To price keychains, cost a batch of them, the resin or acrylic, the inclusions, the rings and pins, divide by the keychains, add your time and the card and bag, and price for the margin you want after card fees. Price = full cost ÷ (1 − margin − fees). In the example below, 20 resin keychains use $11.20 of resin, mica, rings and pins, 56 cents each, and 80 minutes of pouring, sanding and assembling adds $1.33. With the card and bag, each keychain costs $2.19. At a 55% margin after 3% fees, that's $5.22, rounded up to $6. A shop paying $3.50 leaves $1.20. Below is a batch's cost, the time, the price, wholesale, prices for acrylic, 3D printed, beaded and crochet keychains, and a free calculator.
The short version
- Cost a batch: the resin or blanks, the inclusions, rings, pins and the wear on your molds.
- Divide by the keychains it makes, not the ones you poured: count the rejects.
- Time the hands-on work for the batch: pouring, demolding, sanding, drilling, assembling.
- Add the backing card, bag and a share of the tools and table fees.
- Price = full cost ÷ (1 − margin − card fees), rounded up to a dollar.
- The kind of keychain decides the price: a crochet one is mostly hours, an acrylic one mostly the blank.
- TaroStack keeps rings, pins and resin counted, and costs every batch. More below.
What a batch costs
Tidewater Resin Studio, a made-up resin studio in Charleston, South Carolina, I use in these examples, pours keychains 20 at a time:
| A batch of 20 | Amount | Cost |
|---|---|---|
| Epoxy resin | 8 oz at $0.45 | $3.60 |
| Mica, glitter and dried flowers | $2.00 | |
| Key rings with jump rings | 20 at $0.18 | $3.60 |
| Eye pins | 20 at $0.05 | $1.00 |
| Mold wear | $1.00 | |
| Materials, a batch | $11.20 |
That's 56 cents of materials a keychain. Silicone molds wear out after a few dozen pours, so a share of the mold belongs in every batch. If one in ten comes out with bubbles or a cloudy face, divide by 18, not 20.
The time, the card and the overhead
Pouring, demolding, sanding the edges, drilling and fitting the rings takes about four minutes a keychain, 80 minutes for the batch, spread over two days while the resin cures. At $20 an hour, that's $1.33 a keychain, more than twice the materials. The backing card and bag are 20 cents and the tools and table fees 10 cents.
| A keychain | Cost |
|---|---|
| Materials | $0.56 |
| Your time | $1.33 |
| Card, bag and overhead | $0.30 |
| Full cost | $2.19 |
The price
| Keychain | |
|---|---|
| Full cost | $2.19 |
| Price at a 55% margin after 3% card fees | $5.22 |
| Rounded up to a dollar | $6.00 |
| Left after the cost and fees | $3.63 |
| At $5.00 instead | $2.66 left |
| Two for $10 | $5.00 each, $2.66 left |
A two-for price at a market moves keychains without dropping below the cost. How the same arithmetic works for resin coasters and trays is in resin art business plan.
Wholesale to shops
| Price a keychain | Left after cost and fees |
|---|---|
| $6.00, retail | $3.63 |
| $5.00 | $2.66 |
| $3.50, to a shop | $1.20 |
A gift shop pays about half the retail price and hangs your keychains by the register. At $3.50 a keychain leaves $1.20, which works for designs you pour in bigger batches. How to set wholesale prices is in how to price handmade items for wholesale.
Keychain prices by kind
The same method gives different prices, because each kind spends its cost in a different place. At $20 an hour and the same 55% margin:
| Kind | Materials | Time | Full cost | Price |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Resin, poured in batches | $0.56 | $1.33 (4 min) | $2.19 | $6 |
| Acrylic, printed blanks bought in bulk | $1.38 | $0.33 (1 min) | $2.01 | $5 |
| 3D printed, 8 g of PLA | $0.50 | $1.00 (3 min) | $1.80 | $5 |
| Beaded | $0.78 | $1.67 (5 min) | $2.75 | $7 |
| Crochet, a small amigurumi | $0.58 | $8.33 (25 min) | $9.21 | $22 |
The acrylic keychain is mostly the printed blank; the crochet one is mostly the 25 minutes. A crochet keychain sold for $8 pays far less than $20 an hour, which is fine as a choice and a problem as a surprise. How printer time goes into a 3D print's cost is in how to price 3D prints, and hours into crochet in how to price crochet items.
Get the calculator
Download the keychain pricing calculator. Type what goes into a batch, the keychains it makes, the hands-on minutes, the card and bag, overhead, your hourly rate, card fees, the margin you want, a wholesale price and a price to test; it works out the full cost of a keychain, the price for your margin rounded up to a dollar, and what each price leaves. It's an ordinary Excel file with no macros, and it works in Google Sheets, LibreOffice and Numbers.
Where this stops working
Resin by the gallon, rings and pins by the hundred, a dozen colors of mica and molds in twenty shapes. The sheet prices one design; it doesn't say whether there are enough rings for the next market, or what resin costs since the last order.
How TaroStack does it
TaroStack keeps rings, pins and resin counted, and costs every batch.
Supplies in their units. Resin bought by the gallon is used by the ounce, and rings and pins bought by the hundred are counted by the each.
Designs as recipes. Each design is a recipe of resin, inclusions, a ring and a pin, so a batch takes them off stock and is costed from what they cost, good and rejected keychains are recorded, and "what could I make right now" says how many the rings on hand allow.
Reordering rings. Rings, pins and resin come up on a reorder list in days of cover, worked out from how fast they're used.
| The job | Calculator | In TaroStack |
|---|---|---|
| Rings and pins on hand | Count the bags | Stock by the each |
| What a batch cost | Prices you type | Costed from what you paid |
| Cloudy rejects | Not counted | Good and rejected on each batch |
| When to reorder resin | When it's low | Reorder list in days of cover |
Recipes, units, costing and reorder lists are on every plan, from $49 a month. The first 30 days are free, with no credit card. If you'd like a hand setting up, ask, and we'll do it with you.