{"id":171,"date":"2026-09-30T09:00:00","date_gmt":"2026-09-30T12:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/crafterby.com\/blog\/?p=171"},"modified":"2026-09-30T09:00:00","modified_gmt":"2026-09-30T12:00:00","slug":"custom-quote-acceptance-rate-pricing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/crafterby.com\/blog\/custom-quote-acceptance-rate-pricing\/","title":{"rendered":"Every Custom Quote Gets a Yes? Your Price Is Too Low"},"content":{"rendered":"

"I send a quote, they say yes within the hour. Every single time." If you do custom work, you’ve probably said something like that with a bit of pride. Nobody haggles, nobody ghosts, and the order book fills up. Then you do your taxes, or you look at your November calendar, and something doesn’t add up. You’re booked solid and still not getting ahead.<\/p>\n

That "yes" isn’t only a compliment. It’s data. When nearly every custom quote comes back accepted, your price is quietly telling you where it sits against what buyers are willing to pay, and it’s usually saying below<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Why a yes on every quote is worth a second look<\/h2>\n

A custom quote works like a small price test. You name a number, and a real buyer who wants the thing either takes it or doesn’t. Do that twenty times and you have a better read on your price than any competitor spreadsheet can give you.<\/p>\n

If buyers accept almost every quote, they’re telling you the price is comfortably inside their budget. Some of them would have said yes at a higher number too. You just never asked.<\/p>\n

Makers see this in the wild all the time. In one Etsy community thread, a seller who felt "overwhelmed with orders" raised prices to slow things down, and orders went up<\/em>. Others in the same conversation described raising prices step by step until sales finally levelled off. That leveling-off point is what you’re looking for, and your quote log can help you find it without guessing.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

The number to track: quotes sent vs. quotes accepted<\/h2>\n

You don’t need software for this. You need one line per quote:<\/p>\n

    \n
  • Date and what was asked for<\/li>\n
  • The price you quoted<\/li>\n
  • Your true cost for that piece<\/li>\n
  • The answer: yes, no, or no reply after 7 days (count that as a no)<\/li>\n
  • The reason, if they gave one ("over budget," "went with someone else," "timing")<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n

    Your acceptance rate is simply accepted \u00f7 sent. Twenty quotes, nineteen yeses, that’s 95%.<\/p>\n

    There’s no official "right" rate, and anyone who gives you one universal number is guessing. Here’s a practical way to read it:<\/p>\n

      \n
    • Almost every quote accepted:<\/strong> you have room to test a higher price.<\/li>\n
    • A healthy mix, with some "over budget" replies:<\/strong> you’re close to the edge buyers will pay. That’s often a good place to be.<\/li>\n
    • Mostly no’s:<\/strong> before you cut the price, check the fit. Are you quoting for the right kind of customer? Is the quote clear about what they’re getting? Never cut below your true cost to fix a no.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n

      A worked example: the custom wallet<\/h2>\n

      Say you’re a leatherworker making custom bifold wallets with tooled initials. Here’s the true cost of one:<\/p>\n

        \n
      • Leather: $9<\/li>\n
      • Thread, dye, edge finish: $3<\/li>\n
      • Packaging: $2<\/li>\n
      • Your labor: 2.5 hours at $25\/hour = $62.50<\/li>\n
      • Overhead share (tools, workshop, software, sample leather): $8<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n

        True cost: $84.50.<\/strong><\/p>\n

        You’ve been quoting $95 through an Etsy custom listing. Standard Etsy fees on a $95 sale (6.5% transaction, 3% + $0.25 processing, $0.20 listing) come to about $9.48. That leaves:<\/p>\n

        $95 \u2212 $84.50 \u2212 $9.48 = $1.02<\/strong><\/p>\n

        You’re paying yourself $25 an hour, which is good. But the business itself earns about a dollar per wallet. That dollar has to cover a bad batch of leather, a returned order, a new stitching chisel, or a slow January. It won’t.<\/p>\n

        Last season you sent 20 quotes at $95 and 19 said yes. That’s the signal.<\/p>\n

        \"A<\/p>\n

        The test: raise the next 10 quotes, not all of them<\/h2>\n

        Don’t rewrite your whole price list overnight. Quote the next 10<\/strong> custom wallets at $115 and keep everything else the same: the same work, the same turnaround, the same friendly message.<\/p>\n

        At $115, Etsy fees come to about $11.38, so each wallet leaves:<\/p>\n

        $115 \u2212 $84.50 \u2212 $11.38 = $19.12<\/strong><\/p>\n

        Now suppose 7 of those 10 say yes.<\/p>\n

          \n
        • At $95, all 10 accepted:<\/strong> 10 \u00d7 ($62.50 labor + $1.02) = $635.20 for 25 hours of work, or about $25.41 an hour<\/strong>.<\/li>\n
        • At $115, 7 accepted:<\/strong> 7 \u00d7 ($62.50 + $19.12) = $571.34 for 17.5 hours, or about $32.65 an hour<\/strong>.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n

          You bring in about $64 less in total, and you get 7.5 hours back<\/strong>. The business keeps $133.84 instead of $10.20. In October that might not seem like much. In the second week of December it’s the difference between sleeping and not.<\/p>\n

          If 9 or 10 still say yes at $115, the signal hasn’t changed. Run the next 10 at $125. If "over budget" replies start stacking up, you’ve found your edge, and you can settle a step below it.<\/p>\n

          \"Ten<\/p>\n

          "But I need every sale"<\/h2>\n

          This is the honest objection, and it deserves a straight answer. If your calendar has empty weeks, fewer yeses means fewer paid hours, and the example above shows total income going down while the hourly rate goes up. Whether that trade works for you depends on whether you can fill the freed hours.<\/p>\n

          For most custom makers heading into Q4, you can. Personalized gifts carry some of the highest holiday search interest, and that interest peaked in November last year. Meanwhile your capacity has a hard ceiling. USPS recommends shipping Ground Advantage by December 17<\/strong> for Christmas delivery in the contiguous US, which is 78 days from today. Every hour you spend on a $1-margin wallet is an hour you can’t spend on a better-priced order in that window.<\/p>\n

          "Twenty quotes isn’t real data"<\/h2>\n

          Fair. It isn’t a scientific study. But you’re not publishing a paper, you’re making a decision, and 19 out of 20 is a strong lean. The 10-quote test is small on purpose. If it goes badly, you’ve "lost" three wallets at a price that was barely paying the business anyway, and you go back to $95 knowing more than before.<\/p>\n

          "Maybe they say yes because I’m good, not because I’m cheap"<\/h2>\n

          Exactly. That’s the point. If buyers trust your work enough to accept instantly, that trust is worth something, and right now it’s priced at $1.02. You aren’t raising the price because you did anything wrong. You’re raising it because the work earned it.<\/p>\n

          Where to start<\/h2>\n

          Before you test anything, know your floor. The true cost has to include your labor, your overhead share and the platform fees, not just the leather. Once you know that number, every quote becomes a clear choice instead of a guess.<\/p>\n

          Run your next custom piece through the free CrafterBy calculator, then quote the next 10 with confidence. Your buyers have already told you what they think. Now it’s your turn to listen.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

          Winning every custom quote feels great until you run the numbers. Use your quote acceptance rate to test a fairer price before the holiday rush.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":166,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[17,205,207,202,206,203,204],"class_list":["post-171","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-pricing","tag-custom-order-pricing","tag-etsy-custom-order-price","tag-handmade-pricing-test","tag-how-to-price-custom-orders","tag-leather-wallet-pricing","tag-quote-acceptance-rate","tag-raising-prices-handmade"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/crafterby.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/171","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/crafterby.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/crafterby.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crafterby.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crafterby.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=171"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/crafterby.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/171\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":176,"href":"https:\/\/crafterby.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/171\/revisions\/176"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crafterby.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/166"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/crafterby.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=171"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crafterby.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=171"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crafterby.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=171"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}