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Project Cost Calculator

Add up glue, embellishments, and your time into a real per-project or per-piece cost — useful for budgeting a gift or pricing a craft-fair batch.

Ribbon, silk flowers, tesserae, findings, etc.
Leave at 0 if you don't want to value your own time.
Optional — set to 1 for a single project.

Project cost

Glue cost
$2.8
Materials cost
$15
Labor cost
$0
Total cost
$17.8
Cost per piece
$17.8

The cost hiding behind a bag of supplies

Glue sticks are cheap individually, which makes it easy to lose track of what a finished piece actually costs once ribbon, silk flowers, tesserae, or a wreath base are added on top. For a one-off gift that's rarely a problem — but for anyone selling handmade pieces, undercounting materials is the fastest way to work for less than minimum wage without realising it.

This calculator keeps the three cost buckets separate — glue, materials, and time — so you can see exactly where a project's cost comes from, and divides the total across a batch to get a clean cost-per-piece figure to price against.

Frequently Asked Questions

Why include the value of my own time in a hobby project's cost?

You don't have to — leave the hourly rate at 0 and it's simply excluded. But if you're pricing pieces for a craft fair or an Etsy shop, an hour of assembly time is a real cost, and leaving it out is the most common reason handmade sellers underprice their work relative to what they're actually earning.

What counts as "embellishments and other materials"?

Anything beyond the glue itself: ribbon, silk flowers, rhinestones, tesserae, wire, a wreath base, a dollhouse kit — whatever you bought specifically for this project. It's a single lump-sum field, so add up your receipts (or a reasonable estimate) before entering it.

How does the cost-per-piece figure work?

Enter how many finished pieces the total materials and time produced, and the calculator divides the whole project cost across them. That's the number to compare against a price you're considering charging, or against what similar handmade pieces sell for.

Does this include the cost of the glue gun itself?

No — a glue gun is a reusable tool, not a per-project consumable, so it isn't included here. If you want to factor it in, treat it the way you would any equipment: divide its cost across the number of projects you expect to use it for and add that as an embellishment/materials line.

Educational tool only. This is a cost estimate based on the figures you enter, not accounting, tax, or pricing advice.