Free tool
Maker Hourly-Rate Calculator
Are you actually paying yourself a fair wage, or quietly working for three dollars an hour? This tells you your real hourly rate, then shows you what to charge to fix it.
The number most makers never run
You know your ingredient costs. You might even know your margin. But almost nobody counts the hours: the prep, the packaging, the market setup and teardown, the messages, the bookkeeping at midnight. When you spread your take-home across all of that time, the real hourly rate is often a shock.
That is not a reason to quit. It is the number that tells you whether to raise a price, tighten a process, or drop a product that eats your day. You cannot fix a wage you have never measured.
This calculator works two ways. It tells you what you are earning per hour right now, and it tells you what to charge to hit the hourly rate you actually want.
Your numbers
Materials, packaging, fees, overhead — everything it took to make the sales.
Prep, making, selling, admin. Count all of it, not just the fun part.
Enter your own number — your state minimum wage, or the rate you would accept from an outside job. We never assume one for you.
Your results
How to use it
- Pick a mode. “What am I earning?” if you want to check your real rate. “What should I charge?” if you want to set a price that pays you fairly.
- For the earning check: enter your revenue for a batch or a period, your total costs, and every hour you put in (prep, making, selling, admin).
- For the pricing check: enter the hourly rate you want, the hours a batch takes, your material and overhead cost per batch, and how many units that batch makes.
- Read your result. Set a floor (say, your state minimum wage) and the tool flags you if your real rate falls below it.
Count all your time, not just the fun part. Two hours at a market plus an hour of setup, an hour of prep, and thirty minutes of packing is four and a half hours, not two.
If your rate is too low
A low number is information, not a verdict. You usually have two levers, and often you pull both.
- Raise your prices so the same work pays more. Start with how to price homemade food and pricing for profit margins.
- Streamline so the work takes less time: bigger batches, less driving, fewer product lines. If low pay is pushing you toward exhaustion, read how to avoid burnout in a food business.
- To set a per-unit price around a target wage, use the Pricing Handmade Calculator.
FAQ
What hourly rate should I pay myself?
There is no single right answer, but your own state minimum wage is the floor, not the goal. Skilled handmade work is worth well above minimum. Set the rate you would accept from an outside job, then check whether your prices support it.
Does this count all my time?
It should. The honest version includes prep, making, packaging, driving, selling, messages, and bookkeeping. Leaving out the unglamorous hours is exactly how makers convince themselves they earn more than they do.
What if my rate is too low?
Then the tool is doing its job. Switch to “What should I charge?” mode to see the price that would pay you fairly, then decide whether to raise prices, streamline, or both.
Stop guessing what your time is worth
Traders Till is here for cottage food and homestead sellers. It tracks your sales, costs, and the hours behind each batch, so your real hourly rate stays current instead of being a once-a-year guess. Start free today.