BLS puts the median for craft artists at $22.15/hr (OEWS, May 2025) — but BLS does not survey the self-employed, and 57% of craft and fine artists are, so that is what employers pay, not what makers earn. For what it costs to live where you are, look up your own county in the MIT Living Wage Calculator (a pre-tax figure; MIT publishes no national number).

Wax + wick + jar, flour + butter + sugar, fabric + thread — every consumable that goes into one finished unit.

Box, mailer, tissue, sticker, hang-tag, hand-written note — the per-order packaging is almost always under-counted.

Mix, pour, cure-check, photograph, label, ship — every minute that touches one finished unit. Don't forget customer service and listing creation amortized across orders.

Studio rent, software (Shopify, QuickBooks, Canva), insurance, subscriptions, photography backdrops — anything paid monthly regardless of how many units you sell.

Used to amortize the monthly overhead across the catalog. Use a recent typical month — not a holiday spike or a slow week.

Excludes Offsite Ads (15% on attributed orders) — opt out in shop settings if you don't want that included.

Marketplace + payment processor combined. Picking a channel preset above fills this in.

Per-order flat fee (e.g. Stripe $0.30 processing + Etsy $0.20 listing = $0.50).