Glaze upcharges
Nobody’s favorite page. Let’s make it quick.
A small number of our bottled glazes and underglazes carry an upcharge sticker, and the dipping buckets carry one at some levels. Pay yours in about twenty seconds below. If you want to know why they exist at all, that’s further down — we owe you the explanation.
Option one
A bottled glaze with an upcharge
The sticker on the bottle tells you the price. That’s the whole system — there’s no list to look up and no math to do. The bottles that carry one are mixed in with everything else, sorted by brand like the rest of the shelf, so the sticker is the only thing that marks them.
These are Purple Level glazes, so Purple and Black Level Members can use them by paying the upcharge. Green and Yellow Level Members can’t buy their way into glazes outside their level, and an upcharge doesn’t change that. The dipping buckets below are the one exception we’ve made.
Option two
One of the seven dipping buckets
These aren’t cheap homemade dipping glazes. All seven are high-end commercial glazes, specially altered for our members, so a dipped piece still comes out looking professional. They live in their own area of the studio, nowhere near the bottles.
They’re included at Purple and Black Level. Green and Yellow Level Members are welcome to use every one of them by paying per piece — we’d rather open the buckets up than keep them behind a wall.
The one rule people get wrong
Per piece. Not per session.
An upcharge is charged per glaze, per piece. Paying once doesn’t buy you the bottle for the evening, and it doesn’t cover the rest of the shelf you glazed while you were at it.
One mug, brushed with three different glazes that each carry an upcharge.
Three upcharges, not one
Every glaze with an upcharge earns its own charge, even though it all ended up on the same mug. If the three upcharges are different amounts, pay each one.
Five bowls, every one of them brushed with the same single glaze that carries an upcharge.
Five upcharges, not one
The bottle doesn’t get cheaper the more pieces you put it on, and neither does what we paid for it.
Size changes nothing on a bottled glaze — an earring and a garden planter cost the same upcharge. Size does change the dipping upcharge, because a large piece takes a lot more glaze out of the bucket.
The honest version
Upcharges were never the plan
They weren’t part of how we imagined this place, and we don’t like them either. They exist because the alternative was worse for everyone.
The raw materials moved
A lot of the minerals in glaze come out of the ground in places that have had a rough few years — Ukraine especially. Add tariffs on top, and the pottery world has watched prices go somewhere none of us expected.
Some of it literally doubled
Not crept up. Doubled. Certain glazes and underglazes now cost us twice what they did the month we opened, and a handful of them are the ones everybody reaches for.
So we upcharged a few instead
Putting a sticker on a small number of expensive bottles is what has kept us from raising membership prices on every single member. That was the trade, and we’d make it again.
They come back down, too
This isn’t a one-way ratchet. When our cost on something drops, the upcharge drops with it, and that has already happened plenty of times — several of the Speedball underglazes, a few in the Amaco Shino family, and many of the Spectrum Floating glazes have all come back down.
There’s a second thing upcharges buy you, and it’s the one we’d point at hardest. Without them, the expensive glazes don’t stay where they are. They move up to Black Level, or they quietly stop being ordered at all. The upcharge is what keeps them inside Purple Level, where far more of you can reach them.
We’d rather charge a few dollars on a few bottles than take options away from you or put another ten dollars a month on everybody’s membership. If you’ve been cool about it — and almost all of you have — thank you. It genuinely works.
Green and Yellow Level Members, read this first
Sometimes upgrading is just cheaper
We’d honestly rather you upgraded than paid us a stack of dipping upcharges. If you dip more than a few pieces in a month, the upcharges quietly overtake the price of moving up a level — and a level gets you a great deal more than a bucket.
Based on the six regular buckets. Dan’s Secret Sauce runs $5 more per piece, so it tips the balance sooner.
Dead even this month. Upgrading gets you everything else on top, so it is the better deal at the same price.
It flips at 6 small pieces, or 4 large ones.
Upgrade insteadWhat upgrading does and doesn’t clear
Purple Level takes six of the seven dipping buckets down to nothing, and opens up the vast majority of our 650+ glazes and the tool room with it.
It does not make everything free. Dan’s Secret Sauce still costs a Purple Level Member $6 or $11 a piece, and the bottled glazes with upcharges still cost their upcharge. Black Level clears the dipping buckets completely, but the bottled upcharges stay.
At a glance
Who pays what
Two kinds of upcharge, four levels. This is the whole picture.
Bottled glazes with upcharges
Outside your level. An upcharge can’t buy you in.
Dipping buckets
$10 small or medium, $15 large. Dan’s Secret Sauce is $15 and $20.
Bottled glazes with upcharges
Outside your level. An upcharge can’t buy you in.
Dipping buckets
$6 small or medium, $11 large. Dan’s Secret Sauce is $11 and $16.
Bottled glazes with upcharges
Yours to use. Pay whatever the sticker on the bottle says, per glaze, per piece.
Dipping buckets
Six of them included. Dan’s Secret Sauce is $6 and $11.
Bottled glazes with upcharges
Yours to use. Pay whatever the sticker on the bottle says, per glaze, per piece.
Dipping buckets
All seven included. Nothing to pay.
In the studio
How it actually goes
A bottled glaze with an upcharge
A dipping bucket
That’s the entire process. There’s no receipt to keep, no staff member to track down and no form to fill in. It runs on you being honest, the same as everything else here does.
Questions
The ones we get asked
Is it per piece or per session?
Per piece. Every upcharge glaze, on every piece. Paying once doesn’t open the bottle up for the rest of the night.
I used three glazes with upcharges on one mug. What do I owe?
Three upcharges, one for each glaze. If they’re different amounts, add each one separately in the box above.
I put the same glaze on five pieces.
Five upcharges. Set pieces to 5 in the box above and it works the quantity out for you.
Does the size of my piece change the price?
Not on a bottled glaze — the upcharge is a flat fee whatever the piece. It does on a dipping bucket, where anything over 525 cubic inches moves to the large price. Measure height, width and depth at their widest points and multiply.
I’m Green or Yellow Level. Can I pay to use a bottled glaze with an upcharge?
No. Glazes outside your level stay outside your level, and an upcharge doesn’t change that at any price. The dipping buckets are the one deliberate exception, which is why you can pay for those by the piece.
I’m Purple Level. Which dipping glazes cost me anything?
One. Dan’s Secret Sauce is a Black Level glaze, so it’s $6 for a small or medium piece and $11 for a large one. The other six buckets are included at your level.
I’m Black Level. Do I ever pay an upcharge?
Not on the dipping buckets — all seven are included. You do still pay the upcharges on bottled glazes, same as a Purple Level Member. Those bottles cost what they cost regardless of level.
When am I supposed to pay?
The same day you glaze the piece, and note it on the piece’s shelf tag. That’s all there is to it.
Do upcharges ever come off again?
Yes, and it happens more than you’d think. When our cost comes down, so does the upcharge. Several Speedball underglazes, a few of the Amaco Shinos and many of the Spectrum Floating glazes have already been brought back down.
Would upgrading my membership be cheaper?
Often, yes, if you dip regularly. Green to Purple is $55 a month and Yellow to Purple is $30, and both clear six of the seven buckets completely. The calculator further up this page does the math on your actual month.
Thank you, seriously
You’re the reason this works
Nobody checks your pieces. Nobody counts your bottles. The whole thing rests on members paying what they owe when nobody is looking, and the overwhelming majority of you do — which is exactly why the expensive glazes are still on the shelf and everyone’s membership is still the price it was.
We’ll keep watching what these cost us, and we’ll keep bringing the upcharges down whenever we can.