To price a woodworking project, work out the lumber you actually buy, not just what ends up in the piece, add glue, finish, sandpaper and hardware, then your hours and a share of the shop's costs, and add a margin. Lumber is priced by the board foot, and milling rough boards flat and square, plus the offcuts, usually takes half as much again as the finished piece holds. In the example below, an edge-grain maple cutting board made in a run of ten costs $70 and sells for $87.50; the same board made as a one-off costs $112; a white oak side table costs $525 and sells for $656.25. The common rule of materials times three pays well for some pieces and badly for others, and the sheet shows which. Below is board-foot math, what goes into a piece, five examples, when the rule of thumb works, and a free pricing sheet.
The short version
- A board foot is 144 cubic inches: length × width × thickness in inches, divided by 144.
- Buy for milling and waste: in the example, 1.45 to 1.6 times the board feet in the finished piece.
- Add glue, finish, sandpaper, hardware and packaging.
- Add your hours and shop overhead: tool wear, blades, power and a share of rent, about $3 an hour here.
- Price = full cost ÷ (1 − margin).
- Making pieces in runs cuts the hours per piece more than anything else.
- TaroStack keeps lumber by the board foot and costs every piece from what it used. More below.
Board feet, and the lumber you really buy
High Desert Woodshop, a made-up woodshop in Bend, Oregon, I use in these examples, makes an edge-grain maple cutting board 18 inches long, 12 wide and 1¼ thick. That's 18 × 12 × 1.25 = 270 cubic inches, or 1.875 board feet. But it starts as rough 6/4 maple, which loses thickness to the planer, width to the jointer, and length to checked ends and offcuts, so the shop buys about 1.6 times that: 3 board feet, at $7, is $21 of maple.
How much more to buy depends on the lumber and the piece; track it for a few projects and use your own number. How to work out a cost per unit for anything bought by one measure and used by another is in how to calculate cost per ounce, and the same arithmetic works for board feet.
What goes into a piece
| Edge-grain maple cutting board | Run of 10 | One-off |
|---|---|---|
| Maple, 3 board feet at $7 | $21.00 | $21.00 |
| Glue, finish, sandpaper | $4.00 | $4.00 |
| Feet and packaging | $3.00 | $3.00 |
| Your hours, at $25 an hour | $37.50 (1.5 h) | $75.00 (3 h) |
| Shop overhead, $3 an hour | $4.50 | $9.00 |
| Full cost | $70.00 | $112.00 |
| Price at a 20% margin | $87.50 | $140.00 |
Making ten at once means one setup for every cut, one glue-up session and one finishing day, which halves the hours per board. How to put your own time into any price is in how to price handmade items.
Five examples, and the rule of thumb
| Project | Lumber bought | Lumber | Full cost | Price at 20% | Materials × 3 | × 3 pays you an hour |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cutting board, edge grain, run of 10 | 3 bd ft | $21.00 | $70.00 | $87.50 | $84.00 | $34.33 |
| Cutting board, edge grain, one-off | 3 bd ft | $21.00 | $112.00 | $140.00 | $84.00 | $15.67 |
| Cutting board, end grain, in a run | 5.1 bd ft | $51.00 | $173.00 | $216.25 | $183.00 | $27.50 |
| Side table, white oak | 12 bd ft | $108.00 | $525.00 | $656.25 | $399.00 | $16.00 |
| Dining table, walnut, 72 × 40 | 79.75 bd ft | $957.00 | $2,737.00 | $3,421.25 | $3,171.00 | $32.23 |
"× 3 pays you an hour" is what's left of the materials-times-three price after materials and shop overhead, divided by your hours.
The rule works when materials are a big share of the piece: boards made in runs, end-grain boards with a lot of hardwood in them, and the walnut table, where $1,057 of lumber, finish and hardware times three leaves more than $32 an hour. It fails when the hours are the piece: the one-off board pays $15.67 an hour and the side table, with 14 hours of joinery and only $133 of materials, $16. Price those from the full cost, or make them in runs.
Custom and commission work
A commissioned piece is a one-off by definition, with design time and changes on top, so it's priced from the full cost, with a deposit that covers the lumber before the first cut. Selling through a gallery or shop that takes a share is covered in how to price handmade items for wholesale.
Get the pricing sheet
Download the woodworking pricing sheet. One row for each project: board feet in the finished piece, the milling and waste factor, price a board foot, glue and finish, hardware and packaging, hours, your hourly rate, shop overhead an hour and margin. It works out the lumber you buy and what it costs, the full cost, the price at your margin, and what materials times three would charge and pay you an hour. It's an ordinary Excel file with no macros, and it works in Google Sheets, LibreOffice and Numbers.
Where this stops working
A shop with a lumber rack of maple, walnut, cherry and white oak, bought by the board foot at different prices over a year, can't say what the wood in any one table cost, or whether there's enough 8/4 walnut for the next commission. Offcuts pile up, the finish runs out the week of a delivery, and the price list is from before the last price rise.
How TaroStack does it
TaroStack keeps the lumber counted and every piece costed.
Lumber by the board foot. Each species and thickness is an item kept by the board foot, at what you paid, and units convert. A design is a recipe of its lumber, finish and hardware, with a scrap % for milling and offcuts.
Each run at what it used. Recording a run of boards takes the lumber, finish and hardware off stock at what you paid, and divides by the pieces that came out good, so a cutting board's cost follows the price of maple. Margins are reported by product and by customer.
And the rack before a commission. Stock is counted on a phone, commissions are sales orders that show whether the lumber to fill them is on the rack while you're still typing, and the reorder list works in days of cover for finish, glue and sandpaper.
| The job | Notebook | In TaroStack |
|---|---|---|
| What the walnut in this table cost | Find the receipt | The piece, at what it used |
| Enough 8/4 walnut for a commission | Measure the rack | Board feet on hand |
| Finish before a delivery | Found empty | The reorder list, in days |
| Boards or furniture, which pays? | A feeling | Margins by product |
Recipes, batches, counting 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.