To price macrame, measure the cord a piece takes and cost it by the meter from the roll, with a little extra for the ends you trim, then add the ring or dowel, beads, tag and bag and the minutes of knotting and finishing, and price for the margin you want after selling fees. Cord is a few dollars even for a big piece; the knotting is the price. In the example below, a plant hanger uses $3.96 of cord, costs $20.66 and sells for $43, a 24-inch wall hanging costs $77.20 and sells for $158, and a keychain costs $4.05 and sells for $9. Below is the cord, what each piece costs, prices, custom sizes, and a free calculator.
The short version
- Measure the cord for one piece of each design; cost it by the meter, plus 10% for trimming.
- Add the ring, dowel or key ring, beads, tag and bag.
- Time the knotting and finishing: it's most of the cost.
- Price = cost ÷ (1 − margin − fees), rounded up to a dollar.
- Small items made in batches cost far less a piece.
- Price custom sizes from the cord and the hours, not from the standard piece.
- TaroStack keeps cord, rings and dowels counted and every design costed. More below.
The cord
Conestoga Knot Co., a made-up macrame maker in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, I use in these examples, buys single-strand cotton cord by the roll: 3 mm at $24 for 200 meters, 12 cents a meter, and 5 mm at 20 cents a meter. A plant hanger takes eight cords of 3.5 meters plus the wraps, about 30 meters, $3.60; with 10% for the fringe and the ends trimmed off, $3.96. Measure the first piece of every design by cutting the cords, knotting it, and weighing or measuring what's left, then write the meters down; guessing short means a piece that runs out of cord a row from the end.
What each piece costs
| A piece | Plant hanger | Wall hanging, 24 in | Keychain |
|---|---|---|---|
| Cord, with 10% trimming | 30 m of 3 mm, $3.96 | 60 m of 5 mm, $13.20 | 2 m of 3 mm, $0.26 |
| Ring, dowel or key ring | $0.80 | $3.00 | $0.30 |
| Beads | $0.50 | ||
| Tag and bag, or card | $0.40 | $1.00 | $0.15 |
| Time, at $20 an hour | 45 min, $15.00 | 3 hours, $60.00 | 10 min, $3.33 |
| Cost | $20.66 | $77.20 | $4.05 |
On every piece the time is more than 70% of the cost. The wall hanging's three hours cover laying out and cutting the cords, mounting them on the dowel, the knotting, combing and trimming the fringe, and the hanging cord. How to put your own time into a price is in how to price handmade items.
Prices
| A piece | Cost | Price, 45% margin after 6% fees | Left after fees |
|---|---|---|---|
| Plant hanger | $20.66 | $43 | $19.76 |
| Wall hanging, 24 in | $77.20 | $158 | $71.32 |
| Keychain | $4.05 | $9 | $4.41 |
| Keychain, made ten at a time | $2.38 | $5 | $2.32 |
Each price is the cost divided by (1 − 0.45 − 0.06), rounded up to a dollar. Each leaves about $24 to $28 an hour on top of the $20 wage, so no piece is subsidizing another. Keychains made ten at a time, with the cords cut and the rings laid out together, take about 5 minutes each and can sell for $5, which makes them the impulse buy at a market table. How cost-plus pricing works is in cost plus pricing example.
Custom sizes
A customer who wants the wall hanging at 36 inches isn't asking for 50% more. The cord gets longer and wider at once, about twice the cord, and the knotting grows with it, so a 36-inch piece is roughly twice the time and twice the price. Quote custom pieces from the calculator, with the meters and the hours measured on the standard piece and scaled up, and take a deposit that covers the cord. A shop or boutique that resells your work needs room for its own margin; how to price for that is in how to price handmade items for wholesale.
Get the calculator
Download the macrame pricing calculator. Type how many meters of cord a piece takes, what a roll costs and how long it is, your trimming allowance, the ring, dowel or key ring, beads, tag and bag, the minutes of knotting and finishing, your hourly rate, selling fees and the margin you want. It works out the cord, the materials, your time, the cost of a piece, its price rounded up to a dollar, and what's left. It's an ordinary Excel file with no macros, and it works in Google Sheets, LibreOffice and Numbers.
Where this stops working
Cord in three thicknesses and twelve colors, dowels and rings in four sizes, twenty designs, custom orders with deposits, a market table and an online shop. A sheet can't say whether there's enough 5 mm natural cord for two custom wall hangings, which rings to order, or which designs earn their hours.
How TaroStack does it
TaroStack keeps cord, rings and dowels counted and every design costed.
Supplies in stock. Each cord, ring, dowel and bead is an item, counted on a phone and kept at what you paid, and units convert: cord bought by the 200-meter roll, used by the meter.
Designs as recipes. Each design is a recipe of its cord, ring or dowel and extras, so recording what you made takes them off stock at what you paid and gives the cost of each piece. Custom orders are sales orders that show whether the cord is on the shelf while you're still typing.
And what each design earns. The reorder list works in days of cover against each supplier's lead time, so the natural cord doesn't run out mid-order, and margins are reported by product and by customer.
| The job | Notebook | In TaroStack |
|---|---|---|
| Enough 5 mm cord for two custom pieces? | Measure the rolls | Sales orders, checked against stock |
| Rings and dowels to order | Found short | The reorder list, in days |
| What a plant hanger costs | A guess | Each piece, at what it used |
| Which designs earn their hours? | A feeling | Margins by product |
Recipes, batches, sales orders and margins by product and customer 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.