To price wooden signs, cost a batch: the boards, the stain, paint and sealer, the stencil vinyl and the hangers, then add the hours it takes to sand, stain, weed and lay the stencil, paint, peel and seal, the wrapping and a share of the tools, and price for the margin you want after card fees. Price = full cost ÷ (1 − margin − fees). In the example below, ten 12-by-24 farmhouse signs use $74 of materials and 25 minutes each of work, so a sign costs $17.13. At a 55% margin after 3% fees, that's $41. At the $35 a craft fair will bear, it leaves $16.82, and a shop paying $20 leaves $2.27. Below is a batch's cost, the time, the price, custom signs, shops, and a free calculator.
The short version
- Cost a batch: boards, stain, paint, sealer, stencil vinyl, hangers, sandpaper and brushes.
- Time the batch from sanding to sealing, and divide by the signs.
- Add the wrap and bag, and a share of the cutter, the tools and the booth.
- Price = full cost ÷ (1 − margin − card fees), rounded up to a dollar.
- Custom signs carry design time; charge for it.
- Signs are mostly hours; wholesale rarely pays unless the signs are quick to make.
- TaroStack keeps boards, paint and vinyl counted and costs every batch. More below.
What a batch costs
Greenbrier Sign Co., a made-up sign maker in Lewisburg, West Virginia, I use in these examples, makes stenciled farmhouse signs ten at a time:
| A batch of 10 | Amount | Cost |
|---|---|---|
| Pine boards, 12 x 24, cut and sanded | 10 at $4.50 | $45.00 |
| Stain, paint and sealer | $12.00 | |
| Stencil vinyl | 10 at $1.20 | $12.00 |
| Hangers, sandpaper and brushes | $5.00 | |
| Materials, a batch | $74.00 |
That's $7.40 of materials a sign. Hardwood, a routed edge or a frame changes it; price each style from its own batch.
The time, the wrap and the overhead
Sanding, staining, cutting and weeding the stencil, laying it, painting, peeling and sealing takes about 25 minutes a sign when they're done ten at a time, 250 minutes for the batch. At $20 an hour, that's $8.33 a sign, more than the materials. Each sign is wrapped and bagged for 80 cents and carries 60 cents of the vinyl cutter, tools and booth.
| A sign | Cost |
|---|---|
| Materials | $7.40 |
| Your time | $8.33 |
| Wrap, bag and overhead | $1.40 |
| Full cost | $17.13 |
How to put your hours into any woodworking price is in how to price woodworking projects.
The price
| Sign | |
|---|---|
| Full cost | $17.13 |
| Price at a 55% margin after 3% card fees | $40.79 |
| Rounded up to a dollar | $41.00 |
| Left at $41 | $22.64 |
| Left at $35, a craft fair price | $16.82 |
If the local market won't pay $41, look at the time before the price: a batch of 20 with the same setup takes less time per sign, and a simpler design with fewer colors paints faster.
Custom signs
A custom sign, a family name with an established date or a wedding welcome sign, carries the design time on its own: 20 minutes to lay out the lettering and cut a one-off stencil adds $6.67, and the bigger board and the single run add more. An 18-by-36 custom sign with $14 of materials and an hour and a quarter of work costs about $40 with wrap and overhead, and $97 at the same margin. Charge a deposit before you cut the stencil; a custom sign nobody collects has no other buyer. Engraved and lasered signs follow the same arithmetic with machine time instead of paint; that's in how to price laser engraved items.
Shops and wholesale
| Price a sign | Left after cost and fees |
|---|---|
| $41, retail | $22.64 |
| $35, at a craft fair | $16.82 |
| $20, to a shop | $2.27 |
A home goods shop pays about half the retail price. At $20 a sign leaves $2.27 after the hours are paid, so wholesale works only for a design you can make much faster, or a shop willing to pay $24 and sell at $48. How to set wholesale terms is in how to price handmade items for wholesale.
Get the calculator
Download the wooden sign pricing calculator. Type what goes into a batch, the signs it makes, the hands-on minutes, the wrap, overhead, your hourly rate, card fees, the margin you want, a shop price and a price to test; it works out the full cost of a sign, 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
Boards in five sizes, a dozen paint colors, vinyl by the roll, custom orders with deposits, and a fair every other weekend. The calculator prices one style; it doesn't say whether there are enough 12-by-24 boards for next weekend, or what the last batch really used.
How TaroStack does it
TaroStack keeps boards, paint and vinyl counted and costs every batch.
Materials in their units. Boards by the each, paint by the quart, vinyl bought by the roll and used by the foot, so the stock is in the units the signs are made from.
Signs as recipes. Each style is a recipe of a board, stain, paint, vinyl and a hanger, so a batch takes them off stock, is costed from what they cost, and records the labor minutes. "What could I make right now" says how many signs the boards on hand allow.
Custom orders tracked. Each custom sign is a sales order with the date it's needed, so the commissions waiting are on one list.
| The job | Calculator | In TaroStack |
|---|---|---|
| Boards for next weekend | Count the stack | What could I make right now |
| What a batch cost | Prices you type | Costed from what you paid |
| Vinyl left on the roll | Guess | Stock by the foot |
| Custom orders waiting | Notes and texts | Sales orders with needed-by dates |
Recipes, units, costing and sales orders 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.