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The Clay Hole University · Selling Your Work

What a Pot Actually Costs You to MakePrintable pottery guide

The cost of a pot on paper: the honest count of finished pots, the materials, the membership and the hours, the floor they add up to, and a log for doing the sum every month.

$7.005 guides, 1 free
  • Skill level: Intermediate
  • 23 printable pages
  • 5 video picks
  • 8-question quiz + answer key

Flip through the free sample
  • Instant download
  • Prints on any printer
  • The lesson stays free
The printable, at a glance

What is the What a Pot Actually Costs You to Make printable guide?

It is the free “What a Pot Actually Costs You to Make” lesson rebuilt for paper: why you divide by the pots that reached the table, how to cost the clay, the firing and the glaze, how to spread the membership and your own hours over every pot, and why the answer is a floor and not a price. Built to be printed, kept beside the envelope and written in.

Prefer to read it online first? The “What a Pot Actually Costs You to Make” lesson is free, and always will be.

  • 23printable pages, US Letter
  • 8quiz questions, with a full answer key
  • 5hand-picked videos, each with a QR code
  • 9glossary terms in plain language
  • 2workbook pages you fill in yourself
For anyone who has priced a mug off a feeling

A mug costs more than the clay.

Most of us price from a feeling, and the feeling is almost always lower than the number. The number is a sum you can do on the back of an envelope, once, for one mug.

The guide gives you the order of the sum: count the pots that actually reached the table, add the clay, the firing and the glaze, add your share of the membership, add your hours at a rate you choose, and divide it all by the finished count. What comes out is the floor, the number the price cannot go below.

It also gives you what a web page cannot: a log to write in. Each month, the pots you started, the pots you finished and the three lines per pot. A few months in, you will see the number fall as the count rises.

Look inside

Real pages, for beside the envelope

These are actual pages from the guide, shown here with the sample watermark.

  • Page 3 of the “What a Pot Actually Costs You to Make” printable guide: before you begin, shown with the sample watermark
    Before you beginOne page before the first sum: what you will learn, what you need, what is worth knowing, the common pitfalls and what a good result looks like.
  • Page 7 of the “What a Pot Actually Costs You to Make” printable guide: materials and the worked mug, shown with the sample watermark
    Materials and the worked mugThe firing line, a worked mug with its clay, firing and glaze, and a tick list for doing your own. The next step starts at the foot of the page.
  • Page 10 of the “What a Pot Actually Costs You to Make” printable guide: when it goes wrong, shown with the sample watermark
    When it goes wrongPricing off a feeling, dividing by the pots you started and leaving your own hours off, each with the fix for next time and the fix for this piece.
  • Page 16 of the “What a Pot Actually Costs You to Make” printable guide: my envelope, month by month, shown with the sample watermark
    My envelope, month by monthA log to write in: the pots you started and finished, the three per-pot lines and the floor, with room to see the number change.
Flip through the free sampleTen pages, free, no email required.
Why this one belongs on paper

An envelope, a pen and a page of steps

Doing the sum happens with a pen in one hand and a receipt in the other. Paper suits that.

  • The sum where you can see it

    The four steps and their tick lists sit on pages you can prop beside the envelope while you work through them.

  • A reason for every line

    Count the finished pots, cost the materials, spread the membership, put your hours on the sheet. Each comes with its reason, so you can tell which line to change.

  • A log for your own months

    Columns for the pots you started and finished, the per-pot lines and the floor. A few months of numbers beat a memory of what it felt like.

  • No spreadsheet needed

    A page and a pen are enough. If it turns into a shop, the guide says when a spreadsheet starts to earn its place.

How this one is built

Rebuilt for paper, not printed from a web page

Every guide in the series is set from scratch for print. Here is what that meant for this one.

  • The sums were re-done

    We worked every figure in the lesson through again. Where one did not add up, such as how much the per-pot cost falls with more pots, the guide and the lesson now say what the arithmetic says.

  • Read against the studio’s own rules

    We checked the lesson against The Clay Hole’s rules and our other lessons. Where it was out of step, the guide now says what those pages say, including that sanding a foot is done wet.

  • Video notes that say what the videos say

    Each of the five video notes was rewritten from the video’s own description and chapter list, so it claims no more than they show.

  • Written for potters everywhere

    The method works whichever studio you use. Where a line is only ours, the guide says so and keeps it to its own page.

  • A search line for every video

    On paper a video cannot play, so each one has its title and channel to search for, and a code that opens it.

  • Codes that keep working

    Every link is a short Clay Hole address. If a page moves, we repoint the address and your printed copy still goes to the right place.

Why the University is free

The lesson is free. It always will be.

All of the teaching in this guide comes from the free “What a Pot Actually Costs You to Make” lesson, and that lesson is not going anywhere.

Almost everyone prices from a feeling, and the feeling is almost always lower than the number.

It is usually bigger than people expect, and it is good to know it. You can raise the price, make more pots, or give the mug away on purpose. All three are fine once you know the number.

Dan Pearce, founder of The Clay Hole
The series

Build a little pottery library

Every printable guide in The Clay Hole University series takes one free lesson and rebuilds it for paper, with workbook pages, a glossary and a quiz with a worked answer key. Each one keeps its number for good, so a guide you buy today is the same guide in the same place next year.

Put any five printable guides in your cart and the cheapest one is on us. Put in nine and the two cheapest are on us. It happens automatically at checkout, no code to remember.

See every printable guide

  • 5guides in your cart1 on us
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Sits next to

Three lessons that pick up where this one leaves off

Each one is free to read online, and the codes in the guide take you straight there.

Questions

Good to know

How is this different from the free lesson?
The teaching is the same, and the free lesson is not going anywhere. The guide is that teaching rebuilt for paper: a learning dashboard at the front, a monthly log to write in, a one page summary, a glossary and a quiz with an answer key that explains every answer.
Does it tell me what to charge?
No. It gives you the floor, the number the price cannot go below. The price is the floor plus a margin, checked against what comparable work sells for, and the guide points you to the lesson that covers that half.
Do I need to be a member of The Clay Hole to use it?
No. The sum works for any studio or home workshop. Where a line is only ours, the guide says so.
Do I need to be selling?
No. Knowing what a mug costs you is useful for gifts, for the family member who asks for a dozen, and for deciding what is worth making. The guide says so in its own words.
Is this too early for me?
It is marked Intermediate because the honest count and the hours take some practice, but the sum itself is only adding and dividing, and the glossary fills in the words.
Do the videos play on paper?
No. Each video has its title and channel to search for and a code that opens it. The five videos come from other makers, and none of them is ours.
Do I need a fancy printer?
No. It is set for an ordinary home or office printer on regular US Letter paper, with nothing important near the edges, so normal printer margins cut nothing off.
Does it print in black and white?
Yes. The text, the tick boxes and the tables are black on white, and color is used for headings and small labels.
Can I use it on a screen?
You can read it on one, but the tick boxes and the monthly log are made for a pen, and that is where most of the use is.
Can I print just part of it?
Yes, and most people do. The monthly log and the one page summary are the two worth having beside the envelope. They are numbered pages like any other, so you can print those and leave the rest on a screen.
How does delivery work?
It is a digital download. The link arrives by email and on the order confirmation page right after checkout, so you can have it printed and beside the envelope the same evening.
What happens if the guide is updated?
Every edition carries its version number on the last page. When we correct or improve one, the new edition replaces the old one in the shop, and we can send the updated link to anybody who already bought it.
Can I share it?
It is licensed for your own use. Print as many copies for yourself as you like, on as many of your own devices as you like. Please do not pass the file on, upload it or use it with a class or a group without asking us first.

Count the finished pots, then do the sum

The honest count, the materials, the membership, the hours, and the floor they add up to. The guide keeps every step in front of you at the envelope.

Get the guide · $7.00

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Pottery is wonderfully unpredictable. It also carries real risk.

We work hard to make The Clay Hole University accurate, useful, practical, and ridiculously thorough. But pottery is a hands-on craft involving countless variables that no written guide can completely control or anticipate.

Depending on what you are doing, ceramics may involve extreme heat, kilns, electricity, gas, flame, sharp tools, spinning machinery, heavy equipment, pressurized equipment, silica-containing dust, fumes, chemicals, raw materials, stains, oxides, glazes, combustible materials, hot surfaces, breakable objects, and other hazards capable of causing serious injury, illness, property damage, fire, or worse.

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Studios, kilns, clay bodies, glazes, firing schedules, electrical systems, ventilation systems, equipment, environmental conditions, application thicknesses, material formulations, and individual techniques vary enormously. Something that works beautifully in one situation may fail spectacularly in another. That is part of pottery. Occasionally, it is a very expensive part of pottery.

You are responsible for determining whether any technique, material, combination, firing schedule, tool, or process described in a guide is appropriate and safe for your specific circumstances before using it.

Use appropriate protective equipment. Use adequate ventilation and dust control. Read manufacturer instructions and Safety Data Sheets. Follow your studio’s rules. Obtain qualified instruction when a process or piece of equipment requires it. Test materials and techniques before committing important work to them. If you do not understand how to perform something safely, do not proceed until you do.

Never assume that a ceramic surface, glaze, clay body, firing method, finished vessel, repair, decoration, or other result is food-safe, microwave-safe, dishwasher-safe, oven-safe, structurally sound, chemically stable, or suitable for any particular purpose solely because it appears in or is discussed in one of our guides. Verify suitability independently when it matters.

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Terms version 2026-09-19b