How to Price Your Stained Glass Art: A Guide for Selling Your Work
Are you struggling with what to charge for your stained glass creations? You’re not alone. In many of the Facebook groups that I am a member of, people will frequently show one of their original designs and then ask what they should charge.
First, let me just say that is a bad idea on two counts: these folks are going to get wildly different answers to their questions, probably leaving them more confused than ever, and they’re also likely to get their original designs ripped off from the many scammers on Facebook.
Why ask a bunch of strangers to price your work and risk having your intellectual property stolen by unscrupulous criminals posing as "artists"?
So where can you get reliable and useful information on how to price your beautiful creations?
Fortunately, you have come to the right place. In this post, I’m going to lay out exactly what method to use to price your stained glass art so you hit the sweet spot every time, and get your customers to whip out their wallets and beg you to take their money!
Why Accurate Pricing Matters
If you’re like me, you probably spend a lot of time working on your pieces. You’ve invested time, materials, and even if you’re just starting to do stained glass, your skills. Now, I know that not everyone is going to want to market their stained glass creations, but If you are intent on selling, then your pricing model should reflect the value of what you put into your work.
Psychologically, buyers will instill their own value into something that they consider purchasing, so if you undervalue your own work by pricing it below market, just to sell, buyers may see your work as low quality.
On the other hand, if you put too high a price on your pieces, buyers will take a pass because they can’t see themselves spending that kind of money, even if they LOVE your work.
And then there’s the low-priced, mass-produced stuff that makes it hard for all of us to sell our work (and this is true for all artists and craftspersons) because it’s been made in giant sweatshops overseas. Unfortunately, the internet (e.g., Etsy, Shopify, Facebook Marketplace) is flooded with this cheap stained glass from places in the world where people will work for a few dollars a day. The pieces LOOK good in pictures, but in actuality the design is most likely ripped off from a real artist and the quality is subpar. Heck, a lot of it isn’t even real stained glass.
It’s hard to compete with those prices (hello? $25 for a 100-piece 2-square foot panel?), but here’s where a little education on your part is warranted. I’m all for educating the customer, making sure they understand the difference between mass-produced and handmade. How long the process really takes, why yours is more valuable than that $25 “masterpiece,” and that what they’re paying for is not an original design and that the so-called artist most likely stole the design from someone else.
That said, if your piece is priced at $800, and they could buy something similar, albeit not as special, for $25, well … anyone can see how that would be a no-brainer. That is – unless you have an established name, the design is truly uniquely yours, and they can see why paying $800 is a bargain. But when you’re starting out, hitting that sweet spot when pricing your stained glass is essential.
Which brings me to the “what” of this post – the formula.
The Magic of the Formula
The formula is perhaps the most important tool for pricing your art that you can have. Why? Because it takes the guesswork out of pricing, leaving you with a consistent, reliable, and fair price based on the variables that are unique to your skills, brand, costs, and customers.
When you develop your pricing formula, you will calculate 1) the base price of your stained glass creations plus 2) any add-ons that you integrate into your piece. I have 1 pricing formula for any panel that is 1 square foot and larger, and 1 pricing formula for anything below 1 square foot, like suncatchers. I also have a pricing formula for 3-D pieces because there is a different set of skills and complexity that goes into making these pieces.
I recommend that you develop a pricing formula for anything you make to sell, whether it’s ready made pieces you sell online or a craft fair, or a commission piece that someone asks you to customize just for their needs. Both should use the same, or similar pricing model that can be applied over and over again consistently and reliably.
First, let’s talk about the variables that go into the base price of your formula. The first variable is going to be material cost for each square foot of finished work. This will include glass, solder, foil, lead came, consumables (flux, patina, cleaning and finishing compounds, etc.), and anything else you use in your creations. I recommend keeping a very detailed record of three or four of your creations, making meticulous notes as to how much glass you use (and the cost), the amount of foil, solder, lead, etc., that goes into your finished piece. Take your overall cost of materials for each piece, and divide that amount by the number of square feet for each. Then take the average of that number. That will give you your square foot average base cost for materials.
For example, let’s say you create three panels, and you use $100.00 worth of materials in the first one that measures 3.5 square feet, $85.00 worth of materials in another that is 2.4 square feet, and $145 worth of materials in a third piece that measures 4.6 square square feet. Your average cost per square foot is:
Panel 1: $100/3.5 = $28.57
Panel 2: $85.00/2.4 = $35.41
Panel 3: $145/4.6 = $31.52
Then, take the average cost of these three panels:
($28.57 + $35.41 + $31.52)/3 = 31.83
$31.83 is your average base price per square foot for materials.
The next variable is complexity, which is your per piece price. Not everyone uses this variable in their calculations, but I do, because a square foot that has 10 pieces will take less time to cut than one that has 30. It is a time factor, but not necessarily a labor factor, which is based on what you want to pay yourself per hour of labor. I charge $1 per piece for simpler designs, and as much as $3 per piece for highly complex designs. Again, this is an average. If my entire panel has 65 pieces, for a 2 square foot panel, then I have an average of 32.5 pieces per square foot. Since this is over 30 pieces, I will charge $97.50 for each square foot, and that will get factored into my base price.
Then there is labor. This will depend on how much you want to pay yourself, but I do recommend that you pay yourself a labor cost per square foot. A lot of people want to charge a per hour price for every hour they spend working on a piece. The problem with this method of pricing is that skills vary. A highly skilled technician will spend less time in the fabrication of the piece, so they can afford to charge less, whereas a less skilled technician will take more time. It doesn’t make sense then to go by actual time. For that reason, I pay myself $20 per square foot. The actual time will of course be more, but a lot of that time is factored into the per piece price, not the time it takes to complete a project. If a piece is more complex, and requires more time intensive work, then I do raise my labor cost. But for most work, $20 per square foot is fine.
I also charge a percentage per square foot for overhead and profit margin. After I add my material cost, my per piece cost, and my labor cost, I then add a 15% overhead cost (for utilities, rent, etc.) and 25% profit margin per square foot. These percentages are multiplied by the costs so far, and then added into the square foot base price.
Let’s take the previous example I used. I have $31.83 for my average material cost, and because my project is more complex, I’m charging $97.50 for the per piece price per square foot. Then, add in the $20 per hour labor price. Now we have $31.83 + $97.50 + $20 = $149.33, multiplied by 40% (overhead and profit margin) = 59.73, and that leaves us with the base price of $149.33 + $59.73 = $209 per square foot.
Don’t Forget About the “Extras!”
But what about extra details that make your work so special? Wire embellishments, lead or copper foil overlays, bevels, plating, fusing, sandblasting or etching, painting will add to the material cost, the per piece cost, the labor cost, overhead percentage, or all of the above. How much you add is going to vary, but again, look at it objectively.
For example, If I’m producing a custom beveled commissioned project, I have to pay someone to bevel each piece of glass, and bevels are made on a per linear inch price. That is going to significantly increase the glass costs of my project. Or, if I use stock bevels, I might take the overall cost of the bevels and divide it by the square footage. I can also adjust the per piece price because there will be fewer pieces to cut. If I incorporate fused glass, or painted, I might bump up my overhead, labor, and per piece price.
Market Rate
The other factor, which is less objective, is your market. A glass artist in New York City or Chicago will be able to charge more than someone in Grand Rapids, Michigan because their customer base will be more affluent. However, with the internet and social media, your customers are not necessarily geographically bound, so pieces that can be shipped can be priced the same, or slightly more, than the local market will bear. This is where you must educate your customer, so that they understand the amount of work and skill that goes into making each piece, so that even someone from Grand Rapids, Michigan will gladly pay the same as someone from Chicago’s North Shore, because they see and appreciate the value.
A Word About Discounts
And never, ever drop your price just to make a sale. You can offer discounts from time to time, for example, for signing up to your email list or joining your Patreon, but always make that discount tied to something that will result in increased profits down the road. If you drop your prices up front, not only will your customer see your pricing as arbitrary, and begin to question your prices all around, but you’ll also shortchange yourself and you won’t be in business for long.
It’s Just Math!
The bottom line is, your pricing should be based on an objective mathematical calculation of materials, time, overhead, and profit, and not gut instinct, time spent on the project, or worst of all, what YOU might pay for one of your creations. We often dial down our own value because we see it from the perspective of what we are willing to pay. That number will always be lower than what someone else will pay. Don’t undervalue your work, ever, even when starting out.
Finally, as your skill, experience, and reputation increase, you’ll be able to stabilize your pricing, and know exactly what you can, and cannot charge. But until you get the hang of it, I’ve developed a simple pricing calculator that you can use and adapt to your own needs, to use both now as you’re starting out, and as you grow your business. Just click the link below to download my Magic Stained Glass Pricing Calculator, and be sure to watch the training video that goes along with it.
And please, let me know if this blog post and pricing calculator has been useful to you. I value your feedback and will use it to inform future posts!
Happy scoring!