How to price your woodworking projects

What's the best way to arrive at a final price for your woodworking projects that you've spent hours, weeks or months working on?

Taking into account labor cost, material cost, overhead cost and every other type of cost to make a profit on your custom woodworking projects can be a struggle, because each piece is unique, and every builder and crafter deserves to make a profit when they're selling their hard work.

John Dominik, of JD Woodworking, has a formula though for how he prices his epoxy resin boards that he sells.

"For my river boards... I charge $130 for them," he says, "About $50 of that is the lumber... and then you're looking at another $20 to $30 for the resin, then you have your consumables, your finish, sand paper, and then obviously my time and labor."

So let's break that down and come up with the formula for how to price your woodworking projects.

One of the first things you should consider when looking at your overhead costs and how to factor them into your final price is how much you paid for materials.

Woodworking projects are great because each piece is unique, and that's because no two pieces of wood are ever totally the same. Some pieces have discoloration or interesting patterns that can't be replicated, or are an exotic species that may be difficult to find cheaply in your area.

Learning how to price lumber per board foot can be a struggle in and of itself, but if you research your local prices, you'll have a better understanding of your material costs for your project.

So let's say you've made a woodworking project using a slab of cherry wood that might have a market price of $200, if it was dried and planed. Adding in the labor hours and other factors we'll be discussing later on, you know the base minimum price to make up for these overhead expenses needs to be at least more than $200.

Many builders will aim for a 50-100% profit margin, meaning the minimum you would want to charge should be $300-400.

But that's just taking the raw material cost of the wood into account, what about the screws or fasteners? Did you need to buy any tools to complete the project? When you factor these costs in, what does the final retail price look like?

Here is a quick list of different materials and fixed costs you should think about when assessing your final price:

• • The lumber used in the project

  • The price of milling up the lumber (i.e: your portable sawmill)

  • The price of transporting the materials

  • Screws, fasteners, brackets, feet, handles or other hardware

  • Wood stain, gloss, oils or other finishing materials

  • Expendable resources like sandpaper, buffing pads or gloves

Another factor is how much wood you needed to complete the project, as more material would require higher prices. And the more exotic and costly that timber, the more you could potentially charge for it.

If you're aiming to create an affordable project, building with a cheap yet solid wood like pine would be your best option, as it's a relatively common material that doesn't have a high cost. But if you're aiming for something more higher end with a larger price tag, consider using more luxury materials like walnut or cherry wood.

If those pieces of wood have any unique markings, patterns or discolorations, you could potentially charge more, upping your price by 10-30% if you want, if you think it adds to the overall piece.

Another factor John says is important is assessing how much you can get for your custom woodworking projects depending on your area.

Some areas may have wealthier clientele willing to pay more money for your work, while others may have more practical spenders looking for something a bit cheaper.

Finding the market demand can be tough, as you need to do your research and stick your neck out and see what people want, and if they're willing to pay for it.

For example, let's say a woodworker is making cutting boards and is selling them at a local crafts market. He does this in his spare time, on top of his full-time job.

Using his formula of 'cost of materials + (Hourly rate x hours spent) = Final price,' he judges that he should sell his cutting boards for $150 a piece. Sometimes if he gets an extraordinary piece of wood, with interesting knots or patterns, he'll up the price and charge up to $250 for them.

But at his craft market he notices he isn't selling as many cutting boards as he'd like. He asks some of his fellow vendors and woodworkers, and he finds people are more willing to pay around $100 for cutting boards.

Should this woodworker opt for a lower price to sell at this market? Will he still make enough profit to justify selling there?

If a table at the craft market costs $100 for each time he sells there, he'd need to sell at least one cutting board to make his money back, and at least two to make a profit. Is that reasonable or expected?

Conversely, maybe this woodworker takes his projects to an upscale woodworking convention, and finds he's selling out of his cutting boards for $150 a piece. The market demand would indicate he could potentially charge more without alienating his audience.

However, maybe when he starts charging $200 per board, he sees a drop in sales as customers aren't as accommodating to the higher price as much as he thought.

Market demand is a fickle thing to try and factor in, as it really depends on your area and how much people are willing to spend at any given time. Take the time, talk to woodworkers and sellers in your area and see what is a reasonable price for your woodworking projects.

Returning to the formula from earlier, it would now look more like this:

"[Cost of materials + (Hourly rate x hours spent)] plus or minus perceived market value = Final price"

So it's really not so simple to tally together your costs and profit margins to find the total cost to charge for your woodworking projects. But with a detailed plan, knowledge of industry averages and labor rates, as well as understanding of what your time is worth, you could potentially make a healthy profit on your hard work.

Each project, and each woodworker, is entirely unique, and assessing what recoups your overhead costs and delivers a profit is going to be dependent on so many individual factors.

But hopefully this guide has been helpful in figuring out what you should charge for your woodworking projects.

You could also ask the people on the Woodland Mills Product Owners and Community Facebook group, as there are many talented woodworkers of various skill levels who may be willing to lend some advice on how you should price your woodworking.