Confused about pricing or cost of goods sold? You’re not alone. Here you’ll find maker-friendly guides on tracking materials, calculating COGS, and pricing your products with confidence (and profit!).
Overhead expenses are all those behind-the-scenes costs — rent, website hosting, shipping supplies, subscriptions, and more — that keep your handmade business alive… but often get ignored when you price your creations. This post shows you how to gather your expenses, calculate a realistic hourly or per-item overhead cost, and bake that number into your prices so you stop working for free.
Cost of Goods Sold sounds like stiff accounting speak, but for handmade business owners it answers a very practical question: what did it actually cost to make and sell the products you sold? In this post, we’ll break down what COGS means, where it shows up on your Profit & Loss Report, and why the yarn, fabric, beads, wax, clay, packaging, and selling fees connected to sold products matter more than your sales number alone.
Confused about when inventory and Cost of Goods Sold actually affect your taxes? This post breaks down when inventory becomes COGS, why your profit can feel “off,” and how it all shows up on your Schedule C—without accounting jargon or panic.
This post was originally written & published 1/27/2020 and has been updated.
COGS doesn’t have to feel like a mystery novel. Here’s how to calculate cost of goods sold for one handmade item using a crochet amigurumi witch—materials, selling fees, and the bookkeeping flow. PLUS there’s a video showing how this is done using the 10-Minute Bookkeeper system including the Handmade Product Pricing & COGS Calculator. Part 7 of the Inventory + COGS for Handmade Businesses series.
Tracking Cost of Goods Sold (COGS) and inventory can feel confusing because bookkeeping, pricing, and taxes all use them differently. This post breaks down the 3 real reasons handmade sellers need to track COGS + inventory — with a full start-to-finish example so your numbers (and profit) finally make sense.
Selling a lot but still feeling like the profit is… missing? 😵💫 Cost of Goods Sold (COGS) is the missing link between your inventory and your real profit. In this post, you’ll learn what COGS is (in plain English), why handmade business owners should track it, and how it connects to pricing and tax time—without the accounting headache. 🧶📒
Finished items inventory isn’t just what’s sitting on your shelves—it’s money tied up in your handmade business. In this post, you’ll learn how to track finished items inventory using a simple spreadsheet system, what actually needs tracking, and how to avoid the spreadsheet overwhelm that trips up so many makers.
