13/10/2026
Pricing is one of the hardest parts of being a maker... and if I'm honest, it's something I still struggle with.
Like many makers, I sometimes look at a finished piece and think, "Will people think that's too expensive?"
Then I remind myself what's actually gone into it.
A real-world example
Let's take a typical 7×9mm sea glass pendant.
Materials:
• Silver for the pendant: £3.28
• Sterling silver chain: £4.35+
• Solder, flux, pickle, gas, sanding materials & polishing compounds: £2-£3
Total materials & consumables: approximately £10
Then comes the making:
• Forming the bezel
• Soldering the bezel and backplate
• Making and soldering the bail
• Pickling and cleaning
• Filing and refining
• Sanding and polishing
• Carefully setting the sea glass
A pendant like this can easily take around 2 hours to make.
At a modest UK wage of £12.50 per hour, that's:
Labour: £25
So before I've even considered packaging, card fees, website fees, equipment, insurance, electricity, market stalls, or making any profit, that pendant has already cost me:
£10 materials + £25 labour = £35
Add the overheads of running a small business and a reasonable profit margin, and suddenly a selling price of £45-£60 doesn't seem quite so unreasonable.
The part we don't talk about enough
Every handmade piece includes:
• Skill & experience
• Time & patience
• Practice & learning
• Tools & materials
• Creativity & care
None of that is free, even when it's something we truly love doing.
My takeaway
I'm not sharing this to justify my prices or complain about costs.
I'm sharing it because handmade work is often judged against mass-produced prices, and they're simply not the same thing.
When you support a handmade business, you're supporting a real person sitting at a workbench, learning, creating, making mistakes, improving, and pouring a little piece of themselves into every item they make.
So if you've ever bought from a small maker, thank you. It means more than you'll ever know.
💙 You're not just buying a sea glass pendant. You're supporting a craft, a passion, and the person behind it. 🌊✨