Selling your work · What a pot actually costs

Clay, firing, membership and hours, divided by the pots you actually finish.

Most people price off a feeling and find out later they were paying for the privilege. The materials in a mug are a few dollars; the membership and the hours are the cost, and both get divided by the pots that reached the table, not the pots you started. Do the sum once and the price has a floor.

Four steps with a tick list at each: the honest count, materials, the two big lines, and the floor. Six mistakes, from pricing off a feeling to leaving the membership off the envelope, and five videos of makers working through pricing.

This is the short version: the count, the materials, the two big lines, the floor, each with a tick list. The worked example, the Level arithmetic and the questions are in the comprehensive version.

x11Of 20 mugs thrown reach the table. Divide by eleven
$4.80The glaze firing on a mug. Bisque is free
x5Videos, from makers who have nothing to do with us
x4Steps, each with a tick list you can work off
Jump to a section
Why this page has words and video The whole idea in three lines The sum in six moves What you need on the envelope 1. The honest count 2. Materials 3. Membership and hours 4. The floor Five people, five ways to price The one video to watch When it goes wrong How it works at The Clay Hole Questions people actually ask Related lessons
Illustration of a smiling potter in an apron holding up a glazed bowl in a studio, with question marks, coins, clay bags, a glaze bottle, a clock, an hourglass and a calendar floating around it

The worked example, the Level arithmetic, the overhead notes and five videos.

Read it, then watch it

Why this is written down and filmed, both.

The cost of a pot is a sum, and a sum belongs on a page next to the numbers that go into it: clay by the pound, firing by the cubic inch, membership by the month, hours by the hour, divided by the pots that made it to the table. What a page cannot do is make you believe the answer, and that is what the videos are for: five makers on camera working through how they price their work, so you can see someone else do it.

Use both, in this order

Read the four lines of the sum. Watch someone work through it. Do it once, on the back of an envelope, for one mug, with the tick list open.

The whole idea

Clay, firing, membership and hours, divided by the pots you actually finish.

Materials are a few dollars a mug. The month’s membership and your hours are the cost, and both get divided by the pots that reached the table, not the pots you started. Do it once on an envelope and the price has a floor under it. Most people price off a feeling and find out later they were paying for the privilege.

The five-minute version

The whole sum in six moves.

If you have priced anything before and you just want the shape of it, this is the shape of it. Everything below is these six moves, slowed down and with the places they fail marked.

1Count the pots that reached the tableNot the ones you threw. A beginner finishes half. The survivors carry the failures.
2Materials per potClay by the pound from the bag price. Bisque free. Glaze firing from the calculator. A dollar set aside for a premium glaze or a dipping fee.
3Membership per potThe month’s membership divided by the pots finished that month. Usually a big line.
4Hours per pot, at a rateTime six pots from wedging to photograph. Any hourly rate. Even a low one changes everything.
5Add it up. That is the floorCost is not the price; it is the number the price cannot go below.
6Make more pots on the same membershipEvery extra finished pot makes every pot cheaper. The most useful fact on the page.

Before the first line

What you need on the envelope.

Six things, and the last one is the whole lesson. The timer is the one nobody uses and everyone should.

The back of an envelopeOne mug, four lines, ten minutes. A spreadsheet later, if it turns into a shop.
The bag price and a scaleClay by the pound. A $28 bag is 25 pounds; a mug is about a pound.
The firing calculatorOur calculators page works out the glaze firing from the measurements. Bisque is free.
Your membership receiptThe month’s fee, divided by the pots you finished that month.
A timerSix pots timed from wedging to photograph, divided by six. Nobody guesses this right.
An honest countPots finished, not pots started. The whole lesson is in this line.

An envelope, the bag price and a scale, the firing calculator, your membership receipt, a timer, and an honest count.

1

Step one

Count the pots that reached the table, not the pots you started.

This is the line everyone gets wrong. Twenty mugs thrown. Sixteen survived trimming. Fourteen came out of the glaze kiln. Eleven were good enough to sell. The clay and the hours were spent on all twenty, and the firing on most of them, and the price of a good mug has to carry the nine that did not make it. Divide by eleven, not twenty.

A beginner finishes about half of what they start. A practiced potter finishes most. That survival rate is a big part of why a beginner’s mug costs about half again what a professional’s does, and it is also the reason the cost falls as you improve without anything else changing. Write the number down honestly for one month: started, trimmed, bisqued, glazed, sold.

The pots that did not make it are not waste; they are tuition. But they are tuition the survivors pay for, and a price that ignores them is a price below cost. TaraLee’s video below is fifteen minutes on a markup formula for handmade goods, built from the same costs.

Tick list, the count0 of 3
2

Step two

Materials per pot: clay, firing, glaze. A few dollars, and not the cost.

The receipts are the small part. Clay by the pound: a $28 bag here is 25 pounds, a mug is about a pound, so a little over a dollar. Bisque is free. The glaze firing is five cents a cubic inch with a $4.80 minimum, so a mug is $4.80 and a tray of small things on one cookie shares it. A dollar set aside for a premium glaze or a dipping fee; every other glaze at your Level is in the membership. Six or seven dollars for a mug, before anything else.

The firing line is the one people underestimate, because a big bowl or a tall vase is priced on its longest dimension in every direction, and our calculators page works it out from the measurements. Small pieces that fit on one six-inch cookie, a quarter inch apart and under 125 cubic inches together, pay as one piece, which is why a tray of small things is cheaper per piece than one mug. Clay discounts by Level, from two to six dollars a bag from Yellow up, move the clay line a little.

And then the things without receipts on the pot: a bag of clay that dried out, the glaze on the pot that crazed, the packaging, the listing fee, the market table. Put them on the month, not the pot, and divide them by the finished count with everything else.

A worked mug

A pound of clay from a $28 bag is $1.12. Bisque is free. A mug four inches across and four and a half tall is 72 cubic inches, which is under the minimum, so the glaze firing is $4.80. A dollar set aside for a premium glaze or a dipping fee, a few cents of wax. About seven dollars in materials, before the two lines that matter.

Tick list, materials0 of 3
3

Step three

Membership per pot, and hours per pot. This is the cost.

Two lines carry the cost. The month’s membership divided by the pots finished that month. And the hours per finished pot, from wedging to the photograph, at a rate. In this example the membership line is bigger than all the materials together, and the hours line is bigger than that.

Membership: Green Level is $145 a month; a beginner finishing ten pots pays over fourteen dollars of membership per pot. Black Level is $275; a member finishing forty pots pays under seven. The same wheel and the same kiln, four times the pots on a fee not quite twice as big, and the per-pot cost halves. Making more pots on the same membership is the most useful fact on this page, and it is why potters who sell make in batches.

Hours: time six pots, honestly, from the wedging table to the listing photo, including trimming, handles, glazing, wet sanding the foot, and the walk to the drop-off table. Divide by six. Then a rate, any rate; beginners often use what they would earn doing something else and raise it as they get faster. A mug that takes ninety minutes of your time at fifteen dollars an hour is twenty-two dollars and fifty cents of labor before clay touches the wheel. Jonthepotter’s video below sets out two ways to price a pot on large sheets of paper.

Tick list, the two big lines0 of 3
4

Step four

Add it up. That is the floor, not the price.

Materials plus membership plus hours, per finished pot. For a beginner on Green Level finishing ten mugs a month, that is six or seven dollars of materials, fourteen of membership, twenty or more of hours: about forty dollars a mug for a mug that made it, and that is the floor. If half of what you throw does not make it, the clay and firing on the others ride on the survivors, so a beginner’s true floor sits above this. Cost is the number the price cannot go below without you paying to make the pot. It is not the price.

The price is cost plus a margin, checked against what comparable work sells for, and our selling lesson is that half. What this page is for is the moment before, when you know the number. Some people look at forty dollars and decide to sell mugs at fifty; some decide to make eighty pots a month on a Black Level membership and bring the membership line under four dollars a pot; some decide the mug is a hobby and a gift and worth exactly what it cost. All three are right, and all three need the number.

Natalie Santoro’s video below is ten minutes on what it costs to run a small pottery business, including the overheads that never make it onto a beginner’s envelope.

Tick list, the floor0 of 3

Watch it done

Now watch five people work through pricing.

Watch this one, then go find an envelope.

None of these makers have anything to do with us. Between them they cover two ways to price a pot, steps for a first show or shop, a markup formula, what a pottery business costs to run, and costs, value and the market. Nothing but the still frame loads until you press play.

Eleven minutes on two ways to price a pot, drawn out on large sheets of paper. The other four videos are in the comprehensive version.

Start here: two ways to price How to PRICE your pottery.....or ANYTHING!!!! Jonthepotter
Eleven minutes on two ways to price a pot, with the workings drawn out on large sheets of paper: one built from hours, a rate and materials, and one from supply and demand. Watch on YouTube
The beginner version A Beginner's Guide to Pricing Your Pottery Pottery Plus
Eleven minutes of steps for pricing your work for a first show or shop: the market, labor, income and quality. Watch on YouTube
A markup formula Why you Aren't Making a Profit; How to Price Handmade Items TaraLee
Fifteen minutes on a markup formula for handmade goods, built from costs, labor, overhead and fees. Watch on YouTube
The overhead how much it *really* costs to run a pottery business Natalie Santoro Art
Ten minutes on what it costs to run a small pottery business: rent, materials, fair fees, shipping, equipment and the totals. Watch on YouTube
Costs, value and the market Pricing Pottery Dara Green
Eight minutes on costs and labor, perceived value and checking the market. Watch on YouTube

When it goes wrong

Six ways it goes wrong, and what to do about each.

The three mistakes everyone makes first.

Pick the one that looks like your envelope. The first three are the feeling, the count and the hours. The last three are the membership, the market, and the hobby.

Pick the one that looks like your envelope. These three are the feeling, the count and the hours.

How it works here

At The Clay Hole, the numbers are on the website.

This page is written for potters everywhere. A few things are specific to our building.

Four things to know here

Clay is from $28 a 25-pound bag, with Level discounts from Yellow up. Bisque is free; the glaze firing is five cents a cubic inch, $4.80 minimum, worked out on the calculators page, and small pieces that fit on one six-inch cookie, a quarter inch apart, pay as one. Membership is $145 to $275 a month by Level, divided by the pots you finish. Your work is yours to sell.

Clay

From $28 for a 25-pound bag, from our shelves; no outside clay. Yellow, Purple and Black Level Members get two, four and six dollars off a bag. A mug is about a pound, a bowl two, a platter four or more.

Firing

Bisque is cone 05 and free. The glaze firing is cone 5½ at five cents a cubic inch on the longest measurement in every direction, $4.80 minimum, $600 cap, paid before the piece goes on the drop-off table. Our calculators page does the sum from the measurements.

Membership

Green $145, Yellow $170, Purple $200, Black $275 a month, with more classes, shelf space and clay discount as the Level goes up. Divided by the pots you finish, it is one of the big lines on the envelope, and it falls as the count rises. Our membership page has the whole comparison.

Selling

Everything you make here is yours to sell. Day to day the studio does not sell or ship members’ work; studio sales and showcases like Gallery Night are the exception. The rest of the Selling Your Work lessons are the how; this page is the number they all start from.

Questions people actually ask

The ones that come up every week.

What goes into the cost of a pot?

Clay, by the pound used. Firing, bisque and glaze. Glaze, roughly, by the pot. Membership or studio rent, divided by the pots you finish a month. Tools and equipment over their life. Packaging and listing fees if it is sold. And your hours, at a rate, for every step from wedging to the photograph. Divide all of it by the pots that actually reached the table, not the pots you started.

What is a mug worth here, roughly?

Work it out for yourself, because the answer depends on your Level and your survival rate, but the shape of it: a mug is about a pound of clay from a $28 bag, which is a little over a dollar. Bisque is free. The glaze firing is $4.80 at the minimum. A dollar set aside for a premium glaze or a dipping fee. A share of the month’s membership divided by the pots you finished that month, which for a beginner finishing ten pots on a Green Level membership is over fourteen dollars a pot, and for a Black Level Member finishing forty is under seven. Then your hours. The materials are a few dollars; the membership and the hours are the cost.

What hourly rate?

Any rate is better than none. Beginners often start at what they would earn doing something else, or at a local minimum, and raise it as they get faster. The point is not the number; it is that an hour of your life goes on the sheet as a cost, so a pot that takes two hours cannot be priced like a pot that takes twenty minutes.

How many pots do I actually finish?

Fewer than you think, and the honest count is the whole lesson. A beginner throwing twenty mugs finishes ten or twelve that are good enough to sell. A practiced potter finishes seventeen or eighteen. Every cost, the clay in the failures, the firing of the crazed ones, the hours on the collapsed ones, is carried by the survivors.

Cost, then what?

Cost is the floor, not the price. A margin on top of cost is what pays for the next bag of clay and the market fee, and a look at what comparable work sells for tells you whether the market will bear it. Our selling lesson is the pricing half; this page is the cost half, and the cost comes first.

Does the firing calculator help?

Yes, for the firing line. Our calculators page works out the glaze firing for any piece from its measurements, five cents a cubic inch with a $4.80 minimum, and small pieces that fit on one six-inch cookie pay as one piece. A tray of small things is cheaper to fire per piece than one mug.

Why does the membership count if I would pay it anyway?

Because it is what the pot is made of. If you would pay the membership whether or not you sold a pot, then selling pots is a way to get some of it back, and knowing the per-pot share is what tells you how much. It also tells you that making more pots on the same membership makes every pot cheaper, which is the single most useful fact on the page.

Related lessons

Six lessons that sit next to this one.

Three to read next.

Cost is the first number in selling. These are the pages the number feeds.

Selling your workHow to Start Selling Your PotteryCost is the floor. This is the price. FoundationsPottery CalculatorsThe firing line, worked out from the measurements. FoundationsMembership, ExplainedA big line on the envelope, by Level. Selling your workCraft Fairs and MarketsWhere the table fee joins the sum. Selling your workPacking and Shipping PotteryThe box and the padding go on the month; the postage is priced from the packed box. Advanced throwingThrowing Off the HumpSeveral pots thrown from one lump of clay.

That is the whole sum

Count the finished pots. Materials. Membership. Hours. Add it. That is the floor.

Your first envelope will say a mug costs you forty dollars, and you will not believe it, and then you will time six mugs and believe it. That is the moment this page is for. What you do with the number is yours: raise the price, make more pots, or enjoy an expensive mug on purpose.

If you want the worked example, the Level arithmetic, the overhead notes and the answers to the questions everybody asks, switch to the comprehensive version at the top. Otherwise, go find an envelope and a timer.

Back to Clay Hole University Then the price, which is above the floor

Written for potters everywhere. Where our studio does things differently, the page says so.