rollers and extruders. And people who have already made the mistake you are about to make.
The fair version
When a home studio is genuinely the right answer.
We run a studio, so treat what follows with the suspicion it deserves. It is still true. There are people for whom buying the equipment is the correct decision, and pretending otherwise would be an easy way to lose an argument we are not in.
Buy the equipment when
- You already know you like this, because you have done it somewhere else for a year or more.
- You work odd hours and the only studio time you will ever get is between eleven at night and two in the morning.
- You are far enough from any studio that the drive is the real cost.
- You want to fire your own work your own way, including firings a shared kiln will never run.
- You are selling work, and the arithmetic changes once the equipment is a tool rather than a hobby.
Rent the building when
- You have never done this, and you do not yet know whether you are a wheel person or a hand building person.
- You want to be taught rather than to watch videos and guess.
- You want more than four glazes, and you would like to try the other six hundred.
- You do not want to own a kiln, learn to repair a kiln, or explain a kiln to an electrician.
- You would rather the bad month cost you nothing but a pause than a garage full of equipment.
The arithmetic everyone wants
The break-even, and why it is the wrong question.
The cheapest honest home setup on this page is $4,436. A Green Level membership is $145 a month. Divide one by the other and the equipment pays for itself in about thirty-one months.
That is a real number and it is nearly useless on its own, because the two sides of it are not the same thing.
- 1The home side keeps spending. Clay, glaze, kiln elements, thermocouples, shelves that eventually crack, and the electricity to run a firing. The $4,436 is the entry fee, not the running cost.
- 2The studio side keeps spending too. Clay and glaze firing are on top of the membership, every month, for as long as you are a member. Nothing here is free after month thirty-one.
- 3The two sides are not the same studio. Thirty-one months of membership buys instruction, 650+ glazes, four kilns including one that takes four foot pieces, slab molds, and a room with other people in it. The $4,436 buys one small kiln and one entry wheel in a garage.
- 4Most people quit inside thirty-one months. Not most of our members, and not most people who find the thing they needed. But across every hobby that asks for equipment, two years is a long time, and equipment does not pause.
The honest framing. A membership is rent and a home studio is a purchase. Rent buys access to more than you could ever buy outright, and stops the day you stop paying. A purchase buys less, keeps it forever, and bills you for the maintenance. Neither one is the clever answer. They are answers to different questions.
- What a pot costs to makeClay, firing, membership and hours, divided by the pots that actually reached the table.
- How we compareFourteen Utah studios, side by side, including the ones that beat us on price.
- The calculatorsClay weight, shrinkage, firing cost and the rest of the arithmetic, done for you.
- Why did my pottery do thatForty-five faults diagnosed. Cracks, warping, crawling, pinholes, and whether the piece can be saved.
- The cone chartEvery Orton cone from 022 to 14, its real temperature at three firing speeds, and why a cone measures heatwork.
- The pottery dictionaryTwo hundred and fifty four terms in plain English, for every word on this page you had to guess at.
Asked every week
The questions underneath the question.
Can I fire pottery in my kitchen oven?
No. A kitchen oven tops out around 500 degrees Fahrenheit. Bisque firing runs to cone 05 and glaze firing here runs to cone 5½, which is over 2,100 degrees. There is no workaround, no trick and no oven setting. Clay that has not been fired in a kiln is still clay, and it will dissolve in water.
Do I need a wheel to start pottery?
No, and a wheel is the most common wrong first purchase. Pinch pots, coil building and slab work need clay, a few hand tools and a surface. Plenty of working potters have never owned a wheel. If someone is buying equipment before they know which they prefer, they are guessing with money.
What is the cheapest way to actually finish a piece?
Access to a kiln. That is the whole answer. Clay is a few dollars and tools are a few dollars more, and neither matters until something can be fired. A studio membership, a class, or a supplier that fires work for the public all solve it. Buying a wheel does not.
Does a home kiln really need its own electrical circuit?
Yes. Skutt's own wiring guidance says the electrician installs a circuit breaker dedicated to the kiln, sized about 20 percent above the kiln's maximum draw, on copper wire. Even the small 120 volt models want a 20 amp receptacle and a 30 amp breaker rather than an ordinary wall outlet.
How much does a bag of clay cost at The Clay Hole?
Bags start at $28 for the all-purpose clay before the discount your Level carries, and the specialty clays cost more. A bag is 25 lb. Yellow Level takes $2 off a bag, Purple Level $4, Black Level $6. All clay comes from us. Outside clay is never allowed, because the wrong clay can destroy a kiln, the shelves and every other member's work sitting in it.
What does firing cost on top of a membership?
Bisque firing is free. Glaze firing is 5 cents a cubic inch, with a $4.80 flat charge on anything under 125 cubic inches. A mug lands near the flat charge. The full arithmetic, including what a finished pot costs you once your hours are in it, is on our page about what a pot actually costs to make.
Are these prices going to stay accurate?
The outside prices were read off the retailers' own pages in September 2026 and several were sale prices at the time. Equipment prices move. Every Clay Hole number on this page is wired to our own price sheet, so those stay current on their own.
One last honest number
Nobody has ever regretted finding out cheaply.
The equipment will still be for sale in a year. What it cannot tell you is whether you actually like this, and that is the only number on this page worth knowing first.
The Clay Hole is in Draper, Utah, and opened in March 2025. Outside prices on this page were read in September 2026 and will drift. Our own numbers are wired to our price sheet and will not.