When Should You Raise Your Prices? A Maker's Decision Guide
Clear signals that it's time to raise your handmade prices, how much to raise them, and how to do it without losing customers. A practical guide for Etsy and craft sellers.
Raising prices is one of the scariest things a maker can do — and one of the most important. Fear of losing customers keeps countless handmade shops frozen at prices set years ago, slowly squeezing their profit to nothing. The truth is that price increases, done at the right time and for the right reasons, are how a handmade business survives and grows. Here's how to know when, and how to do it well.
The signals it's time
You don't have to guess. There are concrete signals that a price is overdue for a raise.
1. Your material costs have gone up. Suppliers raise prices constantly. If you set a price when wax cost X and it now costs 1.3X, your margin has eroded — possibly without you noticing. This is the most common and most ignored reason.
2. Your margin has slipped below target. If you aim for, say, a 50% gross margin and a product has drifted to 38%, that's a clear, math-based signal. You're not guessing; the number tells you.
3. Your profit per hour is low. A product can have a fine per-unit profit but a terrible return on your time. If an item earns you the equivalent of a few dollars an hour, raising its price is often the fastest fix. (See Profit Per Hour for Makers.)
4. You're consistently selling out. If a product sells out the moment you list it, demand is telling you the price is below what the market will bear. Selling out instantly feels good but usually means you left money on the table.
5. Your skills have improved. The quality you make today is better than two years ago. Your prices should reflect the maker you've become, not the beginner you were.
How much to raise
The right size depends on why you're raising:
- Restoring a slipped margin: often a modest increase of 5–15% brings you back to target. Calculate it: to hit your target margin, price = cost ÷ (1 − target margin). The gap between that and your current price is your raise.
- Fixing a significant underprice: if you discover a product is badly underpriced, you may need a larger correction. Consider phasing it over two steps, and pair it with refreshed photos or a small upgrade so the new price feels justified.
Always recalculate from your real, current costs — materials, labor, overhead — rather than picking a number that "feels safe." (The full method is in How to Price Handmade Products.)
How to raise prices without losing your shop
Raise on new and slow items first. Test increases on newer products or steady (not flagship) items to build your confidence before touching a bestseller.
Communicate value, not apology. You don't owe customers an explanation, but if you say anything, frame it around quality and craftsmanship — never apologize for charging fairly.
Don't announce a long countdown. A brief "prices updating soon" can drive a small sales bump, but long, guilt-laden announcements train customers to expect cheapness.
Accept that some buyers will leave. Underpricing attracts bargain hunters who'll leave for the next cheap option anyway. Fair pricing attracts customers who value what you make. Losing a few of the former to keep the business alive is a good trade.
The mindset shift
Most price fear comes from imagining the customers you might lose, not the business you're protecting. But a shop that won't raise prices is a shop slowly working for free — and that helps no one, least of all your customers, who lose access to your work entirely if you burn out or quit. Pricing fairly isn't greedy; it's what keeps you making.
Make repricing a routine, not a crisis
The reason makers leave prices stale for years is that catching a slipped margin requires tracking current costs against current prices across the whole catalog — and that rarely happens manually. The fix is to make it routine. Mavenory keeps each product's true cost current as your material prices change, calculates margin and profit per hour automatically, and flags the products that have fallen below your target right in your weekly plan — turning "should I raise prices?" from an annual panic into a simple weekly check.
The takeaway
Raise prices when costs rise, margins slip, profit per hour is low, you sell out instantly, or your skills outgrow your prices. Size the raise from your real costs, test on non-flagship items first, and frame it around value. Fair pricing isn't what loses you a business — refusing to do it is.
To find your most time-undervalued products first, start with Profit Per Hour for Makers.