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Craft Fair and Market Stall Break-Even Calculator

How many do you need to sell to cover the stall?

A market day has its own costs: the table fee, getting there, the card reader. Put them in with your price and cost per item, and see how many sales cover the day and how many pay you what you want.

Your numbers

Costs of the day
$75.00
Each sale puts toward them
$7.00
Items to break even
11
Items for your target
25

Sell 11 to cover the day ($132.00 in sales), and 25 to take home your target ($300.00).

Your cost per item has to come from somewhere. The Maker's Costing Workbook works it out for every product, with your time and packaging included.

See the Maker's Costing Workbook, $19

How the sum works

  1. Costs of the day = stall fee + travel + other costs.
  2. Each sale puts toward them = price minus cost per item minus the organiser's or card reader's share of the price.
  3. Items to break even = costs of the day divided by what each sale puts toward them, rounded up.
  4. Items for your target = (costs of the day + the profit you want) divided by the same amount, rounded up.

Questions

Should I count my own time?

Not in the break-even number, which covers cash costs only. If you want pay for the day, put it in as the profit you want. Eight hours at $15 is $120, so with $75 of costs and $7 from each sale you need 28 items.

What if the stall fee is a percentage of sales?

Enter it as the organiser's share. It comes off every sale: at 10% of a $12 price, each sale puts $5.80 toward the day instead of $7.00.

How many will I realistically sell?

Nobody can say for your product and your event. Ask the organiser about past attendance, and after your first market put in your real numbers so the next decision is based on your own results.

This was one batch

The Maker's Costing Workbook does this for every recipe you make.

Type each material once, with the pack you buy it in. Build recipes from them, log the batches you make, and the cost per unit, your margin and your materials stock all follow. One payment of $19.

Get the workbook for $19 See what's inside
The dashboard tab of the Maker's Costing Workbook: margins, materials to reorder, units made and hours.

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