Product Materials
The materials, parts, blanks, or purchased items that become part of the finished Product.
Makers Pricing Companion
Know your costs. Price with confidence.
Makers Pricing Companion helps independent makers understand what a Product really costs to make and use that information to make more informed pricing decisions.
Bring Materials, Consumables, Labor, and Machine Time together in one place. See your Product Cost, evaluate pricing, and understand what your price means for Profit and Margin.
Built for iPhone and iPad.
Makers Pricing Companion is currently in development.
See how it works below.
Built around the way makers work
Pricing a handmade or custom Product can involve much more than adding up the materials.
Makers Pricing Companion (MPC) brings the different parts of making together so you can build a clearer picture of what each Product costs.
Consumables
Supplies used while making, finishing, preparing, or packaging the Product.
Labor
The time you spend actively working on the Product.
Machine Time
Time spent using equipment such as lasers, CNC machines, 3D printers, embroidery machines, and other production equipment.
From cost to price
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Build your Product Recipe
Add the Materials, Consumables, Labor, and Machine Time that go into the Product.
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Understand Product Cost
See the costs behind the work in one place rather than piecing them together across notes, calculators, or spreadsheets.
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Review your pricing
Compare Product Cost with your Retail Price and understand the resulting Profit and Margin.
MPC is designed to explain the numbers clearly without turning pricing into an accounting exercise.
Pricing is more than materials
A Product can sell well and still not generate enough Profit.
Material cost is easy to see. The time spent making the Product, supplies consumed along the way, and the cost of using equipment can be much easier to overlook.
MPC is designed to help make those costs visible so pricing decisions are based on a more complete picture of the work.
Useful without becoming accounting software
MPC is focused on costing, pricing, profitability, and practical business visibility for makers.
It is not designed to become bookkeeping, tax, inventory, or general business-management software.
The goal is simpler: help you understand what your Products cost and what your prices mean for the business behind them.
Privacy-conscious and local-first
Your Product catalog contains real information about how you make and price your work.
MPC is being built with a local-first, privacy-conscious approach. Sensitive maker catalog and pricing information is not intended to become analytics data.
The app is also designed to remain useful when you are offline.
Detailed production privacy information will be published before public release based on the services and configurations actually used in the finished app.
Designed for different kinds of makers
MPC is being designed around costs that appear across many kinds of maker businesses.
That can include makers working with:
- laser engraving and cutting
- CNC machining
- woodworking
- 3D printing
- jewelry and metalwork
- textiles and sewing
- ceramics
- other custom and small-production work
Makers often have very different workflows. MPC's goal is to provide a flexible pricing structure without forcing every maker into the same process.
Made to explain, not lecture
Pricing guidance should help you understand a decision, not tell you that there is only one acceptable answer.
A lower margin may sometimes be intentional. A higher price may not always be practical.
MPC is designed to show the numbers clearly so you can decide what makes sense for your Product and your business.
Coming to iPhone and iPad
Makers Pricing Companion is currently in development.
We are building the app carefully before opening it to external beta testing and, later, public App Store release.
Beta and App Store availability will be added here when they are ready.
About Makers Advocate
Makers Pricing Companion is a product of Makers Advocate LLC.
Makers Advocate creates practical tools to help independent makers better understand costs, pricing, profitability, and the business side of making.