A permanent jewelry business plan is a plan for selling a few inches of chain and a few minutes of welding, many times over. A gold-filled bracelet uses about seven and a half inches of chain that cost $6, and sells for $75, so the margin is not the hard part. The hard part is the number of people who sit down at the table: the studio's own customers, market days, and pop-ups at boutiques, which bring the crowd and take a share. In the example below, a permanent jewelry studio in Mississippi sells sterling, gold-filled and solid gold bracelets at its studio, at markets and at boutique pop-ups, and ends its first year about $38,700 ahead on $72,100 of sales, with every hour at the table paid at $20. Below is a description example, each part of the plan, the gold and silver words, the first year month by month, the startup budget, and a free template.
The short version
- Describe the business in a paragraph: the chains, where you weld, the goals.
- Cost a bracelet from the chain up: inches of chain, a jump ring, the time at the table, fees.
- Count the time at an event, waiting included, not only the minutes of welding.
- Boutique pop-ups bring customers and take a share; price them in.
- Call it "gold filled" or "sterling" only when it is.
- Keep chain counted by the inch, spool by spool, so a pop-up doesn't run out of the favorite.
- TaroStack keeps chain by the inch and counts what's left after each event on a phone, with no signal needed. More below.
Part 1: the business description
Sweet Gum Permanent Jewelry, a made-up permanent jewelry studio in Oxford, Mississippi, I use in these examples, writes:
Sweet Gum Permanent Jewelry welds sterling silver, 14K gold-filled and 14K solid gold bracelets, anklets and necklaces from a chair in a boutique studio in Oxford, at markets, and at pop-ups in boutiques across north Mississippi. In its first year it aims to fill two pop-ups a month and a full studio calendar.
Part 2: what a bracelet costs
| Per unit | Sterling, at the studio | Gold-filled, studio or market | Gold-filled, boutique pop-up | 14K solid gold |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Chain, 7.5 inches | $3.00 ($0.40 an inch) | $6.00 ($0.80 an inch) | $6.00 | $67.50 ($9 an inch) |
| Jump ring | $0.30 | $0.60 | $0.60 | $6.00 |
| Time at $20 an hour, waiting included | $5.00 (15 min) | $5.00 (15 min) | $5.00 (15 min) | $6.67 (20 min) |
| The boutique's share, 20% | $15.00 | |||
| Card fees, 3% | $1.50 | $2.25 | $2.25 | $5.40 |
| Variable cost | $9.80 | $13.85 | $28.85 | $85.57 |
The weld takes seconds and the fitting a few minutes, but a market or a pop-up has quiet hours, so the plan pays 15 minutes for each bracelet. Charms, anklets and necklaces follow the same arithmetic with more inches. How to price jewelry from materials and time is in how to price handmade jewelry.
Part 3: the gold and silver words
"Gold filled" may be used only when a layer of karat gold, bonded by a mechanical process, makes up at least 1/20th of the weight of the metal in the piece, with the karat named alongside, as in "14K gold filled" (16 CFR 23.3). "Sterling" or "sterling silver" may be used only for metal that's at least 925/1,000ths pure silver (16 CFR 23.5). Buy chain from a supplier that states what it is, keep their invoices, and use their words on your price list. This is general information, not legal advice.
Part 4: customers and prices
| Product | Price | Variable cost | Contribution | Margin | A month at full speed |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Sterling silver bracelet, welded | $50.00 | $9.80 | $40.20 | 80.4% | 40 |
| 14K gold-filled bracelet, at the studio or a market | $75.00 | $13.85 | $61.15 | 81.5% | 50 |
| 14K gold-filled bracelet, at a boutique pop-up | $75.00 | $28.85 | $46.15 | 61.5% | 50 |
| 14K solid gold bracelet | $180.00 | $85.57 | $94.43 | 52.5% | 6 |
In a month at full speed the gold-filled bracelets at the studio and markets bring $3,058 of the $7,540 of contribution, the pop-ups $2,308, sterling $1,608 and solid gold $567. A pop-up bracelet earns $15 less than one at the studio, and it's still worth it: the boutique fills the chairs, and some of those customers come back to the studio. How to keep stock at a shop that isn't yours is in consignment inventory example.
Part 5: the first year, month by month
Fixed costs are $1,055 every month: chair rent in a boutique studio ($400), market and event fees ($300), insurance ($60), the website and booking ($40), ads ($200), argon refills and electrodes ($25), and software and card fees ($30). Sales start at 15% of full speed:
| Month | Sterling | Gold-filled, studio and market | Gold-filled, pop-up | Solid gold | Sales | Profit | Cash, year to date |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 6 | 8 | 8 | 1 | $1,680 | $139 | $139 |
| 2 | 8 | 10 | 10 | 1 | $2,080 | $434 | $573 |
| 3 | 10 | 13 | 13 | 2 | $2,810 | $931 | $1,504 |
| 4 | 12 | 15 | 15 | 2 | $3,210 | $1,226 | $2,730 |
| 5 | 16 | 20 | 20 | 2 | $4,160 | $1,923 | $4,653 |
| 6 | 20 | 25 | 25 | 3 | $5,290 | $2,715 | $7,367 |
| 7 | 24 | 30 | 30 | 4 | $6,420 | $3,507 | $10,874 |
| 8 | 28 | 35 | 35 | 4 | $7,370 | $4,204 | $15,078 |
| 9 | 32 | 40 | 40 | 5 | $8,500 | $4,996 | $20,073 |
| 10 | 36 | 45 | 45 | 5 | $9,450 | $5,693 | $25,766 |
| 11 | 40 | 50 | 50 | 6 | $10,580 | $6,485 | $32,251 |
| 12 | 40 | 50 | 50 | 6 | $10,580 | $6,485 | $38,735 |
The year's sales are $72,130 and the profit $38,735, with every hour at the table paid at $20. The margin is high because a bracelet is mostly a few inches of chain; what holds the year back is how many people sit down. A full month is 146 bracelets, about 37 hours at the table.
Part 6: the startup budget
| Item | Example |
|---|---|
| Permanent jewelry welder and argon kit | $1,800 |
| Chain, a first stock of spools | $2,200 |
| Jump rings and charms | $400 |
| Pop-up table, display and mirror | $500 |
| Welding course | $600 |
| Website, booking and photos | $800 |
| Working cash | $3,000 |
| Total to start | $9,300 |
The $6,300 spent before working cash is earned back in month 6, when the cash reaches $7,367.
Get the template
Download the permanent jewelry business plan workbook. Four sheets: your bracelets with price, variable cost and a month at full speed; the first year, month by month, with sales, profit and cash; your fixed costs; and your startup budget with working cash. It's an ordinary Excel file with no macros, and it works in Google Sheets, LibreOffice and Numbers.
Where this stops working
Twenty styles of chain on spools, each bought by the foot and used by the inch, charms by the dozen, a studio, two markets and two pop-ups a month, each needing the favorites packed. A notebook can't say how many inches of the paperclip chain are left after Saturday, or whether there's enough of it for next weekend's pop-up.
How TaroStack does it
TaroStack keeps chain by the inch and counts what's left after each event on a phone, with no signal needed.
Chain in the unit you use. Chain bought by the foot or the spool is stocked by the inch, and jump rings and charms by the each, so the stock is in the unit a bracelet uses.
Counts after every event. What's left on each spool is counted on a phone after a market or pop-up, even with no signal, and the count shows what a difference is worth before it's posted. How to count small, valuable stock like this is in how to inventory jewelry.
Reordering the favorites. Each chain comes up on a reorder list in days of cover, worked out from how fast it's used, with the supplier's lead time and minimum, so the paperclip chain is ordered before the pop-up, and a price rise from a supplier shows up in the price-creep report.
| The job | Notebook | In TaroStack |
|---|---|---|
| Inches left on each spool | Measure them | Stock by the inch |
| What Saturday used | Guess | A count after the event |
| When to order the paperclip chain | When it's short | Reorder list in days of cover |
| A supplier's price going up | Notice later | Price creep by supplier |
Counting, units, reorder lists and price creep 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.